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[Leerok the Lacerta]

First, a groundhog ripped a lion in half and bit off a dwarf's arms... and it was using every part of its head (eyes, nose, etc.), not just its teeth, for the biting.

That part made me laugh hysterically today, but it also got me thinking. If it happened to be that the weapon is weaker than what it struck, should it be damaged in some way?

If a wood sword were used against a solid bronze collossus, one might think that the bronze collossus would be undamaged while the wooden sword would be dented or broken.

Likewise, if someone assaulted an armoured dwarf with his/her nose, the nose should be damaged. That should especially apply to teeth against dwarves in adamantine plate mail. It should never be a good idea to punch an armoured dwarf with a bare fist.

As for being attacked with the eyes and nose, I'd like to see things like those as part of botched attacks, causing injury to the attacker.

[sonerohi]

This is already going in. If you swing hard enough on a heavily armored opponent, you have a chance to damage weaker weapons.

[3]

This is applicable to the vast majority of games involving standard RPG-esque gameplay, but almost all of them plump for the damage +/- system that DF currently uses. Your comment about punching an armoured figure in particular reminded me of a certain mod I used to play with Morrowind, but remember that such a system works not only because of its simplicity - it works very well from a gameplay perspective as well.

DF, however, might be an exception here. I can imagine being attacked by some seigers in heavy armour and the fortress being lost because the dwarfen weapons can't pierce the attackers' armour - it makes for good drama, and would be even more fun if it showed up in legends as well.

Actually, I've just thought of a couple of things.

1. The [SOLID_DENSITY] tag used in matglosses could be directly related to said value. This could be as [SIZE] is in DF as compared to attack/defense values in other games, to [DAM_PERC] and [BLOCK_PERC] are in the current version.
2. The damage/critical/damblock system could be made more of an exact science than it currently stands. Implemented properly, this could allow the system to work exactly as you describe - with enough care - but it would mean that some creatures would be literally impossible to kill without the right equipment. That might not be a bad thing in the eyes of some. Either way, it'd take work.

[Granite26]

This is already going in. If you swing hard enough on a heavily armored opponent, you have a chance to damage weaker weapons.

I think this isn't true even with the next release, although it's coming

[Bricks]

The real problem, as I see it, is damaging the weapons in a way that is consistent with how everything else is damaged (i.e., qualitative over quantitative information).  Oblivion (and probably Morrowwind, never played it) had a system that I thought was incredibly silly, and when it was continued into Fallout, it really started to bug me (because that game at least acknowledged things like separate limb damage).

For example, you walk in a cave, and an old man hands you a wooden sword.  When you pull up that sword in your inventory, it should just say Wooden Sword.  If you use it to stab or bash organics (can wooden swords slice well at all?) the sword should remain in good condition for a long period of time.

Say you run up against an armored foe.  If you try to stab him, you might deal some damage (although it is doubtful you would pierce anything), and the sword would take some damage too (and maybe even your arm goes numb).  Now that you pull up your sword in your inventory, it might still say Wooden Sword, but in light grey or yellow to indicate that it has taken some damage.  If you inspect the sword, it should explicitly state that the tip is damaged.  Not the edge, not the hilt, not whatever parts a sword buff would name off.  If you tried to again stab with this weapon, it should further damage the tip.  Maybe you swing so hard and wildly that it splinters and breaks.  Even so, you would still be left with a slightly useful weapon.

Lots of fantasy stories involve weapons breaking or a broken weapon being used to kill someone.  If weapons were treated with the same care and attention as current body plans, we could benefit from realistic weapon damage and the ability to mod in unique weapons like tridents, or chainsaws, or whatever you want.

The biggest issue I see is repair.  Fallout required that you used an identical or similar item, which made some sense.  Unless your player is a smith, and happens to carry an anvil, tongs, and whatever else with him, reforging a sword should not be something you do on-the-go.  This is especially important if an artifact weapon were to break - you would have to quest to find the pieces, and then to find someone who can reforge it (or tell you how to reforge it).

TL;DR:  Something like "45/50 Condition" would be stupid; a more detailed system of weapon/armor damage would be a sensible and purposeful addition.