Re: Old-School D&D style game
 

Which is to say, more old-school (not necessarily GURPS) hit points. At 250 character points, you can avoid, bounce, absorb, heal, or just function despite more incoming damage. Each character type does so differently – higher active defenses, more wealth for buying armor (and healing potions), more ST for lugging armor (and giving more HP), naked DR, defensive buffs, healing abilities, not being seen in the first place, Luck, or just being a berserker with ridiculous HT and HP – but all that stuff costs points. If you stick to the way points are spent on the canonical DF templates, then with one or two exceptions (bard . . .), the closest old-school-to-GURPS correspondence is between old-school hit points and GURPS character points – not 1:1, obviously, but there's clearly a relationship.

Re: Old-School D&D style game
 

It tricky to balance deadliness, endurance, etc in dungeon fantasy. One thing I notice since playing, playtesting, and publishing for classic editions of D&D is that OD&D (1974 3 booklets) has a far more gritty and deadly feel than AD&D 1st 2nd, and 3.X. Character are vulnerable for far longer than later editions. Even with the addition of the Greyhawk supplement the OD&D power curve is more flat and threats are more credible to higher levels.

I think DF does a good job of emulating AD&D 1st edition. But for OD&D 150 pt templates are a better fit. Which is ultimately why I when I adapted my Majestic Wilderlands from my GURPS notes I went with Swords & Wizardry as the base rather than OSRIC (AD&D) or d20.