Been doing much thinking since I started designing my own game. Below is my heartbreaker for a simpler and more 'realistic' RPG game with an emphasis on combat. I feel all that is left is populating the various feats, which is largely scenario dependent and can effect game flavor drastically. A game could be played omitting the 'Special' category in the class building and any feats that went long with it. Feed back welcomed.

Over View:
Simple system is aimed at being a lighter weight version of D&D while still maintaining a fair degree of complexity. It is combat oriented, but non-combat skills and abilities are still very important.

Stats- You have three; Body, Mind, and Spirit. All stats range from 0 to 4 with 1 being the human average.

• Body- Used for most all physical actions. Incorporates strength stamina and gross muscle movements.
Mind- Aptitude of learning, recalling information, and manual dexterity.
Spirit- Understanding of the world around you and your force of will.
•

You are never denied the bonus from your stat. Never.

Characters start at '1' for all stats and are given a number of points to add based on general power level of the game. Any stat can be reduced to 0 and its point added to another stat.

Players build their own class based off the class chart. They are given three points to bump up any category's rank, no more than two points can be assigned to anyone category.

COMBAT SKILLS SPECIAL
Base ½ Lvl (Mind+1)Lvl SP, 1 SF Mundane Feats
1 rank ¾ Lvl (Mind+1 ½)Lvl SP, 2 SF Special Feats
2 ranks 1 Lvl (Mind+2)Lvl SP, 3 SF Caster Feats

For fractional points, round DOWN.

A character advances from level 1 to level 10 throughout the course of the game. Everyone has a level, with roughly 50% of the worlds population being lvls 1 and 2 and 1% being lvls 8, 9, and 10. It is recommended characters start at lvl 3 for most adventures. Players select one feat available to them at first level and every odd level after that. A character also receives one Stat point at level 5 and 10.

All actions in game are resolved via the character performing the action rolling 3d6 and adding their Stat and Combat/Skill bonus (if applicable) against a static DC. This DC is set either by the GM or by adding 10 to the defender's Stat+Combat/Skill. There are times when the base 10 or Combat/Skill bonus may not be added, but the Stat bonus is always present.

Skills-
There are four common skills available to all characters.

• Athletics – Most physical actions that require strength, speed, or balance
Thievery – Knowledge and application of socially unacceptable arts. Being stealthy and stealing things
Survival – Root of all complex skills, first aid, making simple tools, orienteering, and tracking
Communication – Understanding others and being understood. Also convincing others of falsehoods
•

Characters can only roll for skills they have. Additional skills can be purchased that are more technical and specific in nature. All Knowledge, Crafts, and Professions are considered too specific in scope to allow a character without training attempt them with any degree of success. Character background would provide a certain degree of information in various subjects that are a given, and no rolls are needed. For instance a thief would know about fences and most of the notable criminal figures that operated in his city, or a noble would know various other nobility and some degree of personal information about them.

For perception, either Thievery or Survival may be used to notice events happening around you.
To sense if someone is being dishonest, Communication is used.
Passive checks are generally Spirit+Skill, while active checks are generally Mind+Skill.

If a character can perform a task with the average roll of 10 and is not in a situation where they are pressed for time, they are assumed to automatically pass. A character can also take 16 at x10 the normal time for that action or take 18 at x100.

A character is always assumed to be taking 10 for perception and sense motive checks, though when these skills are used Passively, they do not divulge as much information as an active roll. Situational modifiers can be applied to these passive values based on in game activities

Any skill can not have more points allocated to it than the character's level. This means that a character at level 3 can have no skill greater than 3. Characters get a number of Skill Focuses (SF) based on their rank when they set up their class. Each Skill Focus adds 2 points to a skill for all uses of that skill and can exceed the level cap. These means a level 3 character could have a skill as high as 5 if it was a Focused skill.

Combat-
Combat starts when two or more entities perceive, and can act upon, a threat. All parties roll 3d6 and add Combat + Spirit to determine the order of action. GM controlled entities all go on the same initiative for simplicity. Highest number goes first.

