Mangoose
Arcane
I've been thinking about a more radical departure from the typical whittling-down-hp model. It's slightly inspired by what I remember from the Riddle of Steel system. In my hypothetical system, the attrition aspect would be represented by whittling down a different value, called 'initiative' or 'stamina' or 'energy' or whatever. If you get "hit," you don't actually lose HP but you lose a bit of initiative. Thus, the system seems a bit more realistic in implementation.
Of course I'm not just changing 'hp' to 'initiative' and calling it a day. That's dumb. I would put hp/wounds/health on another abstract layer that is affected by the 'initiative' stat. How? I dunno. Maybe initiative is a protective layer that, depending on your current amount, reduces or avoids damage (e.g. if your initiative is at 50%, you have a 50% chance to dodge or something). Something like that. It's really just an abstract idea in my head at the moment.
The advantage of having such a multi-layered system (which, on a side note, I might have unconsciously drawn from my Operating System design class this semester) is that it's less straightforward than just having a single-layered HP defense and thus allows you to "metagame" a bit more. The player has the choice of whether to focus on decreasing the opponent's initiative, or trying to directly get at the opponent's hp, and as long as the two elements 'initiative' and 'hp' work differently mechanically (as in, not just two identical pools of energy), then there is some tactical variety involved.
Of course I'm not just changing 'hp' to 'initiative' and calling it a day. That's dumb. I would put hp/wounds/health on another abstract layer that is affected by the 'initiative' stat. How? I dunno. Maybe initiative is a protective layer that, depending on your current amount, reduces or avoids damage (e.g. if your initiative is at 50%, you have a 50% chance to dodge or something). Something like that. It's really just an abstract idea in my head at the moment.
The advantage of having such a multi-layered system (which, on a side note, I might have unconsciously drawn from my Operating System design class this semester) is that it's less straightforward than just having a single-layered HP defense and thus allows you to "metagame" a bit more. The player has the choice of whether to focus on decreasing the opponent's initiative, or trying to directly get at the opponent's hp, and as long as the two elements 'initiative' and 'hp' work differently mechanically (as in, not just two identical pools of energy), then there is some tactical variety involved.