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I definitely agree with your disinterest in HP. It's something I've been exploring doing away with for a while — my other project, Fate/Last Chance, has no HP at all, replacing it with an abstracted "battle tension" system to increase the same action-feel I think you're searching for. We made the choice to embrace HP and the grid in Blades of Ether on purpose, though; our goal is for the grid tactics feel to encourage partner and party cooperation in the moment to moment of battle.

I'd be very interested to hear what changes you implement and how they work out! If you hit on something really fun, it very well could become a rulebook adjustment.

Missed the question about Arts, oops. You get to make them up! If that's not a great proposition, you can start with ones from the game, see how you might reinterpret them in this system, and work from there! If you have any particular questions about interpreting a kind of ability or how a mechanic interacts, I'm happy to help, too!

Dark Elemental Affinity grants access to an aggro-drawing ability! Otherwise, aggro is meant to be handled more narratively, as with any other TTRPG - you might roll to goad someone, and describe how you do so, or roll to slip by someone's attention similarly.

It's been on the backburner for a while, but an expansion is still being worked on, and I'd very much like to release it eventually! Bugs and major balance issues will be fixed if they get brought up. Is there something you noticed or had in mind in particular?

Finally played this and it was absolutely hilarious. My immortal edgelord "Luxvi," also known as LXVIII, had a great time killing himself repeatedly to deal with his enemies. 10/10 would recommend