So yeah, I've been thinking about helmets lately, and it annoys the hell out of me.
So here are my thoughts, as well as some notes that I gathered.
What if I removed helmets from the armors that have them (Fullplate, and half-plate.) Then I gave the helmets an AC bonus of +1. Meaning that without the helmets to those armors, they grant you 1 less ac.
Then we could go into factors of helmets granting AC. So characters could then make helmets of leather or metal, perhaps they grant different ac's +1 or +2. MAYBE, instead or with we could do something else, 5% chance to negate a critical hit?? maybe less than 5% I don't know.
I don't believe helmets would have an ACP, but some coould give a penalty to Perception, -1 or -2, maybe.
Anyway, that's my thoughts, and here are some notes I gathered which helped me come to these thoughts.
HELMET
+1 AC
-1 ACP?
COST 10 GP
WEIGHT 5There are no proficiencies for Helmets and Dueling Cloaks. The Dueling Cloak must be held in one hand and provides a +2 bonus to Feint Bluff Checks. Light and Heavy Shields provide a +2 bonus to Bull Rush checks. Everything else works the same as the listed in the SRD.
Magical Armor provides the DR/- with the same numerical damage reduction as a normal suit of armor of that type. (ie: +1 Full Plate provides DR 5/-)
So instead of a -1 ACP, your helmet matches the type of armor your wearing; so a Light or Medium Helmet have no penalties and a Heavy Helmet has a -1 to Search, Spot, and Listen checks.
I wonder though if you start to classify helmets by type, they shouldn't provide different armor bonuses? Maybe two types Open Helm providing +1 with no penalties, and Closed Helm giving +2 but -1 to search, spot, and listen. Though +2 for a helmet seems a little high. Thoughts?
So yeah, would my thoughts be balanced if we actually put this into the game mechanics.
A helmet
Leather Helmet +1 AC, -0 to -2 to Perception.
Maybe a small chance to negate a critical.
If you wanted to make helmets a functional separate piece of armor, I might recommend removing them from the heavy armors that they come included with but leaving those armors' AC values unchanged. By that I mean, all the armors in the PF Core Rule Book would then come without helmets, but otherwise would remain statistically the same.
For simplicities' sake, you could then offer a helmet that matches whatever armor was purchased, and get an additional +1 Armor Bonus out of the armor. I would maybe have the write up say something along these lines to avoid Armor Bonus Stacking issues...
"A helmet increases the Armor Bonus provided by a suit of matching armor by 1."
As for negating critical hits, perhaps instead of having a separate percentile roll you could add another line like this.
"A helmet also increases the total armor bonus by an additional +1 vs critical hit confirmations."
You could then possibly key the penalty to perception to the armor type, to show the varying types of helms. no penalty for helmets w/ light armor, -1 for medium armor, and -2 for heavy.
What if I removed helmets from the armors that have them (Fullplate, and half-plate.) Then I gave the helmets an AC bonus of +1. Meaning that without the helmets to those armors, they grant you 1 less ac.
Then we could go into factors of helmets granting AC. So characters could then make helmets of leather or metal, perhaps they grant different ac's +1 or +2. MAYBE, instead or with we could do something else, 5% chance to negate a critical hit?? maybe less than 5% I don't know.
I don't believe helmets would have an ACP, but some coould give a penalty to Perception, -1 or -2, maybe.
Anyway, that's my thoughts, and here are some notes I gathered which helped me come to these thoughts.
HELMET
+1 AC
-1 ACP?
COST 10 GP
WEIGHT 5There are no proficiencies for Helmets and Dueling Cloaks. The Dueling Cloak must be held in one hand and provides a +2 bonus to Feint Bluff Checks. Light and Heavy Shields provide a +2 bonus to Bull Rush checks. Everything else works the same as the listed in the SRD.
Magical Armor provides the DR/- with the same numerical damage reduction as a normal suit of armor of that type. (ie: +1 Full Plate provides DR 5/-)
So instead of a -1 ACP, your helmet matches the type of armor your wearing; so a Light or Medium Helmet have no penalties and a Heavy Helmet has a -1 to Search, Spot, and Listen checks.