When a player can act, they can perform one action on their turn, as well as move upto 15ft  in any direction that is not obstructed. There are a variety of actions but they fall roughly into the following-

Attack - Make an attack
Defend – Forfeit attack, but gain +2 bonus to your defense until your next action
Special- A variety of actions geared to give the character an advantage in combat. Failing the roll on a Special action gives a -1 to defense until the players next action
Move- a Character can move an additional 15ft

Multiple actions can be taken at a -1 for each additional action after the first. This minus extends to all actions.

Attacking and damage-
Any player attacking another rolls 3d6+Body+Combat (+/- modifiers) and compares the result to 10+Body+Combat (+/- modifiers). If the attacker's result is higher than the defender's, the attacker adds weapon damage and divides the result by the weapons critical divide number. This value is the wound magnitude. Armor reduces or alters the wound magnitude depending on armor type.
A roll of natural 18 by the attack ignores any protection granted by armor.

Wound magnitudes are referenced to the wound chart for effects. If a wound is sever enough, the character must roll to stay conscious or alive. This roll takes place after the attack, but before any other actions occur. Minuses imparted from a wound do not take effect until the next round.

A character can only die in combat from taking a wound of magnitude 5L or greater, and failing their roll. No number of wounds, no matter how many or how great can kill a character in combat, however any wound of magnitude 2L or greater must have medical attention or players will succumb to blood loss or shock. The time frame for death via blood loss or shock is greater than the time frame for combat, so it is resolved after combat has ended.

Damage comes in two types, Lethal and Stun. Most weapons do lethal damage, while everything else that can damage a character is stun. Lethal damage is tracked on both the Lethal and Stun track, only the greatest wound minus is tracked for combat puroposes, while the greatest lethal minus is tracked for out of combat effects.
Example-
Char 1 takes a magnitude 4 wound of lethal damage while wearing no armor. His next turn he will have a  -2 to all actions and need professional medical attention to survive.
Char 2 takes a magnitude 4 wound of lethal damage while wearing armor that reduces one level of lethal damage. He also has a -2 for combat, but only has a -1 lethal wound, making his chances for survival much greater after combat.
Char 3 takes a mag 4L wound, his armor reduces both one Lethal and one Stun damage. He is only at a -1 for combat and -1 for medical attention afterwards.

Stun wounds after combat are removed with 10 minutes of rest.
Lethal wounds after combat induce bleed/shock damage. Every 5 minutes without medical treatment increases the wound magnitude by 1. When the wound magnitude reaches 5, the character makes consciousness/death saves and continues to do so until failure.

Death/Consciousness  Save- 3d6+SPR +/- modifiers vs 10+Wound lvl

Lethal wounds can be stabilized with first aid (3d6+Mind+Survival vs. 10+Wound Lvl) which stops the wound from worsening. To reduce a lethal wound the injured character must roll 3d6+Body +/- modifiers  and beat a DC of 10+Wound Lvl. They may make this roll once for every 24 hours of rest, or after having medical treatment. A character skilled in medicine can make a check of 3d6+Mind+Skill vs 10+Wound Lvl. For every point they beat the DC by they give a +1 to the patients recovery roll.
If a character is badly injured and is at a high enough wound level to make saves versus death and consciousness, they make these saves only once per 24 hours. They will not regain consciousness until their wound level is 4 or less.

In combat a character that is aware of an enemy and consciousness has a defense of 10+Body+Combat.
If the character is unaware of an enemy they have a base defense of their Body stat.

Funny you mention all this, because I just started developing my own primeval-themed RPG and I wanted simplicity and gorious fast-paced action as a Combat Mechanic, which, just like you uses a sort of wound system which I call Bleeding System.

Alot of your ideas I had already brainstormed for my RPG, what's the theme of your campaign world?

Oh, and I like how you differentiate the Mind and Spirit attributes as well as try to simplicise skills and feats.

T

The goal was to have a gritty to low fantasy catch all system. It's going to be tested (hopefully) some time this month in a one-shot set in a friends D&D campaign. As long as the characters are not demi-gods or super human, the numbers should hold up well. flavor can be injected in what feats and technical skills are allowable. For this campaign, getting 2 ranks in 'Special' gives you access to full-caster (wizard, cleric, etc) class traits, with new spells at every level.
My own campaign that may never get played is a post-Zombigeddon fantasy. Pretty much a pin prick in the fabric of reality lets in more of the 'stuff' that caused life to appear in our universe way back at the dawn-o-time. This leads to general nastiness as a force emerges with reality altering abilities, controlled mainly by the collective conscious of the remaining human race.

