A Weary character without Armor, with and Helm, with Body 7 and spending a Point of Hope on a Protection roll will roll a Feat die + 4 (Helm) + 7 (Body) to negate the wound?

Looks correct to me. You don't need to spend the point of Hope until after you roll though.

Blocking with your head...nice.

Is a G an auto success with Protection rolls...I don't remember...

Yep. G is for all rolls.

Interesting idea. I assume no one would actually go sans armour and just a helm given the Hope cost of this approach and lack of fictional sense.

It do agree that the helm bonus being unaffected by being Weary is an interesting feature. I always thought the Fatigue cost of a helm is high per point of protection, but I may have underestimated them.

It seems strange to me that Armors are less efficient if you are Weary, while Helms dont.

To avoid this effect, I guess you could houserule that a helm adds 1 die of protection rather than 4 pts.

I thought it weird that armour is less effective when weary, but Francesco was quite insistent that it was correct in another thread.

The assumption being, that if weary, you are less mobile and easier to hit or you opponent can find a weak spot (the arm pit for example).

Although the mobility issue may apply with a helmet, they less vulnerable to weak spots, so I'd leave the rule as it stands... but I might give the character that is a 'deflecting blows with his head' a lot of headaches

But a weary character with no armor and only an helm has A LOT of weak spots (his entire body)... still his protection roll will not suffer because of this.

My initial thought on this is that this approach is gaming from a purely mechanistic point-of-view; something I am exceedingly lucky to avoid with my current group who, mostly, plays to story and theme over mechanics. As such, the other players at the table would laugh at the idea.

Futher thought on it, however, and I could see this as an approach, but, when comparing the general weapons and TNs of the Shadow-foe's weapons against the general protection rating provided in this manner, you're going to have (depending, of course, on the amount of combat in your game) a Wounded, Miserable, or Dead character in short order. Granted, others may be Weary, but that, by comparison, is quickly recovered, whereas Wounds persist until fully healed, Hope returns at a very deliberate and slow rate, and dead is, well, dead.

So, it is an approach to defense, but not one based on long-term survival. It is also done to avoid one of the easier forms of recoverable "damage".

Doc

Having thought about this some more, I still like it, and it seems to meet Luke's objections. Numerically it's almost equivalent - 3.5 vs 4 on average - and it means that helms suffer from Weariness just as mail does.

On the other hand, I'm sure this idea must have occurred to the designers. Anyone got any thoughts on why they would have rejected this option? Thoughts from the actual designers welcome, of course

Mine was an extreme example.
The question is:
"Why the Protection bonus of an Helm is not affected by Weariness while the Protection bonus of a Leather Shirt is? (and both leave unprotected spots)"

It seems strange to me.

You can(if you like) divide the protection given by a helmet by two if the character is weary... et voila!

The simple answer is this... it's your game, so if you don't like a rule... change it!

Don't forget that this system is not into the detailed rules. A helmet gives you protection, if you are not wearing any other armour then you are guaranteed to fail a protection test as even the lowest injury number is 12, you have just too many unarmoured places to being wounded. You would have to have an attribute of 8 in order to successfully avoid injury.

Actually this is not correct. You can pass the Protection test caused by any weapon by rolling the G rune. Narratively, I see this as meaning that you don't need armour, but it certainly ups your chances...

While it is true enough that the G rune is automatic success, it doesn't mean that you don't need armour. You can't rely on rolling G you are just as likely to roll the eye. That said, it is true enough that you get the feat die result. So, it was a little bit of an exageration that someone only having a helm is guaranteed to fail.

E