more than death itself

Death is the usual penalty for failure to be victorious over your opponent. Sometimes you can escape by running away. It bothers me though that defeat has only one outcome.

Possibilities here, thinking out loud ...

Falling on the battlefield could result in a near-death state, one in which you are incapacitated but not dead quite yet. If help is at hand, then you can be "rezzed" through swift application of simple first aid, a skill available to all classes. This might encourage more grouping. To avoid players exploiting this as an in-combat rez, perhaps it requires 60 seconds of "cast time", and applies a further 60 second "woozy" debuff.

Your near-death state is on a timer though ... you will eventually succumb to your wounds. When you actually die persons with special magical skills could still rez you, or you could release and do a ghost run.

Different mobs will result in different outcomes - simpleminded non-predatory beasts would be satisfied with you being severely wounded and retreating, while predatory beasts will want to kill you (at least). More intelligent mobs would likely investigate any corpse stinking up their compound, so please have the good grace to get some distance in before falling else you’ll find them applying a coup de grâce.