I wonder though if you start to classify helmets by type, they shouldn't provide different armor bonuses? Maybe two types Open Helm providing +1 with no penalties, and Closed Helm giving +2 but -1 to search, spot, and listen. Though +2 for a helmet seems a little high. Thoughts?
So yeah, would my thoughts be balanced if we actually put this into the game mechanics.
A helmet
Leather Helmet +1 AC, -0 to -2 to Perception.
Maybe a small chance to negate a critical.
I tried giving helmets a seperate bonus to AC (+1) during 2E. It was OK, but added yet another layer to AC / combat. I also penalized their range of vision / spot etc. to compensate. Some helmets (open faced) provided no benefit vs. bows / crossbows. Other helmets (with a visor / facemask) and full helms (barrel or visored) did. It got a bit complex.
Another way to make helmets useful and encourage their use would be to increase the crit threat range for anyone without one by +1 (and maybe reduce it by -1 for full helms)and / or increase the chances of a crit being confirmed. That way you don't mess with the AC and you give people a definite reason to wear it.
As an aside I increased the AC of large shields vs. missile weapons to +2 and tower to +4.
Unhappy with the AC system of the time I had half, three quarters and full armor of all the basic types. As an example full chain gave the standard 5 points of protection, 3/4 (a chain hauberk) gave 4 and half (a chain shirt / byrnie) gave 3. The weights of the various armor types were reduced by a proportionate amounts. Prices while lower were not quite proportionate to the reduced size / weight. It was fun and it anticipated the chain shirt, breastplate in 3E. Now I would suggest a reduction in the dex check penalties as well.
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I love the idea of helmets as a separate piece of armor, just like shields.
I've wanted to try a house rule but haven't run my own campaign in a while. If I were going to do it, here's what I've thought about:
leather hood: +1 AC
chain hood or metal cap: +2 AC, -1 Perception
chain hood & metal cap, or open-faced helm: +3 AC, -2 Perception
full helm with visor: +4 AC, -4 Perception
[I also wanted to bump light steel shields to +2 AC, -2 armor check, and heavy steel shields to +3 AC, -4 armor check]
I wouldn't reduce existing armors' AC, just add another layer. This maintains the viability of existing stat blocks; just assume that no oneas currently written has a helmet on.
I also recognize potential adds +9 to ACs, but I've always run fairly low-magic games, in which case a little boost to AC is more welcome than a problem, especially to help make non-magic tanks harder to damage.
Well, I posted, and the post was lost.
Here is my new idea.
Leather Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 1% Chance to Negate Critical
Metal Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 2% Chance to Negate CriticalFull Leather Helmet +2 AC, 2% Chance to Negate Critical
Full Metal Helmet +2 AC, 4% Chance to Negate CriticalRegular Helmets give a -2 penalty to visual perception checks in your flans, and rear.
Full Helmets give a -5 penalty to visual perception checks in your flanks, and rear.
I didn't give them a straight out AC bonus against crit confirms because each point of ac is like 5%. So I thought it should be lower.
Aside from that, I'm contemplating if the helmets should have any ACP at all, I'm thinking maybe full helmets have -1 acp, or metal helmets have -1 acp.
New update
Leather Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 1% Chance to Negate Critical
Metal Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 2% Chance to Negate Critical, -1 ACPFull Leather Helmet +2 AC, 2% Chance to Negate Critical
Full Metal Helmet +2 AC, 4% Chance to Negate Critical, -1 ACPRegular Helmets give a -2 penalty to visual perception checks in your flans, and rear.
Full Helmets give a -5 penalty to visual perception checks in your flanks, and rear.
Now I need weights and cost.
If the game had called shots, it would make wearing helment, gorgots and other peices of armor more vital in what AC they have.
I developed with my DM in 3.5 that a full helm or one that had a bridge and nose guards would confer a -1 penalty to spot and listen checks (now perception), but grant’s a +1 to saving throws vs. dragon breath, and fire-based spells and spell-like effects and abilities.
The fire could heat the metal >.>
The fire could heat the metal >.>
I suspect it would do more to your skin...
