This is a suggested rework of the combat system, to be more story-driven, stepping away from over-complicating management of a combat turn. With this new style of combat, let's take a different approach to skills. Note Sept. 2025 these were integrated/removed (these are the last vestigial elements).
Test: perhaps instead of calling them checks, each roll could be called a test. To test if an attack is a success, let's have a test of attack or attack test. Same for skills, i.e. to test if a skill is successful, we have a test of skill or skill test.
Attack Skills: weapon skills, brawl, and martial arts would be used for both offense (trying to injure/kill the enemy with the weapon or attack) and defense (using the same skill to defend from attack). Defenders may have a static target number to cut down on dice rolls, the same as the default for defense skills. There would still be a Dodge skill, for those avoiding conflict or otherwise unable to defend themselves. Attackers must announce whether they're trying to grievously wound or merely incapacitate their targets. For wounding, successes are applied to wounds, for incapacitate, successes are applied to stun. Note base damage of the weapon is always applied, making incapacitation with a deadly weapon a dubious prospect - repeated applications of base wounds may kill your foe before stun damage is enough to incapacitate them.
Skill - Dodge: used when a character is not otherwise defending themselves. Doing away with the skills Parry and Block. Some attacks might be countered with stats directly.
Skill - Sway: this skill would replace the Talk skill, but could also be useful for inspiring allies (potentially giving them a positive modifier in combat).
Skill - Con: for lying, deception, and could be used in combat to give a character a positive modifier (or an opponent a negative one).
Health - stress, wounds, and the condition penalty system seems to work well for what I intended, however with the given rules it can be cumbersome trying to remember what injuries were treated (as the Heal skill can typically be applied only once per set of injuries). Perhaps a log (it could be named something like Status or Health) could be used to keep track of injuries and effects on the character, either by players themselves, or the GM may keep track of their injuries. If done in table-form, could have columns for Wounds, Stress, Stat (for stat damage), Treatment, and Notes.
When attacking an opponent, a test of attack is made, typically with an attack skill versus a target of 10. If the target is using a skill in defense, that skill is applied as a negative modifier to the test. A success of zero applies base damage to the target (both W and S if applicable), with additional successes added either to wounds (if trying to inflict grievous injury) or stress (if trying to incapacitate).
Every three successes are converted to +1d6 of damage, adding the remaining total to the damage roll.
For example, a weapon with 2D3W, 0D3S, hitting a normal-sized (S3) target with a success of zero would do 2d6W and 0S, regardless of whether they were trying to wound or incapacitate. With a success of two, a grievous injury would be 2d6+2W (and 0S), while trying to incapacitate would result in 2d6W and 2S. With a success of four, a grievous injury would be 3d6+1W (and 0S), while incapacitate would be 2d6W and 1d6+1S.