[4e] d20 meets Earthdawn

[disorder]

Resource management has shifted significantly; encounter and daily powers are far more precious resources than HP, due to the variety of ways in which a character can regain HP (a wizard has 10 HP at 1st level, but, provided they don't all go in one encounter, effectively has 22, as his 6 healing surges grant him 2 HP per use. If he has a +2 Constitution modifier, he goes to 12 immediate, and 34 daily).

Actually, you misread the hitpoint system...but the actual system makes your point even more strongly.

A wizard's starting hitpoints aren't (10 + Consitution Modifier); they're (10 + Constitution Score).

So a first-level wizard with 10 constitution gets 20 hitpoints, plus 6 healing surges for 5 hp each, for a daily total of 50 hp.