YOu need to take into account that BAB and attack progression is balanced against the current AC system. Now, giving a +1 bump for a helmet isn't going to break anything, but this system:
I love the idea of helmets as a separate piece of armor, just like shields.
I've wanted to try a house rule but haven't run my own campaign in a while. If I were going to do it, here's what I've thought about:
leather hood: +1 AC
chain hood or metal cap: +2 AC, -1 Perception
chain hood & metal cap, or open-faced helm: +3 AC, -2 Perception
full helm with visor: +4 AC, -4 Perception[I also wanted to bump light steel shields to +2 AC, -2 armor check, and heavy steel shields to +3 AC, -4 armor check]
I wouldn't reduce existing armors' AC, just add another layer. This maintains the viability of existing stat blocks; just assume that no oneas currently written has a helmet on.
I also recognize potential adds +9 to ACs, but I've always run fairly low-magic games, in which case a little boost to AC is more welcome than a problem, especially to help make non-magic tanks harder to damage.
Will give your average Sword & Board fighter (PC and NPC alike) an AC bump of +7 or so and that's huge.
So any info on my helmet idea, and stats that I posted instead of that guys idea? lol
I don't mind, just, any comment on my stuff? lol
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Leather Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 1% Chance to Negate Critical
Metal Helmet, (Cap, or Hood) +1 AC, 2% Chance to Negate Critical, -1 ACPFull Leather Helmet +2 AC, 2% Chance to Negate Critical
Full Metal Helmet +2 AC, 4% Chance to Negate Critical, -1 ACPRegular Helmets give a -2 penalty to visual perception checks in your flans, and rear.
Full Helmets give a -5 penalty to visual perception checks in your flanks, and rear.
My main concern with your stats is they introduce several new ... not exactly rules, but ... ways of doing things.
1) 1%, 2%, 4% chance to avoid crits - I'm pretty happy with using the d20 for just about everything so adding a % isn't a + for me. Similarly, as a player I tend to avoid all those feats that add or subtract from the confirm-a-crit rolls - having two different ACs or two different Attack mods is too much for me to remember in the middle of a crit threat - so adding a second benefit to helm that fiddles with crit AC doesn't appeal to me.
2) There is no facing in official 3.5 or Pathfinder, so assigning penalties to Perception on the sides and rear adds complication. Now, if you're already house-ruling in facing, that's different, but none of the games I play in do.
Basically, it's all a matter of preference. When I house-rule (or dream about house-ruling) I try not to add new systems unless that's specifically what I'm going for. My personal preference for helmets would be to just add AC bumps and Perception penalties, no new dice rolls, no new worries about front and back.
Also, you assign the same AC bump to leather and metal helms. For me, materials are more important than that. I see metal helms as granting more AC than leather. The same with wooden vs. metal shields, as I mentioned in my original post.
Bottomline - IMO you've come up with a fair model to represent the benefits and drawbacks of wearing a helmet. It seems a bit overly complicated to me, but it may well fit your group's gaming style. ANd who can really complain about over-complicating things when we're all talking about add more complication to the existing rules :)
For what it's worth,
That guy
For what its worth...
In our games, armor's fortifications are gone. This benefit is instead granted by helmets and great helms.
For simplicity sake, I followed the same guideline as miss chances for concealment: light or "open face" helmets grant a 20% miss chance to negate a critical hit (note that the blow still scored a hit, just not a confirmed critical) while a great helm or "closed-face" helmet grants a 50% miss chance on critical hit. I could have done something with the critical confirmation roll, but it works better with our group to have a miss chance after the fact (there is satisfaction in rolling your own "save"). Obviously, YMMV. I could also see a 3-step helmet protection based on the 25%, 75% and 100% miss chance from the fortification rules, but 75% and 100% seem much for a non-magic item.
These same miss chances apply to arcane spellcasting (i.e. helmet = no good for wizards). Perhaps bard could cast in light helmet, this issue has not presented itself yet...
With a helmet comes a penalty to perception checks, which are happening often in my games, so it's a big gimp. 20% = -2, and 50% = -5. Just to keep it simple...
'findel