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Part of me wants this be an enormous post with detailed ideas on how to further abstract combat, but I don't have the time I wish I did and I'm sure it needs to be enormous - part of the appeal is that it isn't that hard.

Abstract(er) Combat in D&D

Okay, so combat is already pretty abstract. (What are hit points, anyway? Go read about 500,000 posts on the subject to not find out.) Armor decides whether you get "hit," not whether you get "hurt." And so it goes.

The minor change on my mind is to replace hit points with simple "hits." When a PC hits a monster, the DM records a hit against that monster. With the fifth hit against a monster, the PC gets to decide what happens to that monster - the mage's lightning fries it to a crisp, the fighter knocks it out cold, or the rogue sneaks up behind it and pushes it off the cliff to its inevitable death. (Minions still require only one hit.)

But up until that point, the PCs cannot do any of those things. Hits are narrated as near-misses, claiming the advantage, setting up an ally for a devastating attack, or forcing the target on the defensive. (Really, saying "cannot" is being too restrictive; minor cuts and scrapes are par for the course.) But pushing a full-hp villain over a cliff, a valid tactic in vanilla D&D, is a no-no in this more narrative version. You might force Duke Steel Hills to the edge of the parapet, but you can't force him to fall until you've earned it.

Likewise, PCs record hits against their characters. They can take three hits, fewer than monsters do (because monsters are monstrous), and maybe more of those hits are described as physical damage. It's hard to be sure without knowing the members of the party - a cleric heals away physical damage, but a warlord shouts encouragement or tactical advice to eliminate disadvantage. That could be a point of mechanical distinction between leaders. Hm. The cleric heals wounds with the blessings of the gods, so he or she can heal someone with only 1 or fewer hits left. The warlord eliminates tactical disadvantage, so can aid someone with 1 or greater hits left. The bard bolsters people ahead of time, so allies nearby gain +1 hit. The shaman... feels pretty like the cleric in this regard. For now.

Powers need adjustment. Some powers need to do extra hits, or all powers need to have interesting secondary effects in addition to dealing a hit. Battlefield movement is always good. Multi-target attacks become significantly better in this arrangement and need some form of modification - as an off-the-cuff patch, an area burst might only take away one target's "hit," but deal secondary effects to all the targets hits.

At its genesis, this skill-challenge-esque form of combat had, in my head, a tug-of-war mechanic for who is winning. Each side wanted to get to a certain number of successes or hits over their enemies, not striving for a flat number, but for a certain degree of advantage. It doesn't work well when we're tracking hits on multiple targets, though.