Now, granted, I'm not like Bruce Lee or even close, nor have i actually fought in a large battle or been in a truely life-threatening situation ( school-yard run-in's were about the extent ), but here's something I was thinking:

In combat, there are a lot of factors that have to be accounted for. Let's list them:
Intelligence -- Your ability to rationalize the situation.
Emotion -- How out of balance you are with rational thought ( fear, hate, etc.).
Skill -- Your ability to fight at that moment.
Environment -- How familiar you & how you can work with it.
Stake -- What you have to gain and lose after this fight.
Phyisique -- How 'in shape' you are for a fight.

Ok, considering those, we'd have to figure out a way to numerically represent each variable. Given the nature of RPG's, I say we toss any presuposed ideas or generalities that exist.

Now, contrary to popular opinion, the best warriors have NEVER been stupid. World renown fighters such as Mohammed Ali were smart guys, but not necessarily book smarts. So let's call this stat Intuition.

Next, we have to consider the emotional weight of the person. Someone who's in intense rage is a worse fighter than a person who's calmn and collected. Please, don't construe rage to be the same as 'life or death situation.' Two different things. Let's call this Emotional Weight. We'll scale it from 0 - 10, where 0 is completely nuts, 10 is completely rational.

Now let's address skill. Skill is your ability to fight with whatever you have at the moment. Fighting with a Quarterstaff when you are a Brawler is stupid, so we'd have to assume that the person is using the best weapon at the moment, but would be clumsy with anything they don't know how to properly use. Skill is skill, so let's not euphemize it.

Envrionment blows down to pre-knowledge. If you don't know your environment, (ie. a Ranger fighting in a City) you cannot expect to fight as effectively as someone who's very familiar. This would be more of a ratio, probably on a scale of 0 - 15, where 15 is very very familiar, like your own home, and 0 would be a place you've never even dreamed about.

Stake, for the most part, suffers no consequence in an RPG and probably should be removed for the sake of keeping some form of suspense in the game. Humans are known for pointlessly killing each other, so let's keep it that way.

Physique is another very important element. If you're completely out of shape, then you probably aren't going to last as long in a fight. You'll suffer from fatigue and start to become weak. Physique would be good to be represented by Endurance and Tiredness ( a negative modifier to attack & damage ). Also, this might have a large effect on how much damage you can take.

Let's also add in the stat Health, for the heck of it. All humans start with a 30 health.

Ok, now let's rate them. At any given time, there are 100% of the above factors applied to you. But some are far more important than others.

Intelligence: 20%
Emotion: 25%
Skill: 20%
Environment: 25%
Physique: 10%

Let's calculate a character's hit value with the following stats:

Intelligence: 10
Emotion: 3
Skill: 6
Environment: 7
Physique: 9

We get a total of 6.6 or let's call it 66.

Basically this character has a 66% chance of hitting his target based on his own psyche. Things like movement and his target aren't factored in here.

Ok, let's say he hits his target.

Well, based on skill and knowledge of weaponry, I know for a fact that one man's useless tool is another's deadly weapon. No weapon is particularly any less deadly than any other. Think of it like this: A man with a chinese knife can surely kill you by slashing you 30 times, but a man with a kitchen knife can slice you once across the neck and end it, could he not?

So in the context, a weapon should be based more on effectiveness and skill than anything. Let's examine my personal favorite weapon, the Quarterstaff.

Now, it's not a very effective weapon, it can cause more damage to the user, if used incorrectly. However, in the hands of a capable user, an opponent can be defeated in one quick blow.

This kind of shows we have to break a weapon's stats down, do we not? Let's look at what makes up a weapon in the RPG sense:

Type: Is it steel or wood? Does it require two hands or one?
Base Effectiveness: How good it is when used untrained.
Speed: How fast the weapon is when used untrained.
Requirement: What kind of attribute does it rely on?

Ok, so let's say Quarterstaff again:

Type: Wood, 2-Handed, Long Reach
Base Effectiveness: little
Speed: Slow - Medium
Requirement: Eye-Hand Coordination

( Effectiveness: None, Little, Somewhat, Fairly, Moderately, Highly, Extrodinarily )

Let's say, for every 2 levels you have in the skill, the effectiveness goes up by one. Also, you gain more usage from the Quarterstaff.

So a person with a skill of 10 in Quarterstaff ( or something ) would read:

Type: Wood, 2-Handed, Bladed, One-Handed, Multiple Attacks, Long Reach
Base Effectivenes: Highly
Speed: Medium - Fast
Requirement: Eye-Hand Coordination, Strength

Note, that the requirements would also increase with your skill.

Now, comparing this to real-life. A typical gun can be used by anyone and is basically life-threatening, but is probably only Moderately effective in the hands of an untrained. Like, most school shootings only result in a very low number ( less than 5 ) dead. However, an Army Ranger can take out about 30 - 70 of your average Arab terrorists alone. Big difference there.

I'm not going into my health / damage system at the moment, but it will tie-in somewhat like this.

What do you think? Anything you might want to add or comment on?