So, something I've been considering of late has been just how little love helmets get as practical adventuring gear, and it seems to me that whether your character wears a helmet or not is a matter of vanity. Wearing a set of padded armour, for instance, does not necessarily include wearing a helmet as part of the set. Even in old D&D games like Neverwinter Nights, helmets didn't add to your overall AC, but shields do.
I'm experimenting with a new house rule that the addition of a helmet is a simple way of preventing premature death that can be worn by anyone. The head is very vulnerable, after all. You'd think it'd be the most important thing to armour. In medieval tapestries, even the poorest footmen had SOME kind of head protection on.
The problem of course is in game balance. I mean, if we're min-maxing, there's no reason to NOT wear a metal bucket on your head in that case, which means parties of characters with their immaculately sculpted features hidden behind 'dumb looking helmets'.
But let's be real here: If you're going into a lot of combat, the one thing you probably are NOT going to be without is a good helmet. Legolas's long flowing locks be damned, there ARE helmet designs out there that don't just look like buckets with eye holes, and for good reason. Helmets are a piece of armour you're supposed to be able to easily put on and take off, and anyone can wear one effectively without any sort of training. All it needs is a chin strap. They're not supposed to be on ALL THE TIME because they often restrict vision or muffle hearing.
So, with that in mind, I think a good tradeoff that makes whether or not to wear a helmet up to the player from a strategic standpoint is that while wearing a helmet increases AC like it's cooler counterpart the shield does, wearing one also limits bonuses to perception rolls... so if you're running around like the protagonist of an overrated grimdark anime starring a nitwit who goes about murderhoboing little green people all the time, you're going to be easy to sneak up on because you're constantly limiting your peripheral vision and muffling your hearing. A ranged character is probably NOT going to be wanting their vision or hearing restricted while they're watching for back-row threats and listening to spotters telling them where to put their next shot, for instance.
For simplicity's sake, I'm thinking helmets should be broken up into two categories: half-helms and full-helms.
Half-helms increase your AC by 1 but restrict your perception/investigation/intuition bonuses to +2. Half-helms are basically armoured hats. They leave the face mostly exposed and are primarily concerned with protecting the top, sides, and back of the head. Full helms increase your AC by 2 but restrict your perception bonus to +2 and if you didn't already HAVE a perception bonus, actually make investigation/perception/intuition rolls suffer a -2 penalty because they protect the entire head including the face.
And hey, while we're at it, because helmets ARE to easy to put on and take off, that makes them vulnerable to being knocked off from a particularly bad hit. Knocking the helmet off an enemy requires a hit and a DC check of 17 sounds JUST likely enough to make it a 'common sense' strategy to combating armoured opponents and whittling down their defenses that's not a complete longshot.
What do you folks think? Should helmets get some love as practical adventuring gear that anyone can use to increase character longevity or is it skirting 'too many rules' territory?
I'm not up on DMing the 5e rules, but I agree that there should be some bonus (house rule) for wearing a helmet ... an easy one is if you use some critical hit table to eliminate any roll that would otherwise damage the head. No AC bonus, and a hit to the head would always be treated as normal (representing the helm getting knocked about but no long term concussion or whatnot).
As a note - helmets are assumed to be part of a suit of armor in D&D, rather than a separate piece of equipment. Same with any part of the armor, such as gauntlets, boots etc.
Anyone wearing a suit of armor, has a helm/helmet as part of that.
One of the cool things about making it abstract in this way is that players are given more freedom in terms of the visuals of their character, such as deciding that their armor is reinforced elsewhere and doesn't include a helm.
As a note - helmets are assumed to be part of a suit of armor in D&D, rather than a separate piece of equipment. Same with any part of the armor, such as gauntlets, boots etc.
Anyone wearing a suit of armor, has a helm/helmet as part of that.
One of the cool things about making it abstract in this way is that players are given more freedom in terms of the visuals of their character, such as deciding that their armor is reinforced elsewhere and doesn't include a helm.
Right, be that as it may though, I feel it is doing a disservice to simple protective, non-magical headwear to make it purely cosmetic. I would argue that helmets should be their own part considering that you may be wearing a suit of padded armour because you're a 'light armour' class, but decide "Hey, my brain house needs a new roof. I mean, it's the most important part of my body, after all." there's nothing stopping you from buying a nice steel kettle helm that makes you way harder to significantly injure.
