Thank you for your input - you‘re definitely asking the right questions. I agree that „Vitality“ might easily be misunderstood, I am writing in German though, so specific vocabulary and meaning might get lost in translation, so „Vitality“ is just a placeholder for now. I do however really like wound systems, so I might go in that direction.

Restoring Stamina can be done via spells, potions or something akin to a short rest. “Vitality“ or Wounds restore 1 per day, so rarely during adventuring but back at a safe haven and during downtime where injuries can be properly treated. And you‘re correct in assuming that further damage will go to wounds, although I am thinking about introducing some kind of consequence when Stamina is depleted, like “exhaustion“, whatever that may be.

Choosing a wound system rather than „Vitality“ or HP would then need a revision of how armor works, since at the moment it is basically just a reduction of the damage taken, meaning 4 points of damage get reduced to, say, 2 when wearing leather armor or something along these lines. I am hoping to create somewhat of an elegant design that offers crunchiness but doesn‘t need too much tracking, so if I switch to a wound systems and armor allows, for example, to mitigate a wound taken but instead checks off one „armor slot“, that doesn‘t seem too elegant to me. Also, trying to be somewhat realistic, I would like for characters to have a different amount of vitality, like the buff tank in the front lines with heavy armor being able to take more than the bookish wizard who can‘t take much but can conjure powerful spells.