I was planning something a bit like that, I was just running it by here first to gather everybody's thoughts on it. Thanks, though
This has been some good discussion, too. I appreciate everybody's input that they've given.
The thing is, that still involves rolling for damage, which I'm trying to avoid. I want to get the maximum amount of information possible from as few separate rolls as possible, with regards to combat.
Why not allow your players to 'take 3' instead of rolling a damage die? Or 3.5 (1D=3, 2D=7, 3D=10, 4D=14, etc...). That way they have the option of guaranteed average or rolling to try and get something better. If you want margins of success, you could give them +1 to damage for each 1, 2, or N points they beat the TN by (depending on how much you want the margin to count).
