It's time for another late night game design brainstorm blather! This idea concerns splitting health into two types, which I call red hearts and blue hearts [thread]
Red hearts are real health; if a character runs out, they die, and without magical aid they heal slowly.
Blue hearts are scratches, dents, flesh wounds in the like. They go away after a rest.
Blue hearts are scratches, dents, flesh wounds in the like. They go away after a rest.
A character's health stat gives them an equal number of both. The character's fatigue limit is equal to their sum. Lose any of either, and the character's maximum fatigue goes down until they are restored.
Nearly all sources of damage come off of blue hearts before red ones. So long as you can get away before your blue hearts are depleted, you can get back up to tip-top just by resting somewhere. (This also gets all opponents back _their_ blue hearts, though.)
Red hearts represent serious wounds, and without rare magical means, you have to actually leave the scenario to get them back. Still though, if you're at the end of the map, they can provide that extra push to defeat a boss.
Taking red heart damage gives a character scars and minor permanent consequences. As a concession to playability none of these have game effects, but they serve as a reminder of that time a character nearly perished.
Importantly: a character that takes a hit on armor never takes red heart damage from it, and takes less blue heart damage. It also damages the armor on that spot though.
I say "on that spot," but I'm unsure I want to track armor in such detail. Probably the armor should have an overall strength that goes down, and is destroyed when depleted.
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