Couple things from a low-level viewpoint:

Meh personally I really want npcs to drop hp and chakra pills/restorers

Me and Indi thought about that as well and ended up coming to the conclusion that if they where in game people would basically be immortal due to spamming pills 24/7 however i just came up with an idea that might make em work.

What if the pills get progressively worse with repeated use for example the first pill u take could heal something like 100% over  60 secs the second heals 80% over 60 secs the 3rd 60% and so on. After using 4 pills in rapid succession they would become ineffective.  

basically it would force people to think more about spamming them, the healing % debuff could last something like 3 mins and the timer resets with every additional pill use.

should really shove this into suggestions but meh it's on topic xD.