These common things are useless in the game. But what about giving them some use? Is it possible to give helmets +1 vs bludgeoning damage? I liked in BG1 all armor had such modifiers, so that large shields protected from arrows, but small didn't. While I don't know if this is possible to mod here are some ideas for modders free to discuss. All leather boots give +1 to tumble All steel boots give +1 to trip and +1 def against trip attack All leather gloves give +1 to avoid trap damage All steel gloves give +1AC against slashing damage All steell helmets give +1AC vs bludgeoning damage and 20% block against critical hits (In BG1 helmets 100% protected from critical hits and thus were useful) All leather helmets give 10% block against critical hits These bonuses should not be too powerful but yet they make useless things to be useful. Further more if it is possible then leather armor may have -1AC vs Piercing Attacks, smaller shields may have penalty defending arainst arrows and pikes as well, while tower shields may protect better against arrows (but this should be followed with redicing their's general AC, imho AC=4 for tower shields is too much, let it be +3 plus bonus against arrows) Perhaps there should be some fansy clothes to give small bonuses to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate. BTW I'd reduce AC of gladiator's armor. Naked torso with AC of a chainmail??? He-he, may the gladiator's armor give +30 to Bluff when put on female characters? This thing should definetely give an advantage (or disadvantage) against male characters. At least NPC may refuse to talk if somebody in the party is not correctly dressed. So it's intersting to hear modders.
just before you get flamed to bad, we do stick to the rules here and items like that don't do shit in pnp dnd so they wont be getting any stats here. we use a RAW policy sorry. btw I just did some math, I don't recall the actual stats for the gladiator armour but here's what I worked them out to be... Code: 1300 gp Armour Bonus 3 Max Dex 6 Check Penalty-2 Spell failure 10% Speed 30 ft. Weight 20 lb. I came up with this by subtracting a breastplate's stats from the fullplate's stats (which leaves you with what the gladiator armour consists of)
I know that i've seen rules for piecemeal armour in the 2nd ed players option combat and tactics book but I haven't been able to find my copy and can't recall the details. In any case it's still a house rule and not likely to find it's way into a Co8 release.