To give you some suggestions I would look to the "S" series tool steels.  These will both give you shock resistance and allow you to have high surface hardness to prevent wear.  Heat treating can be tricky but if you have a good source this is not a problem.  Hope this helps.

Thank you.

You might consider ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). It has low coefficient of sliding friction and excellent wear characteristics.

You may also wish to chose a ductile material as a substraight and then use a coating for the ware resistance and low friction properties you require. A call to someone like Sermatech International should be your first port of call.

How big of a pad are you talking about? What is contact/impact stress? You may try Stellite (Alloy 6 or 21) for good wear resistance. If you need even better wear resistance, you can try a Tungsten Carbide overlay coating, or a Nitrided Tool Steel, or a Boride diffusion alloyed high carbon steel. Or a Mn steel may work well if toughness (impact resistance) is more important.

I can help with more details and a source for the coatings if you are interested (matt.hinckley@tmtresearch.com).

Tungten carbide, TiCN cermets, ceramics?

There are versions that are readily brazeable and that have very good impact strengths.