yeah, i know about new fantasy - most of my books are new fantasy. ive either got or read all of the wheel of time books. so yeah.
hitpoints..... i dunno. the problem is that if you make it realistic, its pure skill that prevents causalties - not even the most hardened veteran can long survive a sword in the chest. a veteran might, however, prevent from being hit, or hit badly. Have high AC for characters, low hp, and make the ac deduct damage to a minimum.
maybe :
char 1 rolls to hit. (d20 for now. easier)
char 2 counter rolls (only a certain number per turn : linked to your skill with weapon and so on. abilites dictate dice used - if a weedy char, D3, if a power monger demon king, D100. you get the idea.)
the difference dictates the power of hit - if char 1 successful, thats damage (whatever... work that part out later) if char 2, then nagative modifiers applied to char 1 (eg : shaken, sword dropped, stumbled). the difference in scores, possibly modified by skill (tho i like to think that maybe skills could have effect somewhere else... allowing you to pull of certain moves, activating dice used etc) shows the damage given. THerefore, if a powerful char lashes out at a crap one, its gonna go thru relatively easily (depending on sheer luck of course) but if weedy lashes back, its not gonna get thru, so no hit. no real need for monsterous numbers of hitpoints for powerful characters.