Houserule check for Barbarian Rage bonus HP

[gr8artist]

So we play PF, and the RAW says the barbarian gains 2 HP per HD when they rage, and that they lose 2 HP per HD when they leave rage. Which means high level barbarians are theoretically dead when they still have a few HP left, which is weird to me. Past level 6 or 7 (depending on Con), getting knocked out while raging is a death sentence, as rage ends and the character dies from losing 12+ HP.
I propose a houserule where the Barbarian's bonus HP from rage are considered temporary HP.
They're lost first, can't be healed, and there's no additional penalty for leaving a rage, other than the loss of any temp HP you have remaining.
The barbarian's HD is reduced to a d10 to compensate for the reusable HP pool.

there's a problem with rage cycling, but other than that what are your thoughts?

[LTwerewolf]

The entire idea was that you're only getting the hp while raging and when you stop raging you actually feel the wounds you've received. If your barbarian is getting downed during their rage that often, rage isn't the problem.

[Iron Angel]

I just rule it that they can't be killed by falling out of rage. If they get knocked out while raging, they get brought to, at the very lowest, -8. So a raging barbarian with 8 health gets hit for 12 damage. He drops to -4 and gets knocked out, then loses enough health to go to -8. But, lets say instead, he comes out of his rage and loses 10 HP from the loss of temporary health. He goes to -2 as a result.

Lets say he has 1 health left but would lose 12 HP from ending the rage. This would ordinarily instantly kill him, instead I would rule it would take him to -8 and his party has two rounds to save his life before he bleeds out. Same barbarian, 1 HP, gets hit for 12 damage. This would still kill him because he's still dipping below -10 after that damage.

I hope that all made sense. Basically, what I'm getting at is, HP loss from ending the rage can never take him below -8, but other things still can. This way he doesn't just instantly keel over. I've personally never understood the temporary HP as it is, its basically a trap that makes you think you can take more hits but actually endangers your life. This way its more effective as a buffer.

Actual damage --> Rage HP loss to -8 --> final HP

[Extra Anchovies]

Making the Barbarian's constitution boost provide temporary HP is a good way to buff a T4 melee class while making them better at what they do.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't know if this was something that was changed in Pathfinder, but dropping unconscious doesn't end your Rage in 3.5 edition. Probably for this exact reason.

[gr8artist]

In PF, rage is measured in rounds rather than a set duration X per day. So since you have to decide each round whether to continue raging or not, it made sense to had it end if you fell unconscious. There's a rage power that let's you keep raging, but I feel that that is such an important buff that its practically standard for any barbarian, and therefore should just be a feature or something.
I have considered the "minimum HP from rage loss" but in PF your death threshold isn't 10, its your Con score, so I don't know where that limit should go.
It seems to make the most sense that its a temporary boost in Con so it should be temporary HP.