Healing and survival

[Skarg]

I ran and played in TFT heavily for about 6 years, with double pole weapon damage, no limit on missile spell damage, no healing magic except potions, etc., and thought the death rate was not in need of a lot of nerfing.

If I follow your description right, I think you are suggesting that death is essentially only at full negative ST (a ST 13 person dies at -13 rather than 0). I think that's far too generous, particularly because then there would be many weapons that will not do enough damage to kill someone without doing double or triple damage, even to a nearly-dead victim, and maybe not even them.

e.g. Bob (ST 12) is wounded down to 3 ST. Zorg comes up to him with a shortsword and attacks! "Oh no, non Bob!" his friends cry out.

Well, even if Zorg rolls max damage (11), that's only going to drop Bob to -8. Not enough to kill him. If Zorg rolls double damage, he'd need to roll a 9 or greater on 2 dice to do enough damage to kill Bob. And Bob was not even wearing any armor.

i.e. you'll go from "most people who fall are dead" to "almost no one who falls is actually dead".

What I'd want is "people who fall may or may not be die - it depends on how badly they were hit, whether they get prompt medical attention, and some luck, but there's a real chance any who falls from weapon hits has a chance of dying.