[EDIT:] Although this doesn't exactly do what I want - there's a "Best Comments" feed, but not the regular front page feed as links to comments instead of the original pages, and the "Frontpage" feed doesn't immediately show the individual HN article pages in my RSS reader. I'll look into contributing to hnrss.github.io, though.
That did it indeed, thanks! I've learned a bit about RSS and my RSS app (Vienna for Mac) along the way. By default, the RSS reader displays the content of the "description" tag. When I select the "Load full HTML articles" checkbox for the feed in the RSS reader, it loads the actual comments page. I had this checkbox enabled for the default HN feed, but hadn't been aware of that. Anyhow, thanks again!
[EDIT:] Although this doesn't exactly do what I want - there's a "Best Comments" feed, but not the regular front page feed as links to comments instead of the original pages, and the "Frontpage" feed doesn't immediately show the individual HN article pages in my RSS reader. I'll look into contributing to hnrss.github.io, though.