Human combat system is really off---enemy are fighting like zombies

[oribesama]

This game is supposed to behave somehow close to the real world, however the enemy, or specifically human enemy is extremely hard to kill, they can absorb tons of damage and stand still, launch a powerful strike.
A robber take a deep puncture in the right eye(and bleeding), serious puncture in thorax serious puncture in left hand and can still stand up and fight.
A robber take a serious puncture in the neck, and can still walk and attack and eventually killed me.
Also some related unreasonable mechanism
First The the bleeding time, basically sometimes enemy stops bleeding really fast
Second is the fallen and stand up, stumbled and fallen enemy can usually get up in the same turn, and it makes the fallen really useless.
Third is the unconsciousness, same thing as above, unconscious and fallen enemy also can awake and stand up in very short time, probably in one turn.
The last, or probably the most annoying one, attack to fallen/unconscious enemy sometimes can be really ineffective. It's just doesnt make any sense that you can miss a unconscious body lying on the ground! And guess what, after one turn, he will stand up and wield his axe again!
Combined these things with the tedious and repeating keyboard command, a human fighting can be really boring and long.

[Plotinus]

humans used to be weaker -- -there was no chance fighting against a lynx or a wolf, you heard a silent meow from the lynx and your only hope was to run far enough away to zoom out, my characters barely lived 10 days if i was lucky, back then.

i know you mean that you want that NPCs should be weaker than the player character. but the way i see it is all of these things that the NPCs can do are things your character can do too, if you're less encumbered.

When you say your enemy is getting up in the same turn, what's happening is they are less fatigued than you, or they're not carrying 70 kg of stuff, which lets them be lighter and move faster, so they get to go more often.

[Matti-patti]

Strong edge (or tear, yes I mean you Mr. Wolf) attack to neck is usually 1 hit instant death for PC and NPCs if there is no significant armour there (I don't think I have seen many mail cowls on Njerps). There is this massege about almost tearing the body part off. Happens also with broadhead arrows (including to animals as large as reindeer and at least smaller bears), and it can happen even to otherwise unharmed and fresh mobs. Point attacks are in my experience less instantly lethal, which is why I tend to choose axes over spears (and often bring broadheads if I know I'm going to fight Njerps or robbers and need to make my shots count).

I have never, ever missed with attack on unconscious mob (yellow text on attack screen), and I suspect such attacks automatically roll extra damage dice as well. You sure the mob was actually unconscious?

In general the main trick to URW combat is exhaustion management. Your opponents run all the time in combat situations, while you can choose not to. If they are not running they are attacking every turn (while you can choose not to, in which case you most likely move backwards so that your opponent has to run bit more). Exhausted mobs will have penalty to their attacks, they drop down easy and when they become unconscious they are unlikely to recover in reasonable time. You can essentially consider it equivalent of damage that just heals quicker, in that sense even moving backwards (and not even making a counterstrike) is a damaging attack on your enemies, and it has 100% hit chance.