At first I thought to remove durability completely.
After reading this I think it makes sense if a weapon is not damaged by normal combat, but it gets damaged when used to bash objects or attacking enemies like a stone golem. (I think Arcanum did it like this)
Armor does not get damaged from normal combat but it can be damaged by some special attacks. Rings and amulets cannot be damaged.
Maybe there are skills that attack equipment. For example: Rusty rain: does high damage to the physical armor of anybody within the AOE and damages weapon and armor for everybody in the AOE. Does not do any damage to vitality or magical armor.
PS: I never bashed anything in the game to avoid repair. I always used skills to destroy objects.
PPS: I liked that in NWN2 you found "destroyed items" (correct name forgotten) among the loot when you bashed a container. It reminded you that bashing might not be the best way to open things.
PPPS: I never repaired anything in arcanum where they used this system.
PPPPS: I ran out of "P"s
Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist
World leading expert of artificial stupidity. Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already