DrakeEvancore
That's the flat option, I like it, it makes things simple. But I believe it needs to be +8.
The favoured class thing I like, no more xp penalty, and now if you follow your favoured class bonus hp!
I did get an interesting suggestion for my life gaming group, no real play testing just general chatting. An idea that got floated was to slow reduce that bonus by 1 every level until it was gone. So for +8 a 9th level character would have none of the original starting HP bonus left. Just an odd idea.
I've seen comments saying that the extra HP is to much a boost for low level characters are removes the fear of death. I disagree since the character healing rate at low levels is extremely slow. I also get the feeling these people have never played without a dedicated healer-in-a-box (one time a fighter in my group literally had a cohort fairy cleric in a metal-ride box welded to his armor).
The best use for Profession I've seen in current D&D rules was running a shop in the Dungeon Master's Guide 2. The problem is that adventuring
is more profitable then working a normal job. That's there is always a decent crop of young (for the race) fools who think they are going pull a get rich quick trick. Perhaps d20 Modern can come to the rescue (like it needs to with the Heal skill).
A good question is what is the difference between Craft and Profession, an how to mechanically represent that. The other question is what function do they serve for players (aside from background fluff). Ignoring the 'economics' ... or actually thinking about them are some key areas that we could look at.
#1 How in the Chaotic and Evil outer planes does an adventuring party convert thousands of round gold coins into magical items? This is totally glossed over by assuming a give town can work with x amount of wealth and has y valued items/components available. This creates an artificial 'magic item shop' syndrome. Craft is already kind of involved in the process, with players trying to get discounts by making their own items, or crafting their own components if none are available. Perhaps Profession could be linked into this gold -> items conversion process
(also isn't Pathfinder loosing access to the D&D town rules anyways).
#2 Down time, rare in some campaigns. However what does the Fighter do while the Wizard is busy generating new scrolls, wands, staves, tangle foot bags, and so on? He sits on his rump and gets hammed with rum at the tavern. A Profession skill would be one way to keep the character occupied during such pauses. Another consideration is the length of a down time. It can be very disruptive to have a single character devote a month or more of in game time creating high level magic items. Profession
(at it's core resource management skills) could be a vehicle for both getting other characters involved in the item creation (not just magical) process to speed it up. Wizards tend to have flunkies for a reason, and not just as body shields. Sending underlings out to gather key components has been the comedic stumbling block of many a magical figure.
It'll take me a bit to think of a rules set that supports this idea. I also want to see what Paizo is going to suggest about items in general.
