So, every game I run into anymore, I find myself asking this question when it comes to weapon damage (or other damage rolls, honestly) - why are there ever situations where it is impossible to only do a single point of damage?
Example: A character is hit by a short spear (1d6+1 damage). The lowest damage roll possible with that spear is 2. It is literally impossible to cause only a single point of damage. It gets worse if the wielder has a +1d4 db, when now that spear can't do any less than 3 damage. Heaven forbid he's got a naginata (2d6+2) and is a giant with +2d6 db!
This sort of thing makes players happy - I have a higher guaranteed damage factor - but it makes me a little twitchy as a "realistic" gamer who wonders "what ever happened to grazes, or flesh wounds?" - I don't care how strong you are with that spear, if you only manage to score me along my fleshy belly with the point of that spear, I shouldn't take as much damage as an average hit from a sword cane or worse, a .22 pistol!
So, has anyone looked into alternative systems for dealing with stacking damage like this? Replace all +1's with a "increase die size" mechanic, maybe?
Okay, so my gut says that some mechanic could be arranged that based damage not on dice, but on weapon damage classes. You divide the d100 roll for your to-hit by the damage class, take the remainder (modulo), and add 1. Great strength leads to a higher damage class, rather than flat adds or additional dice. Its' very math-heavy, but it could probably be handled with a chart as well as a formula.