Like, I get it, shields are cooler than helmets, but if most classes can hide behind shields to increase their AC, I think helmets should offer the same bonus considering their job is to protect the brain. You know, the part you can't live without?
I thought about this while playing some old D&D games and realized just how bizarre it was that helmets never gave you any sort of bonus. You could buy them separately from your armour, but unless they were magic in some way, they didn't do anything... but what's the first thing you do if you're riding a motorcycle? Put on your helmet. Play contact sports? You may have forgotten your other gear, but can't play without a helmet. Work construction? That hard hat is a helmet. Are you a firefighter? Put that helmet on! It's such a simple thing to do to add protection.
But, not everyone wants to wear a 'dumb helmet', and there ARE drawbacks to particularly heavy-duty head wear, which is why I figure the perception/investigation/intuition penalty does offer some sort of appreciable benefit to NOT wearing one. Makes it easier to keep aware of your surroundings.
I'm not up on DMing the 5e rules, but I agree that there should be some bonus (house rule) for wearing a helmet ... an easy one is if you use some critical hit table to eliminate any roll that would otherwise damage the head. No AC bonus, and a hit to the head would always be treated as normal (representing the helm getting knocked about but no long term concussion or whatnot).
Oh, I like that a lot. Absorbs a crit for you but gets knocked off. How cinematic! Simple, and behaves in a sensible way to the actual thing. Very nice!
in that case you should also address gloves, boots, and all the rest of the pieces of armor...and give anyone in a standard suit of armor a penalty if they're not physically wearing all the pieces at the time of attack (sure you can socialize/eat/rest/sleep (with a penalty) with your armor on...but are you really going to do all that with your helmet on too? by pulling out the helmet into its one item, i think there's no way to do it without making the system significantly more complicated.
in that case you should also address gloves, boots, and all the rest of the pieces of armor...and give anyone in a standard suit of armor a penalty if they're not physically wearing all the pieces at the time of attack (sure you can socialize/eat/rest/sleep (with a penalty) with your armor on...but are you really going to do all that with your helmet on too? by pulling out the helmet into its one item, i think there's no way to do it without making the system significantly more complicated.
too many rules territory imo.
Exactly! If you want to deal with armor on some parts and none on others or different kinds of armor - plate on the chest, leather on the legs, you are playing the wrong game. You can (thankfully) make it abstract in D&D. But if you want it to matter that some parts are covered and others not, then you should play something else.
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in that case you should also address gloves, boots, and all the rest of the pieces of armor...and give anyone in a standard suit of armor a penalty if they're not physically wearing all the pieces at the time of attack (sure you can socialize/eat/rest/sleep (with a penalty) with your armor on...but are you really going to do all that with your helmet on too? by pulling out the helmet into its one item, i think there's no way to do it without making the system significantly more complicated.
too many rules territory imo.
Well, here's the thing: bracers, gloves, leg grieves, boots, those things don't protect your BRAIN. You kind of need that. Helmets save lives. Gloves, bracers, and boots do not. How many times have you heard "The helmet saved their life"? Most of all, consider this: helmets are standard issue military gear today. Shields are not, but shields are cool, so they get special treatment. I'm just arguing that helmets are just as important if not moreso than shields for preventing injury and should be considered their own separate entity for reducing the chance of damage. Besides, it's just another 1 or 2 AC, but it can mean the difference between life and death... kind of like wearing a helmet in combat.
Helmets save lives. Gloves, bracers, and boots do not.
That is categorically incorrect. Clearly you have a poor understanding of human anatomy. There are places all over the body where even a minor-moderate puncture (say, from something like a common #2 pencil) could nick an artery and your own heart would pump the entire volume of your blood out of your body in under 2 minutes. Unless it happened in a hospital, or at least someone trained in emergency care was right there, then you would be dead and nothing could stop it.
Those spots include the wrist and forearm that would normally be protected by gloves and/or bracers; the top of the foot near the great toe, and right behind the ankle* on the inside which would normally be protected by boots and/or greaves; as well as: behind the knee, the inside of the thigh near the hip, the inside of the elbow, under the bicep, in the underarm, and the neck (obviously). That doesn’t include any of the spots on the torso, just the extremities, and that’s not even really all of them, just the easiest spots to hit. *(The likely origin of the famed story of Achilles, the Posterior Tibial near the the pulse point.)
