(A) Shifting the HP paradigm
Regular HP in OSR works (very often) like this – you have some number of points. When something successfully attacks you these points are subtracted until 0. Once they hit 0 you die. When you attack other creatures the same thing applies – your attacks subtract enemy points.
Mechanics drive the combat fiction. Mechanic dictates how many HP everyone has and how much damage to HP deal weapons and effects. It decides what happens once points are gone. Fiction is informed strictly by what mechanic says. And it leads to various issues – if your PC receives a hit with a greatsword for 10 damage but HP is not 0 and mechanically PC is unchanged can we interpret it as a hit in fiction? Can you interpret it as a cut on PCs arm, broken bone or even lost limb? It is counterintuitive since lost HP doesn’t impair a character in any meaningful way – no malus to attack, armor class or even movement. If PC has a shield in their left arm and such greatsword would cut it then the PC should lose bonus from it. But mechanic doesn’t say so. On the other hand such wound would probably take out this character from the fight but they may have another 20 HP left before death. So all wounds are meaningless until you die.
It can be of course mitigated. You may describe it and give it a sense within fiction. Acid melts someone’s hand but not in a way it would impact their abilities. Arrow leaves only shallow scratch. “It’s just a flesh wound”. You get all these but they don’t impact character mechanically. It is better than 1-to-1 HP but still versimilitude may suffer.
Also weapon damage and effects are weird. Club does the same damage as a dagger? In real life when someone attacks you with a club it is bad but you can risk dodging or blocking their strike. But a knife? You run away, because it can kill you with one hit. A mace can crack your bones. An axe can cut a limb off. They are not the same. Also armor is very protective against blunt trauma. Like very good. So good in fact that in ancient warfare slingers were replaced by archers even though slingers had more reach and were cheaper – but armor was just so good against blunt stones and bullets. There is also weapons reach as a factor. Someone with a spear, even without training, is easily able to keep at bay anyone with shorter weapon just due to the reach and ability to strike before target closes in. How to mechanize it without making a mess?
Okay there are a lot of problems, where am I going with it? My main thing is – the mechanics rule it all. Fiction in combat serves as a flavour on top of what mechanics describe. And in order to be playable it has to be abstracted a lot, I get it. But then you get this weird notion of wound without impact or knives being as dangerous as a stone.
But what if the abstraction and gamification of combat was only in parts? What if you had to consider fictional repercussions of wounds as well as mechanical framework? Let me explain how I try to do it.
I know how players like to roll their bones. But I think HP is the problem. You have nothing -> nothing -> nothing -> death, because human brains are very bad at instinctively understanding probabilities and numbers and we have a hard time guessing how bad is given situation based on numbers only. Let’s say no to granular HP and count only HD. Each PC has as many HD as their level. Let’s make a weapons then do one HD of damage each. We can now focus on making weapon properties to have a meaning. Blunt or sharp, long or small, thrown or parrying. It makes combat less finicky because you’re not going to roll 1 on a damage roll of 1d12. If you hit then you hit, -1 HD to an enemy. It is basically opposite of what Into the Odd did by eliminating to-hit roll.
Then let’s change how we interpret whole system. That’s the manoushe. You don’t get hit for X damage – you are hit with a weapon. If it is a knife you will end up with a stab wound, bleeding. If it is a club you will get a bruise and it may crack a bone a little. Let’s say you may choose to spend your HD in order to mitigate that damage, it’s not automatic now. You can actively choose which strikes you avoid with HD – or in order to make it distinct from regular Hit Dice let’s call it Hearts. So you as a player choose to mitigate some damage and take some. Like avoiding poisoned dagger but taking beating of a staff in hope these hits will be less lethal. This also means the effect of wounds is not mechanical. In order to randomize it if someone takes a hit you may roll d6 to just check the severity. 6 means the worst happens. OSR life is tough.
The conditions of the fiction are still playing part in it. So armor not only gives you AC but fictionally protects a character from damage. You’re full armor against a dagger? Unless enemy roll 6 the most that could happen is shallow flesh wound. Okay, it is russian roulette-type lethal but before someone rolls damage you may choose defeat – take automatic 4 (wounded and incapacitated) without risking 6 (death).
I feel like it touches upon a middle ground between OSR and FKR. Still using regular to-hit mechanic but demechanizing parts of combat and wounds. It also brings fiction back into OSR play. Once you spend your plot-armor resources you will break your arm and get stabbed in the stomach. And you don’t heal it in ‘X times HP’ days. You gotta wait a month or two for it to heal. And not in some backwater wilderness, if you don’t want lasting consequences get to bed, sleep comfortably, eat well and don’t strain yourself. In the meantime you regain Hearts – one per six days of rest. And if they’re not fully regained they don’t count towards defense. If you get into combat with a 5/6 of a Heart it doesn’t do anything. Or worse, it is lost if you take a hit.
Draft of damage: 6 – death, strong weapons can make it instant, weak may give your friends a turn or two to stabilise. But you won’t fully heal. 5 – incapacitated, severely wounded. Unattended will die in a few hours. Cannot fully heal. 4 – incapacitated and wounded. May recover fully. 3 – wounded. May recover fully, can make actions but in great pain and risking more severe damage. 2 – injured. Something is wrong, bleeding, cracked, sprained. It will heal itself given time. 1 – bruised. Hurts at the moment but you’ll forget in a day or two.
You can make it Troika!-like and give each weapon type it’s own table, or get inspired by various critical hit tables from Warhammer or Warlock! I know ‘Hearts’ don’t sound very OSR-y but it is only a draft.