Facilitating a Combat of Interesting Choices

I've been having follow-on thoughts from my post yesterday about what my Daggerheart players pointing out as making an especially interesting "combat" framed scene. Playing other systems that make rules-managed tactical combat a focal point of play as well as those that make “the fiction” the linchpin of conflicts has me considering these elements as I try and design my own system. Of note, not all systems care about this! A game may say that simply dealing with resource depletion (HP, spell slots, etc) is a sufficient outcome of combat and thus making it as streamlined as possible returns you to what it actually cares about. I think most “OSR” games tend to land here, with some like His Majesty the Worm being notable exceptions. Likewise, something that resolves a lot of combat/conflict in a single roll (Blades in the Dark) often bypasses this level of choice and is about resource attrition + costs & character portrayal. For what I’m interested in though, I think the following…