I’m currently looking at a fat zombie who has spent the last few minutes smacking at a metal fence. Shouldn’t that hurt? I think it would be interesting if zombies lost a small (and I do mean small, like 1 bar of health for one zombie smashing a bookcase, perhaps 2 for tougher objects) amount of health from breaking down furniture.
Less interesting but also realistic would be the same thing applying to the player when smashing furniture without a weapon. Damage would only be done to arms, and it would require multiple consecutive hits before damage is applied. A warning like “Hitting this [furniture] with your bare hands is starting to hurt!” should be shown to make sure players don’t lose HP when they didn’t mean to.
I do not agree about damage to the player.
The character should be able to go about smashing relatively intelligently. They may try to apply leverage, they may try to put all their weight on a shelf, they may try to stomp on parts, etc.
Basically, punching furniture would be a last resort unless the character is bullshit enough to karate chop it to tinders.
Zombie-wise, I’d think it’d be more case-by-case. A wire fence would just be pulling and pushing until it gives up, no damage there. A boarded window might be the same, but a bookcase they’d just have to smash.
On the other hand, zombie skin is harder than human skin, so they probably escape that with no damage.
Unless it’s something like “You’re not wearing gloves, holding a weapon, or wearing strong boots”, I doubt damage from smashing would make too much sense.
Granted, ADOM does damage from trying to kick things that can’t really be kicked “You strain your foot kicking at the empty air” or “You hurt your foot kicking at the wall!”, but that’s ADOM.