Yes, you read that correctly, if someone stabs you on the top of the foot in the right spot it could kill you in under 2-3 minutes at best. And with nothing more dangerous than what you took (or will take) the SATs with.
Helmets save lives. Gloves, bracers, and boots do not.
That is categorically incorrect. Clearly you have a poor understanding of human anatomy. There are places all over the body where even a minor-moderate puncture (say, from something like a common #2 pencil) could nick an artery and your own heart would pump the entire volume of your blood out of your body in under 2 minutes. Unless it happened in a hospital, or at least someone trained in emergency care was right there, then you would be dead and nothing could stop it.
Those spots include the wrist and forearm that would normally be protected by gloves and/or bracers; the top of the foot near the great toe, and right behind the ankle* on the inside which would normally be protected by boots and/or greaves; as well as: behind the knee, the inside of the thigh near the hip, the inside of the elbow, under the bicep, in the underarm, and the neck (obviously). That doesn’t include any of the spots on the torso, just the extremities, and that’s not even really all of them, just the easiest spots to hit. *(The likely origin of the famed story of Achilles, the Posterior Tibial near the the pulse point.)
Yes, you read that correctly, if someone stabs you on the top of the foot in the right spot it could kill you in under 2-3 minutes at best. And with nothing more dangerous than what you took (or will take) the SATs with.
Well obviously you want full body coverage for armour, I'm not saying that a really good helmet will protect you from the MAJORITY of harm, but this isn't GURPS where combat is slowed to a crawl with a called shot being announced every move and every injury is categorically monitored and offers its own brand of penalty to future actions to the point you just want to tell your players that rocks fall and everyone dies. Plus, it is way, WAY harder to target those specific vessels of the body in physical combat; that's kind of what the natural 20 rule is for, it's a lucky hit to a vital area, which transcends the protection of all normal armour ANYWAY. In general and remember this is D&D, so we're keeping things simple, when it comes to physical combat, stabbing victims typically have defensive wounds on the limbs that are superficial and not the cause of death. It's far, far less likely (not impossible, but LESS likely) that a fighter would be killed by not wearing armour on their limbs. Not wearing body or head protection, however, is opening yourself up to a swift death. This is just common sense. Consider how many major arteries are protected by a helmet. Professional wrestlers cut themselves with hidden razor blades to bleed profusely as a stunt, and some have messed it up badly enough that they've gone into shock (which is why they're not allowed to do it anymore in major promotions). Consider too how easy it is to receive a serious injury by a blow to the head. It doesn't take much. Read up on the kinds of wounds that soldiers have survived and it's kind of incredible how much punishment the human body can take as long as the major organs are intact.
The reason I've been considering this rule so strongly is simply that player characters are a little bit on the easy side to hit. Like, even 1/4 CR monsters have a +4 to hit and a bonus to damage on average. If you're a class with light armour and you didn't roll high for your DEX, on average you're going to have an AC of about 11-14. That means that a little pipsqueak goblin that weighs 40 kg has at least a 50% chance to hit a level 1 character for pretty significant damage. The flip of a coin. And, there may not be any extra options for defense for that character. Adding a half-helm drops that likelihood 5%. Not a big change, but it COULD make all the difference when even the most basic monsters have a pretty fair chance of taking down a player in just 2-3 bad rolls. What is this, XCOM?
After some thought, I suppose functionally there wouldn't be any difference if I just universally reduced all monster bonuses to hit by 2, though honestly, I do REALLY like the idea of critical strikes actually knocking off a helmet and functionally reducing an enemy's AC or having helmets actually tank a single crit for you.
I mostly feel though that it breaks a bit of immersion, having helmets be such an inconsequential piece of equipment while shields get that +2 AC swagger considering how important helmets are as protection across so many professions. It really just strikes me as an odd choice; I mean, it's not like D&D players are any strangers to having to keep track of an expansive inventory. Regular helmet? Meh, just there for looks, sell it at the next town. Magical hat +1 AC? I'M NEVER TAKING THIS OFF UNTIL I GET A BETTER ONE.
Come on, you've all seen it happen!
