This is something more or less already in the game. The Practical Failure heading in the Codex – Page 120 – discusses conditional Ob penalties as a consequence of failure. Thor talks a bit more about this kind of thing in this post. These ideas are what become the more concretized Conditions in Torchbearer, I think.
I think you’re definitely on the write track thinking about conditional Ob penalties, but I think tying it to traits is a bit of a red herring. You’ll likely be better off playing it looser and not bogging down the trait system with ephemeral situations of play. Save traits for big, long-term stuff, and catastrophe.