I've posted this here instead of the rules area as I'm hoping to get some feedback from players in my game and others.

I chose the Conan rules over other D20 products, amongst other reasons, because it handles "realism" in combat better (IMHO) than other 3rd Edition licensed products. I'm planning on running a fairly "cinematic" game, but I want it to be grounded in a certain amount of reality, like a good B movie. Any rules system will involve a certain amount of abstraction, but two basic ones in D&D have always bothered me: AC and Hit Points.

Conan handles the first nicely. It gives defenders Parry and Dodge values, and uses armor as damage reduction, instead of combining them all into a single value (AC). There are armor piercing values for certain weapons, and finesse fighting to bypass armor completely, so it gets a little complicated at times, but at least it makes sense.

But Hit Points are essentially unchanged in Conan. Since there will be little-to-no healing magic in my game, people will probably be more afraid of getting hurt than they usually are, but I'm not really planning on inflicting lots of broken bones and gangrene on the players. Healing rates are unnaturally high, as they are in D&D, but that's fine, who really wants to watch the PC's sit and heal for months? My problem is that everyone exists in one of three states: alive and kicking, on death's door, or dead. There are no in-between states. Wounds mean nothing - a player can get hacked, stabbed, shot with a crossbow, and go right on fighting at full effectiveness until he hits 0 HP.

I have two possible solutions in mind, not necessarily mutually exclusive:

1. If a character drops below 1/2 of max HP, all checks are made at -2, or perhaps -4.

2. Whenever a character takes damage, they make a fortitude check vs. the damage taken. If they fail, they are more or less in shock. They can only take partial actions (move or standard action, but not both, and no full-round actions). Each round, they make another fort check to stablize, if not, they take a point of damage. Another character can stabilize them by making a heal check vs. the initial damage sustained (the same value as the fortitude save).

The first would be quick and simple, but would at least give a "wounded" state. The second one would require more bookkeeping, but would really give it the feel I'm looking for. Heroic characters would sometimes be able to shrug off massive wounds and keep fighting, but the (however slim) possibility would always remain that a bad knife wound could kill them if they're left to bleed to death.

What do you think?