When looking at it from a game balance aspect, helmets really do have that nice little niche that can offer benefits and drawbacks. Like, for a level 1 fighter, there's almost no reason to not have a shield when you're a fragile little baby adventurer that can be 2-shot by a lucky kobold on their first encounter. Now, what if a helmet gives that fighter +2 to AC, they now have the confidence to use a larger 2-handed sword to deal more damage without having to worry so much about that kobold farting too aggressively in his direction and knocking him flat... or, if that fighter has angered the dice gods, helmet AND shield him up and now that kobold only has a 40% chance to get through a not-too-dexterous fighter's breastplate armour, shield, and helmet, just don't expect that fighter to notice anything that's not directly in front of him.
Or, maybe I can just do that universal -2 to hit after all. Hmm.
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PCs are supposed to be that easy to hit. As is, PCs are almost impossible to kill unless the DM is actively trying, or doesn’t know how to balance things properly yet. They may no be supposed to die easily, but they are supposed to get the snot kicked out of them every day. Every adventuring day that includes heavy combat should be like Die Hard. Light combat day, whatever, no big deal. But a combat heavy day should be brutal. If it isn’t hard fought, it isn’t hard won. And if it isn’t hard won, it isn’t worth it. The players should feel like their characters are constantly loosing until the moment they win. It should be terrifying for them. It should feel like they could die at any moment, but somehow survive anyway. It should be epic. That’s the point.
If every fight is a walkover with pillows for weapons, then it’s a yawnfest. It should feel like cannons are hurling flaming chainsaws at them the whole time, because that is frickin’ awesome! That... that is where legends are born....
It should feel like cannons are hurling flaming chainsaws at them the whole time, because that is frickin’ awesome! That... that is where legends are born....
I gotta remember that.
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Well, taking the monster manual at face value, it's actually hard to NOT kill level 1's with how much damage and advantage even the lowest level monsters have against PC's without outstanding ability scores. A goblin or a kobold, the most basic of basic baddies, have a to-hit bonus of a character with 18 STR and +2 to damage, despite having a STR penalty. How does that even work?
Mathematically, a goblin, a single goblin, against a level 1 human fighter who wasn't lucky when rolling up and got Average McJoestar, has a 1 in 3 chance of defeating a PC armed with a short sword and middle-of-the-road armour in just 2 turns, and a 50% chance of beating one in fair, open one-on-one combat in 3. We're talking knocked unconscious on the second attack, even in full scale mail. Taken down by a creature no bigger than a 6th grader because the dice just didn't cooperate. Again, what is this, XCOM?
If they're small and weak, they should be a threat only in large numbers, not when they're on an even keel... unless I just haven't read the rules closely enough and missed a blurb where smaller humanoids suffer disadvantage when trying to attack those larger than them.
Put simply, armour should feel like ARMOUR, not bloody cardboard.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I can just adjust creatures manually and I don't need to take the stats as gospel, but it's just a little irritating because most of my play is here in the forums, and I can't exactly flub my rolls without my players noticing. I mean, they may not CARE, but it does feel.... messy. I don't have a DM screen here. Giving helmets the ability to be protective serves as a natural way to offer a no-coverup means for players to give themselves that little extra advantage that's not plot armour. Plus, it makes sense. Can't afford to upgrade to full plate? Get a good helmet; it's cheaper and it'll at least give you a small buff if you're the party's front line.
Am I crazy? I'm just trying to make my players feel less like they're playing characters who suck because they have to gang up to beat a single orc like some drunken frat beatdown and more like they should have heroic music in the background, not the B-52's.... or is there a 'DM screen' command I've completely missed on the forums and I've wasted an entire afternoon thinking about this?
Easy helmet rule, for those who want helmets in their game: A helmet (of any stripe) provides a +1 bonus to AC but imposes disadvantage on perception checks. Helmets take an action to don or doff.
I'm split on the idea, primarily because of exactly what Stormknight mentioned - armor is already assumed to include whatever appropriate domewear is included with that armor, and if players want their character art depicting them with their face instead of the blank, cold metal of a barbute helm? Why give them the sass for it?
If a table is using expanded crit effects or injury rules, a character who specifically wears a helmet can have drastically reduced chances to receive brainial injuries, but having an inexpensive mundane item that grants bonus AC feels like the sort of thing that could get out of hand. Even with the hit to Perception, that pot's never coming off that pothead on most players. Players will do anything to get more AC, primarily because armor is utterly worthless at actually protecting you unless you stack so bloody much of it that nothing connects.
