Heh, I sympathize with all you devs. They just never get it do they? The demos are for testing, duh. What if they want to tweak low level character gameplay (which would be, you know, kinda important). Reset characters and voila! A new batch of low levels. Want to test high powered characters? ZAP! Everyone gains 50 levels. Seriously, I don\'t really see why it\'s so bad. After the first few times of playing, we should all know what we are doing. I expect to be able to level quite quickly once I get used to the game.
How can you have a game without levels? Its called skills man. Why do you HAVE to get more health? Do you in real life? NO! Anyone can still be killed by a simple old rusty knife, properly used. (unless your Blade, but thats another story). What you do get is better at simply not getting hit, at ignoring pain, at deflecting and parrying and riposte. You become more aware of your surroundings and less easily surprised. Perhaps, they could base health like this, which is at least more realistic: the amount of damage you heal from would be recorded. Every X amount of damage you healed from, you would gain another HP, thus representing the stress hardening your body does naturally. I am not kidding here, people\'s bodies get harder from being hit. I know. I practiced hitting hard wooden objects with my fist, and now it barely hurts anymore. I could fairly easily punch a hole in a standard wooden door without getting hurt.
When you crack and fracture your bones repeatedly they calcify new layers onto the bone, becoming thicker and tougher. In short, the body adapts to whatever situation it faces. Longbowmen had one arm significantly longer - and that wasn\'t just because they came from a mutant population.