History Main / ScratchDamage

* Played with in ''[[UsefulNotes/{{Fate}} Fate Core]]'', where it's entirely possible for an attack to do no damage if it ''ties'' against the defender (or gets reduced far enough by the latter's armor, if the optional weapon/armor factor rules are used)...but the foiled attacker then still takes away a short-lived situational advantage good for boosting one future dice roll with, which may among other uses help their ''next'' attack turn out to be a more telling one. (Fate may also straight-up avert the trope at times by virtue of being less simulation-inclined than a number of other games, meaning that the GM has actual leeway to not let a sufficiently feeble attack attempt count as a "proper" attack ''action'' to begin with and thus obviate the need to resolve it as one.)

** There's a battle in the UsefulNotes/GameBoy version of ''[[VideoGame/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'' where Harry, Hermione, and Buckbeak are up against a werewolf-shaped Lupin, and all of your spells will only inflict 1 damage. Buckbeak will inflict more, and if you've stocked up on Chocolate Frog cards you can do about ten damage per round on Harry's turn, but when Hermione comes up to hit, you're in trouble. You pretty much just have to use her to cast her defensive special ability and then spam attack Lupin with Flipendo Uno, which doesn't cost any magic points to cast and still does one damage. Same with Harry if you run out of Chocolate Frog cards to fuel his special attacks.

* There's a certain condition in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'''s damage formulas that allows for 0 damage (all attacks that would hit, but deal no damage, will show up as "miss"): Normally, no matter how much DEF or MDEF you have, all attacks will still do a minimum of 1 damage... unless you have special buffs or equipment that reduces damage from a specific source by a percentage (examples: Beret reduces damage of all attacks from DemiHumans by 10%, changing your armor element will alter how much damage each element does to you), which reduces your final damage even further, rounded to the nearest whole number. This is probably due to the same logic that makes all enemies with the Poison armor element take 0 damage from Poison element attacks, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment because Poison attacks are reduced to 0% effectiveness versus the Poison element on the elemental damage table.]]

Occasionally, [[MetalSlime rare and elusive monsters]] may be designed entirely around the concept of scratch damage, with their total HP measuring in the ''single digits'' but absolutely nothing your [[MightyGlacier strongest warrior]] can dish out ever scores more than the token 1 point damage. Expect these foes to be the only times where scratch damage is a [[DeathOfAThousandCuts practical means of attack]]; other opponents simply have [[HealthDamageAsymmetry too much HP]] for the token 1 point to make a practical difference (beyond an occasional CherryTapping).

* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'': All attacks that hit deal at least one damage. Even the most heavily armored 100 ton [[HumongousMecha BattleMechs]] will take damage from the piddly Machine Gun[[note]]'piddly' here being a relative term, as baseline ''Battletech'' doesn't have rules for weapons ''not'' intended for anti-tank use. ''Battletech'''s damage scale runs on a general rule of "1 damage = a force capable of shredding, melting or penetrating through 60-70 kg worth of solid steel", and anything capable of at least 1 damage scores a OneHitKill against infantry or unarmoured civilian vehicles. In ''Battletech'', a "machine gun" means a 500 kg, 20 mm [[GatlingGood rotary cannon]] firing solid-core ammunition[[/note]]. In ''VideoGame/MechWarrior [[GameMod Living Legends]]'', an Assault mech has around 12000 armor "points" in its center torso; a machine gun firing at it does 0.7 damage per bullet, then takes about a 50% damage reduction against the battlemech's armor. It's possible to kill an Atlas with a single machine gun, if you so desire... Provided you have an APC for several tons of reloads and about ten minutes spear. However, the machine gun in ''Living Legends'' does have [[AntiInfantry another purpose]] that is ''much'' better at.
** Machine guns can easily be abused by simply taking a brute-force approach and loading a ballistic Mech with as many of them as it'll take. If you can position yourself behind an enemy heavy and unload with all the machine guns at once, the cumulative effect *will* take a big chunk off their armor. You might not actually ''kill'' them before they get their act together and you have to leg it or take a PPC to the face - especially in newer games like ''Online'' where balance is such a big deal -- but you will be a useful asset to your team, and all thanks to this trope being in effect.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':

* In ''Videogame/XCOM2'', all attacks that hit their target will do at least one damage regardless of how much armor the target has.