There's no "Oh, the other guy managed to land a blow, but my ungodly expensive full platemail absorbed or deflected most of the blow!" Nah. A hit either whiffs or it deals full damage, no matter if you're wearing a hundred pounds of hardened steel or a cocktail dress and heels - and the cocktail dress and heels aren't necessarily any easier to connect with than the guy in a hundred pounds of steel.
Easy helmet rule, for those who want helmets in their game: A helmet (of any stripe) provides a +1 bonus to AC but imposes disadvantage on perception checks. Helmets take an action to don or doff.
I'm split on the idea, primarily because of exactly what Stormknight mentioned - armor is already assumed to include whatever appropriate domewear is included with that armor, and if players want their character art depicting them with their face instead of the blank, cold metal of a barbute helm? Why give them the sass for it?
If a table is using expanded crit effects or injury rules, a character who specifically wears a helmet can have drastically reduced chances to receive brainial injuries, but having an inexpensive mundane item that grants bonus AC feels like the sort of thing that could get out of hand. Even with the hit to Perception, that pot's never coming off that pothead on most players. Players will do anything to get more AC, primarily because armor is utterly worthless at actually protecting you unless you stack so bloody much of it that nothing connects.
There's no "Oh, the other guy managed to land a blow, but my ungodly expensive full platemail absorbed or deflected most of the blow!" Nah. A hit either whiffs or it deals full damage, no matter if you're wearing a hundred pounds of hardened steel or a cocktail dress and heels - and the cocktail dress and heels aren't necessarily any easier to connect with than the guy in a hundred pounds of steel.
So, something I've been considering of late has been just how little love helmets get as practical adventuring gear, and it seems to me that whether your character wears a helmet or not is a matter of vanity. Wearing a set of padded armour, for instance, does not necessarily include wearing a helmet as part of the set. Even in old D&D games like Neverwinter Nights, helmets didn't add to your overall AC, but shields do.
I'm experimenting with a new house rule that the addition of a helmet is a simple way of preventing premature death that can be worn by anyone. The head is very vulnerable, after all. You'd think it'd be the most important thing to armour. In medieval tapestries, even the poorest footmen had SOME kind of head protection on.
The problem of course is in game balance. I mean, if we're min-maxing, there's no reason to NOT wear a metal bucket on your head in that case, which means parties of characters with their immaculately sculpted features hidden behind 'dumb looking helmets'.
But let's be real here: If you're going into a lot of combat, the one thing you probably are NOT going to be without is a good helmet. Legolas's long flowing locks be damned, there ARE helmet designs out there that don't just look like buckets with eye holes, and for good reason. Helmets are a piece of armour you're supposed to be able to easily put on and take off, and anyone can wear one effectively without any sort of training. All it needs is a chin strap. They're not supposed to be on ALL THE TIME because they often restrict vision or muffle hearing.
So, with that in mind, I think a good tradeoff that makes whether or not to wear a helmet up to the player from a strategic standpoint is that while wearing a helmet increases AC like it's cooler counterpart the shield does, wearing one also limits bonuses to perception rolls... so if you're running around like the protagonist of an overrated grimdark anime starring a nitwit who goes about murderhoboing little green people all the time, you're going to be easy to sneak up on because you're constantly limiting your peripheral vision and muffling your hearing. A ranged character is probably NOT going to be wanting their vision or hearing restricted while they're watching for back-row threats and listening to spotters telling them where to put their next shot, for instance.
For simplicity's sake, I'm thinking helmets should be broken up into two categories: half-helms and full-helms.
Half-helms increase your AC by 1 but restrict your perception/investigation/intuition bonuses to +2. Half-helms are basically armoured hats. They leave the face mostly exposed and are primarily concerned with protecting the top, sides, and back of the head.
Full helms increase your AC by 2 but restrict your perception bonus to +2 and if you didn't already HAVE a perception bonus, actually make investigation/perception/intuition rolls suffer a -2 penalty because they protect the entire head including the face.
And hey, while we're at it, because helmets ARE to easy to put on and take off, that makes them vulnerable to being knocked off from a particularly bad hit. Knocking the helmet off an enemy requires a hit and a DC check of 17 sounds JUST likely enough to make it a 'common sense' strategy to combating armoured opponents and whittling down their defenses that's not a complete longshot.
