I was reading Koewn's post about assassins (http://crowbarandbrick.blogspot.ca/2012/12/assassinating-adventurers-conquerors.html), and realized stepped damage would make assassins MUCH more lethal. Take a 14th-level assassin with a normal sword, no strength bonus. On a backstab, the assassin would deal 1d6x5+5 damage, for 10-35, with an average of 22.5. With stepped damage, the assassin would do 3d6x5-10, or 5-80(!) damage with an average of 42.5. This would make assassins potentially much more lethal, but still very swingy.
With a sword +3, the standard rules assassin only gets the +3 after all the multiplication happens, so they'd go to 13-38, with 25.5 average, while the stepped assassin moves to 3d8x5-10, for 5-110 damage and an average of 57.5. Adding in an Ogre Strength spell would move the dice to d10s, for 5-140 damage and average 72.5.
That's OK, this evening my mind jumped to "hey, that would be a good mechanic for larger/smaller creatures, too." Instead of the giant damage thing I had House Ruled before, give them one step per hit die, so an ogre is +4 steps, hill giant +8 steps, etc, up to a storm giant's +15 steps. This will require three steps above 3d12-2 (1d10 for a two-handed weapon is 12 steps from 3d12-2).
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Modifying this slightly to increasing damage by one step for each hit die above one, here's the base damage for a non-magical one-handed weapon for larger-than-human creatures:
And for dragons, starting with the Spawn damage and improving it per hit die, with comparison of average damage to the average for a by-the-book dragon:
Spawn: 1d2/1d2/2d3 (average 7, book average 7)
Very Young: 1d4/1d4/2d6 (average 12, book average 9)
Young: 1d8/1d8/2d10 (average 20, book average 12)
Juvenile: 1d12/1d12/2d4+4d6-4 (average 28, book average 16)
Adult: 3d6-2/3d6-2/4d6+2d8-4 (average 36, book average 19)
Mature Adult: 1d6+2d8-2/1d6+2d8-2/4d8+2d10-4 (average 46, book average 22.5)
Old: 2d8+1d10-2/2d8+1d10-2/6d10-4 (average 54, book average 26.5)
Very Old: 3d10-2/3d10-2/2d10+4d12-4 (average 62, book average 29)
Ancient: 1d10+2d12-2/1d10+2d12-2/2d8+2d10+2d20-4 (average 74, book average 35)
Venerable: 1d8+1d10+1d20-2/1d8+1d10+1d20-2/2d10+2d12+2d20-2 (average 78, book average 37.5)
Under this system, dragons ramp up much faster in damage, and stabilize at just over double the standard book damage. A Colossal Venerable dragon would end up being hugely powerful, attacking for 1d10+2d20-2/1d10+2d20-2/2d12+4d20-2, or an average of 100 damage per round. The most offensive dragon, though, would be a Massive Venerable dragon with Tail Lash and Wing Claws, doing 4 attacks at 2d12+1d20-2 and 2 attacks at 2d8+4d20-2, for a ludicrous average of 180 damage per round.
The other interesting thing about that is the (assumed) porportional increase in the Structural Hit Point damage the creatures should be able to do. It doesn't look like (D@W:C pg 54) it's based on anything but unit size, but if a Colossal unit is doing 10 shp vs stone usually, and you've more or less doubled it, that could get up to 20 I suppose.
Is there a HP>SHP conversion rule? Haveta look around.