I agree with much of mutonizer said, yet I think that the system is tweakable. I kie the idea of separating exhaustion from fighting and light wounds and scratch (represented by stamina) and more serious injuries (represented by health). However, the main issue right now is that rest is mostly driven by front liners, while the rest of the party is taking almost no damage. Chaning the stamina to health ratio as Sensuki proposed could make frontliners lasts longer, but do not really fix core flwas.
Here are my suggestions :
1) STAMINA
- The max stamina stays related to CON
- CON gives in fight stamina regeneration.
- Deflection score account for parrying / blocking / dodging an attack. If the target of the attack uses a shield, the deflection costs no stamina. If the target uses a melee weapon, it costs a small amount of stamina based on the attack dmg (for instance, 20% of the damage), If the target use a ranged weapon, it costs a higher amount of stamina.
- If the attack is not deflected, damage is reduced accoring to armor DT. If the hit is critical, damage is done directly on health (no damage bonus). If the hit is not critical, damage is inflicted on stamina.
- Add a stamina cost to some actions as runing, spellcasting ...
- If stamina goes to 0, the regeneration stops and the character fall on ground as usual, losing 20% of health.
2) HEALTH
- Turn back might into strenght. put the magic damage eleswhere.
- The max health is now related to STR. more muscle mass, more damage taken.
- xx% of health is also regained after an encounter.
- Every time 20% of hp is lost dutring a fight, add a severe wound (-2 to a random stats). wounds can stack, and have a long duration (3 rests for instance = 24h)
- If a character stacks 10 severe wounds, he dies.
EXPLANATIONS :
With this system, defenders should be able to hold the line much longer, thanks to deflection mecanics costing no stamina + stamina regeneration.
Other melee fighters will be able to hold head more eeffectively. Since many spells and ability using cost stamina, they have to be used more wisely / strategically. Rest will be less necessary. Critical hits will not one-shot characters, but cause severes wounds => rest.