Right now I'm debating having the minus imparted from Wounds be cumulative. As in taking two wounds of the same magnitude mean you don't change your Wound Level, but you have double the minuses to act. It makes more sense, but also takes more time to track than just saying that any Wound lower than your current Wound Level doesn't make you worse off. Like, getting stab in the leg is bad, getting stabbed in the leg again is also bad, but doesn't really make you any worse off.
Cumulative is more realistic, just Tracking the wound is simpler and lets combat characters do their job better. Guess I'll have to see how it plays out.
Also have the notion of allowing a gang up bonus if multiple attackers are on one target, similar to the flanking rules. Here though it would be a +1 for every attacker after the first, max of +5. It would allow for weaker fighters to have a chance against a significantly stronger opponent. Again possibly more complexity than what is needed, just having to survive 6 attack rolls unscathed could be tough enough.

Also, playing with the numbers on having modern weapons have a wound divider of '1' instead of '2' like everything else. This would allow for minor hurts from gunshot wounds, rather than having guns do more damage straight out and having a lower minimum Wound level

Need Edit Button.

Using a ranged weapon in close range combat is Body+Combat, with a -1 for every 15ft of distance. Outside of close range combat a character uses Mind+Combat for long range shooting, with the exception for thrown weapons which stays Body+Combat. This will demand a means to gauge the range potential for each weapon, but I believe this can be directly connected to the weapons Damage bonus. A rough rule of thumb can be made so that for every +1 of damage, the weapon can go an additional 15 yards before incurring a -1 to hit. +0 weapons would have a base of 5 yards. Weapon damaged is not finalized, but so far I have something like this-
Each weapon has a name, Weapon Damage Bonus, Damage Type and Wound Divider

Melee-
Bare fist- 0S/3
Martial Arts- 1L/2
S. Knifes & Fist Loads- 0L/2
1 Hand Clubs- 1L/2
1 Hand Blade- 2L/2
2 Hand Clubs- 3L/2
2 Hand Blade- 4L/2

Ranged-                                  Range Increment (yrds)
Thrown- 0L/2                            5
Atl atl- 2L/2                              35
Sling- 2L/2                                35

Small Bows 1L/2                      20
Small Cross Bow 2L/2              35
Large Cross bow 3L/2              50
Long Bow 3L/2                        50

The numbers aren't bad for fantasy weapons, but they break down when you look at modern weapons that can go out beyond 1,000 yards.

Armour is looking something like this, for the fantasy stereo-types.

Leather- Reduce 1L
Chain- Ignore 1L
Half Plate- Ignore 1L Reduce 1L
Plate- Ignore 2L

had firs play test. Combat system was not upto snuff
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=30034.0

More thoughts on combat have been thunked.

I'm currently working on a set of wound charts. I don't like charts, as a rule, since it means just one more thing I'll need to have at hand while playing, but it does present a solution that is both accurate in effect and quick to resolve.

I plan to change weapon damage from Lethal and Stun to Blunt, Pierce, and Slash. There will probably be more to follow such Fire or Electric, but I'll focus on the most likely for personal combat. Each chart will go from 1 to 20 with each number representing a success from when an attack is resolved. How ever what each chart has at that particular level of success will vary. Blunt weapons tend to be disabling, while less likely to inflect permanent or life threatening injuries. Piercing wounds are far more likely result in death, either directly or from bleeding, but if they do not hit a vital area, are less likely to be of a hindrance.  Slashing wounds are a happy medium.

Armour would work much the same way, protecting a set amount against only certain types of damage. I haven't decided if it will simply negate the damage type by a certain amount, or transform it into Blunt damage, so armor ends up not helping avoid damage so much as help to avoid lethal damage.

Multiple damage types may also help me avoid a problem with straight addition weapon damage. The previous method made it impossible to deal minor wounds with large weapons. While it's true taking a glancing blow from a giant axe is probably worse than one from a stick, I didn't care for the jump from small hurts to certain dismemberment. Now I can have weapons deal multiple types of damage. Said axe could now deal both Slash and Bludgeon damage, making it far more likely to impart some minus, while not immediately jumping it up into certain death.