Break is a mechanic that I first know showed up in Final Fantasy 13.
Break is an additional gauge one fills as you do damage.
and, very importantly, HP in games with Break is inflated. Like, you're full comboing peeps for 1/10th to 1/20th, and against bosses you're doing a pixel of damage.
But, when an enemy is Broken, a bunch of shit can happen.
In Strangers of Paradise and Sekiro you just KILL EM/Phase 'em. Next phase lets go.
In your Bloodbornes, your Dark Souls, Niohs, you get a good nuke. Rip a chunk off their HP, reset.
In Final Fantasy XIII and some other JRPGs, the enemy gets a massive damage multiplier applied to them. Like, x 10. In XIII you're doing escalating damage because additional damage will keep stacking the Break multiplier.
Then you can cash out Break, via Snow or Fang's final ability.
and in Honkai: Star it's reversed. Break is a damage multiplier as you deplete it, then once it's broken they get a debuff based on the element that Broke them.
So, throwing in Break in a hypothetical combat system, assuming 3 damage is a normal single target hit n' all...
Enemy HP would range about like... fuckin' 10 for dinguses, 30-50 for slightly elevated dinguses, 100 for elites who WILL get a turn if there's 2+, and like damn near 1k for bosses.
But then their Break is just like, their HP /10. 1. 3-5, 10, like 20~ for bosses?
For an XIII style thing, you'd then apply a 10x multi to damage. Just slap a 0 at the end of your combos, ez.
and with an enemy being Broken as a state, could have all sorts of shit go on.
Cash out moves n' XIII Commando's Launch and shit.