I've been giving some thought to the points raised earlier in this thread about hp/healing surges. just curious, but how would you feel about something like this? Mind you, the following is just a rough outline.
New/Redefined Terminology
Threshold- A character's tolerance for resisting serious harm. Physical threshold might be mostly determined by armor, with bonuses for races that are particularly tough or have natural armor. If the damage from a single blow exceeds your threshold, it inflicts a wound in addition to dealing hp damage. Damage that exceeds multiples of your threshold, inflicts that many wounds (rounded down).
Depending on the design approach characters might only have one threshold, two thresholds (?physical and mental?), or even one threshold for each defense.
Unless an attack exceeds your threshold, you ignore all conditions associated with that attack (unless otherwise noted in the attack description). A successful attack that doesn't exceed your threshold fails to penetrate your defenses, costing only stamina. An attack that exceeds your threshold is a solid blow that causes injury.
HP- Hp still work largely the same way. They are defined as representing a character's stamina and luck, and no longer reflect any type of injury. If the term hp is a big issue, they could be renamed stamina points.
Hp do not go below 0. All hp are restored to maximum after a short rest; no expenditure of resolve is required for this.
Resolve- What used to be called healing surges, and they work much the same way. The name change is primarily so that they are not conflated with actual healing. Resolve represents a character's deep reserves of physical and mental stamina. Tapping into resolve restores your flagging stamina (hp), in the same sense that real world athletes catch their second wind.
Resolve is usually fully recovered after an extended rest. Wounds or harsh survival conditions (ie, starvation/dehydration/hypothermia) may may prevent some or all resolve from being recovered. A character who is out of resolve is near complete exhaustion. As such, gritty campaigns may impose an exhaustion penalty for being a 0 resolve. Not all creatures have resolve - a typical goblin wouldn't, though a goblin champion might.
Wound- When an attack exceeds a character's Threshold, that character suffers a wound. A wound reduces both your current and maximum Resolve by 1. If a wound reduces your current Resolve below 0, you are dead. Wounds are not normally of the potentially lethal variety and should be narrated as such, until a killing wound (but see injuries, below).
Wounds are healed at a rate determined by the type of campaign. High fantasy campaigns may allow characters to recover from all wounds overnight. Gritty campaigns have slower wound recovery; from 1 day to 1 week per wound.
Injuries- Gritty campaigns may assign injury penalties to wounds. This might simply be a -1 to all rolls per wound. Alternatively, a hit location table may be used with penalties appropriate to the body part injured.
Bleeding injuries might also occur, requiring a save each round; failure results in the loss of 1 point of resolve. No more saves are required once the bleeding is staunched, which may be accomplished by a successful Healing check, a wound healing spell, or rolling a natural 20 on the bleeding save.
Staggered- A character reduced to 0 hp is considered staggered. They immediately fall prone, become dazed, and their Threshold is reduced. Such a character is seriously fatigued and may pass out; other explanations might be more appropriate, such as a character whose sanity is stretched thin and is on the verge of going catatonic.
At the beginning of a staggered character's turn, he makes a Staggered Save. 2 successes allow the character to spend a point of resolve, which restores the character to positive hp and immediately removes the staggered condition. 2 failures indicate that the character has succumbed to fatigue and will be unconscious for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the character may spend a resolve to regain consciousness; if the character has no resolve left, he remains comatose until he recovers at least 1 resolve, which will normally require (at least) an extended rest. A natural 20 is equivalent to 2 successes, while a natural 1 is equivalent to 2 failures.
Healing- (Obviously, this is just one possible paradigm for healing, but it illustrates the fact that both styles of healing could have unique advantages and disadvantages.)
Both martial and magical healing styles exist within this paradigm. Martial healing helps characters tap into their Resolve, and as such usually only functions on conscious targets. An example of martial healing would be a commander yelling "On your feet!" to an injured soldier. Martial healing of wounds can only be done out of combat, and requires various surgical procedures as well as herbal medicines.
Magical healing may be used to knit wounds during combat, though this can be costly in terms of reserves. Magic is rather ineffective, however, at reducing fatigue. Healing spells do not expend reserves, but heal less hp than martial powers.
Sample combat
Ragnar the Punchingbag has 80 hp, a Threshold of 20, and 4 resolve left.
A giant cobra lunges for him but rebounds off his chest plate. He takes 15 points of damage as the wind is knocked out of him by the impact but since his armor stopped the attack, he is not poisoned.
A giant scorpion attacks him from behind, sinking it's stinger through his chainmail and into his shoulder, inflicting 20 points of damage! Ragnar suffers a wound, reducing his resolve to 3, and begins to feel dizzy as scorpion venom pumps through him.
Now a troll attacks him - a critical hit for 40 points of damage! - the troll rakes it's powerful claws across the Punchingbag, digging furrows in his chest and knocking him back 10' (a push). Ragnar loses 2 more points of resolve, and has only 5 hp left!
Then, Bob the Irritable Farmer charges Ragnar with his pitchfork, dealing 10 damage! Though the pitchfork fails to penetrate Ragnar's mail, the force of the blow drives Ragnar to the ground and he is staggered at 0 hp.
It is now Ragnar's turn. He is currently prone, dazed, and his Threshold has dropped to 10! He's in serious trouble! He fails his Staggered saving throw; everything is going dark and he's one failure from unconsciousness! Digging deep, Ragnar uses Second Wind and fights through the oblivion that threatens to consume him. He expends his final resolve to raise his hp to 20. He's no longer staggered, and struggles back to his feet. On the verge of physical exhaustion, Ragnar the Punchingbag readies himself for what will likely be his last stand... if he's reduced to 0 hp again there will be no chance of getting up this time, and the next wound will definitely kill him. One way or another, without magical intervention he's 20 damage away from certain doom.
