Drop Helmet for Sake of Leather Armor

[Daedalus]

How does the buckler fare against a spell attack Skulls of Doom Necromancer Spell/Lightning Bolt Storm Master Spell/Spirit of Vengeance Orc Shaman Spell? How about a swinging blade trap attack from WoM?

I like the idea of a cloak not working with heavier armor penalties. Elvin Elven chain mail is also a good upgrade to get past slow chain mail. No chain mail bikini?

[Malcadon]

How does the buckler fare against a spell attack Skulls of Doom Necromancer Spell/Lightning Bolt Storm Master Spell/Spirit of Vengeance Orc Shaman Spell? How about a swinging blade trap attack from WoM?

I like the idea of a cloak not working with heavier armor penalties. Elvin Elven chain mail is also a good upgrade to get past slow chain mail. No chain mail bikini?

I have no idea? I dont have nor use the WoM rules. For Chaos Spells like Lightning Bolt or Firestorm, armor offers little or no additional protection. Although, if you have offensive spells that are effected by defense dice, assume they are range attacks, unless it requires the caster to be next to the victim (much like Vampirc Touch form D&D).

The idea of the Cloak is that it obscures the wearer's profile, giving him/her an edge while dodging. It is best when one is on the move (regardless if they actually moved on not). That, and I did not want it to be layered with Platemail and shield. I have been working on Hero skills, and the Dodge skill have the same stipulation: you cannot dodge with heavy armor on.

Actually, the Chain Mail Bikini and Slave Girl Dress (think Slave Leia's metal bikini) would have the same stats as the Elven Chain Mail and Grognard's Armor respectively.

I should note that I have not used Leather Armor (or any other equivalent armor) in place of the Helmet at my table yet. What I posted are concepts. On the other hand, when we use a female Barbarian, she is called an Amazon, who is bare-chested until she gets Chain Mail in the form of a Chain Mail Bikini, or Plate Mail in the form metal breast plates, and they are treated like their normal versions. The Barbarian is considered shirtless regardless of the armor he is wearing, and the armor becomes chain or plate cod pieces instead. (Yeah, I'm kinda crazy that way. )

[cornixt]

have you thought about going for the "light armour" and "heavy armour" options that Warhammer has, since it leaves the actual type of armour to be pretty open?

[Malcadon]

have you thought about going for the "light armour" and "heavy armour" options that Warhammer has, since it leaves the actual type of armour to be pretty open?

With Warhammer, they needed to keep the weapon/armor list simple to accommodate all the armies within the fiction. As a result, they have "hand weapon" to represent stuff like swords, clubs, maces, warhammers and the like.

The thing that makes the HeroQuest so interesting is its use of specific equipment/treasure with the bit flavor text about them (not to mention the art), and what rules that they might have. Variety is nice, but having multiple items covered by the same stats and rules would only make them feel too generic. After a while it becomes less about the specific item that an individual could have, but the generic category term used in the rules.

Although, the only exception I have in my games are the Heroes themselves, as I like the players the freedom to come-up with their own hero types. On the other hand, having a set of ready-made heroes, like the ones from the published set (and some female equivalents so the girls don't feel alienated), allows players to quickly start-up a game without having to come up with a hero on the spot, and everyone is clear on what all of the heroes looks like.

[cornixt]

HQ does strike a nice balance been customisation and pre-generated characters. When it comes to items like weapons and armour, I think some people go a bit overboard with the variety and try to justify it by making this 3 dice weapon ever so slightly different from the other 3 dice weapons, rather than allowing different items to just have the same rules. The thing I like about combining chainmail and leather armour into the single "light armour" category is just that it allows for a particular model to look the part for a wider variety of options.

[tehchronotrigger]

It is a simple idea. Instead of the Helmet being its own piece of equipment, they are just included as part of a normal suit of armor? With is, Chain Mail and Plate Mail have an extra Defense Die (at 2 and 3 respectively), but that is not from the helmet itself -- this is from the full protection of suits. The extra die improves their innate protection, while it also frees-up a 1 Defense Die slot for Leather Armor, or some other light suit of armor (thick furs, a cape, chainmail bikini, Barsoomian-stlyed battle harness, etc.).

There might be a clearer way to describe this.

Heroes innately know how to defend themselves. Support, quest 6 from base system. Even without armor and weapons, they have defense of 2 dice. I might go farther to say THIS is generous. What if it looked like this outside of a quest that rules specify the defense.

Hero 1 def. + weapon 1 Def = 2 defense dice.

That would make chain mail +1 defense die and plate mail + 2 defense dice, a total of 3 and 4 respectively. With helmet and shield that gives a max of 6 defense, without added potions and modifiers.