What do you folks think? Should helmets get some love as practical adventuring gear that anyone can use to increase character longevity or is it skirting 'too many rules' territory?
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I'm not up on DMing the 5e rules, but I agree that there should be some bonus (house rule) for wearing a helmet ... an easy one is if you use some critical hit table to eliminate any roll that would otherwise damage the head. No AC bonus, and a hit to the head would always be treated as normal (representing the helm getting knocked about but no long term concussion or whatnot).
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D&D Beyond FoundersAs a note - helmets are assumed to be part of a suit of armor in D&D, rather than a separate piece of equipment. Same with any part of the armor, such as gauntlets, boots etc.
Anyone wearing a suit of armor, has a helm/helmet as part of that.
One of the cool things about making it abstract in this way is that players are given more freedom in terms of the visuals of their character, such as deciding that their armor is reinforced elsewhere and doesn't include a helm.
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Right, be that as it may though, I feel it is doing a disservice to simple protective, non-magical headwear to make it purely cosmetic. I would argue that helmets should be their own part considering that you may be wearing a suit of padded armour because you're a 'light armour' class, but decide "Hey, my brain house needs a new roof. I mean, it's the most important part of my body, after all." there's nothing stopping you from buying a nice steel kettle helm that makes you way harder to significantly injure.
Like, I get it, shields are cooler than helmets, but if most classes can hide behind shields to increase their AC, I think helmets should offer the same bonus considering their job is to protect the brain. You know, the part you can't live without?
I thought about this while playing some old D&D games and realized just how bizarre it was that helmets never gave you any sort of bonus. You could buy them separately from your armour, but unless they were magic in some way, they didn't do anything... but what's the first thing you do if you're riding a motorcycle? Put on your helmet. Play contact sports? You may have forgotten your other gear, but can't play without a helmet. Work construction? That hard hat is a helmet. Are you a firefighter? Put that helmet on! It's such a simple thing to do to add protection.
But, not everyone wants to wear a 'dumb helmet', and there ARE drawbacks to particularly heavy-duty head wear, which is why I figure the perception/investigation/intuition penalty does offer some sort of appreciable benefit to NOT wearing one. Makes it easier to keep aware of your surroundings.
Oh, I like that a lot. Absorbs a crit for you but gets knocked off. How cinematic! Simple, and behaves in a sensible way to the actual thing. Very nice!
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Heroes don’t wear helmets because they interfering with the close ups shots and they pay all that money so we can see the actors’ faces.
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in that case you should also address gloves, boots, and all the rest of the pieces of armor...and give anyone in a standard suit of armor a penalty if they're not physically wearing all the pieces at the time of attack (sure you can socialize/eat/rest/sleep (with a penalty) with your armor on...but are you really going to do all that with your helmet on too? by pulling out the helmet into its one item, i think there's no way to do it without making the system significantly more complicated.
too many rules territory imo.
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Unless the guy wears a helmet for the whole show until it becomes emotionally significant.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
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"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
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Exactly! If you want to deal with armor on some parts and none on others or different kinds of armor - plate on the chest, leather on the legs, you are playing the wrong game. You can (thankfully) make it abstract in D&D. But if you want it to matter that some parts are covered and others not, then you should play something else.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
True. Or like in Dredd where Urban found ways to emote with what was visible. (Damn. Now I wanna go back and watch that again. That was a good movie.)
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Well, here's the thing: bracers, gloves, leg grieves, boots, those things don't protect your BRAIN. You kind of need that. Helmets save lives. Gloves, bracers, and boots do not. How many times have you heard "The helmet saved their life"? Most of all, consider this: helmets are standard issue military gear today. Shields are not, but shields are cool, so they get special treatment. I'm just arguing that helmets are just as important if not moreso than shields for preventing injury and should be considered their own separate entity for reducing the chance of damage. Besides, it's just another 1 or 2 AC, but it can mean the difference between life and death... kind of like wearing a helmet in combat.
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
That is categorically incorrect. Clearly you have a poor understanding of human anatomy. There are places all over the body where even a minor-moderate puncture (say, from something like a common #2 pencil) could nick an artery and your own heart would pump the entire volume of your blood out of your body in under 2 minutes. Unless it happened in a hospital, or at least someone trained in emergency care was right there, then you would be dead and nothing could stop it.
