There's a bug with + HP items, which don't actually add health to your character, but only raise the potential maximum health (while awarding no actual health). However, that's not the bug. The bug is how these items interact with the process of loading games.

I have an item equipped that gives +12 HP. Every time I load a game where that character is completely healed, he is down 12 health and needs to be healed. It seems +health items are being equipped and calculated by the game after the reload.

Changing + HP items to actually add the health advertised instead of just raising your maximum potential health (without actually giving you any) would solve that problem, and make + HP items less annoying as well.