I recently realized that most RPGs seem to believe that one powerful attack is way better than several weaker attacks. The main examples of this I have are Shadowrun and WFRP but I think GURPS is similar.

So I have several questions

1) Is this trend of making one powerful attack better than many weaker actualy a trend or am I seeing things

2) Is it realistic?

3) Is it desirable?

4) Finally assuming it isn't desirable (I have no idea) is it possible to fix or is it an artifact of there being damage resistance?

I wouldn't call it a trend, but it does happen a fair bit.

It is realistic, in some ways. With vehicle and personal armor, it is true that certain minor attacks have negligible effect, while one 'cracking' attack can be decisive. This is true for melee and ranged weapons, shells, bombs, whatever. There certainly are circumstances that show this paradigm.

It is desirable, firstly, for heroics. The hero shouldn't usually be brought down by minor attacks. By the same token, it's desirable for 'bosses'. No one likes to cheese the boss to death for 30 minutes with 'chipping' damage. The problem is, as always, the balance. Especially in a gritty setting, we do want things to have certain vulnerabilities, even to overmatched opponents. Eventually, the guerillas do take down Blackhawks, etc. The doughboys do stop tanks.

It does seem to be a hard-to-avoid feature of most kinds of damage-mitigating systems. Even a no-soak system with all/nothing dodging still favors one strong (and accurate) attack.

It seems completely reasonable to me. Your average "hero" is on par with probably amateur boxer or maybe even pro, or at least in his personal skill set.

The average boxer can take plenty of punches, hell a normal person can at least take a few. But line up a Louisville slugger to the knee or head, and just about anyone is going to go down for the count.

Obviously, for game balancing purposes people can take more than one hit from a club, or a sword or even bullets. This is why L5R still has some of my favorite combat. A peasant who gets the jump on even the best samurai in the would with just a knife can outright kill him.

The Biggest Problem is the Armor-System in most cases.
Either the Armor let's you shrug off any Damage you take, or any Damage you take has a good chance of outright killing you.
And because any Damage you take has a good chance of killing you, you go for MORE ARMOR. Which makes most Damage bounce off of you, but the Damage that DOES get through is such that it simply DOES kill you most of the time . .

Which makes complete sense. IRL Anyhow. If a bullet his a kevlar vest and can't make it through, its still going to hurt (aka stun damage, or nonlethal in some systems). But if it does make it through that vest, you're probably toast, or in serious drek.

Yeah, but reality does not a good game make . . Granted, the graphics are superb, but in all other regards, it's horribly lacking . .

This is why my games are roleplay heavy and people know that bullets will kill you.

Aside from the rules usually saying:"if you don't tank up, bullets kill you. if you tank up, laugh about people shooting you"
personally, i like the SR3 Damage for example.

Not if the mountain does not move.

I loved Deadlands for it's damage system. Even a .36 Cap & Ball Colt Navy Revolver was something to fear, no matter how high-powered a character you were.

Deadlands: Hell On Earth included useful Automatic Weapons, which caused much fear and gnashing of teeth. "Damnit, those bastards are shooting all of our loot! We need those bullets! How many do we have left?" "Eight." "Bastards!"

As for number 4, just work on house rules. Slash armor values in half or up DVs or something until you find something that works with your group.

At least it isn't as bad as naked dwarf syndrom...well except for trolls maybe

i remember having one character who had MORE armor after he dropped his lined coat than he had WITH the lined coat . .

Everyone says that realistic damage doesn't make for a good role playing game. Why not? It helps you role play more realistically. If a special forces team had to accomplish a mission in enemy territory, they wouldn't go around picking fights. They'd try to sneak in and get out unopposed. If you tried to represent that in a role playing game, the players would only role play realistically if there were a realistic damage system.

In terms of realism I would say that stronger attacks are better than weaker attacks but you use weaker attacks when you can't use a stronger attack. An uppercut to the liver is better than a jab to the nose but you most of the time are only going to have openings for the jabs versus the uppercut to the liver.

You're assuming that anyone wants to encourage realistic roleplay.

And that there's any agreement on what's 'realistic'.