Those spots include the wrist and forearm that would normally be protected by gloves and/or bracers; the top of the foot near the great toe, and right behind the ankle* on the inside which would normally be protected by boots and/or greaves; as well as: behind the knee, the inside of the thigh near the hip, the inside of the elbow, under the bicep, in the underarm, and the neck (obviously). That doesn’t include any of the spots on the torso, just the extremities, and that’s not even really all of them, just the easiest spots to hit.
*(The likely origin of the famed story of Achilles, the Posterior Tibial near the the pulse point.)
Yes, you read that correctly, if someone stabs you on the top of the foot in the right spot it could kill you in under 2-3 minutes at best. And with nothing more dangerous than what you took (or will take) the SATs with.
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Well obviously you want full body coverage for armour, I'm not saying that a really good helmet will protect you from the MAJORITY of harm, but this isn't GURPS where combat is slowed to a crawl with a called shot being announced every move and every injury is categorically monitored and offers its own brand of penalty to future actions to the point you just want to tell your players that rocks fall and everyone dies. Plus, it is way, WAY harder to target those specific vessels of the body in physical combat; that's kind of what the natural 20 rule is for, it's a lucky hit to a vital area, which transcends the protection of all normal armour ANYWAY.
In general and remember this is D&D, so we're keeping things simple, when it comes to physical combat, stabbing victims typically have defensive wounds on the limbs that are superficial and not the cause of death. It's far, far less likely (not impossible, but LESS likely) that a fighter would be killed by not wearing armour on their limbs. Not wearing body or head protection, however, is opening yourself up to a swift death. This is just common sense.
Consider how many major arteries are protected by a helmet. Professional wrestlers cut themselves with hidden razor blades to bleed profusely as a stunt, and some have messed it up badly enough that they've gone into shock (which is why they're not allowed to do it anymore in major promotions). Consider too how easy it is to receive a serious injury by a blow to the head. It doesn't take much. Read up on the kinds of wounds that soldiers have survived and it's kind of incredible how much punishment the human body can take as long as the major organs are intact.
The reason I've been considering this rule so strongly is simply that player characters are a little bit on the easy side to hit. Like, even 1/4 CR monsters have a +4 to hit and a bonus to damage on average. If you're a class with light armour and you didn't roll high for your DEX, on average you're going to have an AC of about 11-14. That means that a little pipsqueak goblin that weighs 40 kg has at least a 50% chance to hit a level 1 character for pretty significant damage. The flip of a coin. And, there may not be any extra options for defense for that character. Adding a half-helm drops that likelihood 5%. Not a big change, but it COULD make all the difference when even the most basic monsters have a pretty fair chance of taking down a player in just 2-3 bad rolls. What is this, XCOM?
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
After some thought, I suppose functionally there wouldn't be any difference if I just universally reduced all monster bonuses to hit by 2, though honestly, I do REALLY like the idea of critical strikes actually knocking off a helmet and functionally reducing an enemy's AC or having helmets actually tank a single crit for you.
I mostly feel though that it breaks a bit of immersion, having helmets be such an inconsequential piece of equipment while shields get that +2 AC swagger considering how important helmets are as protection across so many professions. It really just strikes me as an odd choice; I mean, it's not like D&D players are any strangers to having to keep track of an expansive inventory. Regular helmet? Meh, just there for looks, sell it at the next town.
Magical hat +1 AC? I'M NEVER TAKING THIS OFF UNTIL I GET A BETTER ONE.
Come on, you've all seen it happen!
When looking at it from a game balance aspect, helmets really do have that nice little niche that can offer benefits and drawbacks. Like, for a level 1 fighter, there's almost no reason to not have a shield when you're a fragile little baby adventurer that can be 2-shot by a lucky kobold on their first encounter. Now, what if a helmet gives that fighter +2 to AC, they now have the confidence to use a larger 2-handed sword to deal more damage without having to worry so much about that kobold farting too aggressively in his direction and knocking him flat... or, if that fighter has angered the dice gods, helmet AND shield him up and now that kobold only has a 40% chance to get through a not-too-dexterous fighter's breastplate armour, shield, and helmet, just don't expect that fighter to notice anything that's not directly in front of him.
