On the subject of examples of non-hit-point based damage systems:
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All damage during a fight is cosmetic, but you may take meaningful damage at the end of the fight (possibly with the retroactive discovery that one of those cosmetic wounds wasn't.) Record this meaningful damage as an independent trait, such as "Broken Arm" or "Horrible Scar."
Characters begin all fights dead and get progressively better as the fight invigorates them.
Each 1000 points of damage increases your Battered level by one. The favored class for humans in this setting is Battered.
Sorcerer, swapping out "demon" for "damage." When you hit Humanity 0, you retire and run a tavern or store in some 1st level town.
In a similar vein, damage is an ill-defined mystic fuel for damage magic. The characters will principally use it in description, couching these references in elaborate terminology and ritual. The exact nature of damage is an emergent quality of the setting that the group develops in play.
Rebecca
Posted by rebecca at January 1, 2007 05:56 PM