Or, maybe I can just do that universal -2 to hit after all. Hmm.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
How about this:
Every suit of armor has by default a helmet or head protection of some kind.
You can voluntarily NOT wear your helmet or head protection which will decrease your AC by 1.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
PCs are supposed to be that easy to hit. As is, PCs are almost impossible to kill unless the DM is actively trying, or doesn’t know how to balance things properly yet. They may no be supposed to die easily, but they are supposed to get the snot kicked out of them every day. Every adventuring day that includes heavy combat should be like Die Hard. Light combat day, whatever, no big deal. But a combat heavy day should be brutal. If it isn’t hard fought, it isn’t hard won. And if it isn’t hard won, it isn’t worth it. The players should feel like their characters are constantly loosing until the moment they win. It should be terrifying for them. It should feel like they could die at any moment, but somehow survive anyway. It should be epic. That’s the point.
If every fight is a walkover with pillows for weapons, then it’s a yawnfest. It should feel like cannons are hurling flaming chainsaws at them the whole time, because that is frickin’ awesome! That... that is where legends are born....
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I gotta remember that.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Well, taking the monster manual at face value, it's actually hard to NOT kill level 1's with how much damage and advantage even the lowest level monsters have against PC's without outstanding ability scores. A goblin or a kobold, the most basic of basic baddies, have a to-hit bonus of a character with 18 STR and +2 to damage, despite having a STR penalty. How does that even work?
Mathematically, a goblin, a single goblin, against a level 1 human fighter who wasn't lucky when rolling up and got Average McJoestar, has a 1 in 3 chance of defeating a PC armed with a short sword and middle-of-the-road armour in just 2 turns, and a 50% chance of beating one in fair, open one-on-one combat in 3. We're talking knocked unconscious on the second attack, even in full scale mail. Taken down by a creature no bigger than a 6th grader because the dice just didn't cooperate.
Again, what is this, XCOM?
If they're small and weak, they should be a threat only in large numbers, not when they're on an even keel... unless I just haven't read the rules closely enough and missed a blurb where smaller humanoids suffer disadvantage when trying to attack those larger than them.
Put simply, armour should feel like ARMOUR, not bloody cardboard.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I can just adjust creatures manually and I don't need to take the stats as gospel, but it's just a little irritating because most of my play is here in the forums, and I can't exactly flub my rolls without my players noticing. I mean, they may not CARE, but it does feel.... messy. I don't have a DM screen here.
Giving helmets the ability to be protective serves as a natural way to offer a no-coverup means for players to give themselves that little extra advantage that's not plot armour. Plus, it makes sense. Can't afford to upgrade to full plate? Get a good helmet; it's cheaper and it'll at least give you a small buff if you're the party's front line.
Am I crazy? I'm just trying to make my players feel less like they're playing characters who suck because they have to gang up to beat a single orc like some drunken frat beatdown and more like they should have heroic music in the background, not the B-52's.... or is there a 'DM screen' command I've completely missed on the forums and I've wasted an entire afternoon thinking about this?
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Easy helmet rule, for those who want helmets in their game: A helmet (of any stripe) provides a +1 bonus to AC but imposes disadvantage on perception checks. Helmets take an action to don or doff.
I'm split on the idea, primarily because of exactly what Stormknight mentioned - armor is already assumed to include whatever appropriate domewear is included with that armor, and if players want their character art depicting them with their face instead of the blank, cold metal of a barbute helm? Why give them the sass for it?
If a table is using expanded crit effects or injury rules, a character who specifically wears a helmet can have drastically reduced chances to receive brainial injuries, but having an inexpensive mundane item that grants bonus AC feels like the sort of thing that could get out of hand. Even with the hit to Perception, that pot's never coming off that pothead on most players. Players will do anything to get more AC, primarily because armor is utterly worthless at actually protecting you unless you stack so bloody much of it that nothing connects.
There's no "Oh, the other guy managed to land a blow, but my ungodly expensive full platemail absorbed or deflected most of the blow!" Nah. A hit either whiffs or it deals full damage, no matter if you're wearing a hundred pounds of hardened steel or a cocktail dress and heels - and the cocktail dress and heels aren't necessarily any easier to connect with than the guy in a hundred pounds of steel.
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