So that shield is canonically worn as a hat/helmet and I was wondering how do you "balance" the stats (Deflection 2 and Defense 1 mainly)? It seems really strong to be able to have a ranged defense of 2 with a melee defense of 1 with just a helmet and then add on top of that your armor.

There are no official "rules" like using a maneuver maybe to kinda ready yourself and aim the hat at the enemy to deflect the blaster bolts or whatnot.

I assumed to get the full bonus of the hat one would first have to hail from that culture and actively wield it; Clearly this is quite an exotic weapon that is unusual to manage, so if they where wearing it on their head while fighting and gaining from it's protection I would probably impose some setback dice on combat checks, because to block attacks you have to break line of sight on your target. Taking it off to carry in an arm would remove that. I would incorperate some damage reduction for dispairs (they hit the hat instead of the head)

I mean the only episode I saw with this hat the guy was surfing on it while using his blaster rifle.

To take full advantage of this shield, while worn as a helmet, would seem to require a lot of keeping your head down (not to mention the extremely counterintuitive maneuvering, to parry incoming attacks with your head).

I believe requiring a maneuver, or perhaps even applying a setback to attacks made by the helmeted combatant, would be appropriate.

LordBritish just beat me to it, but I'll let this stand.

19 hours ago, Striderman said:

So that shield is canonically worn as a hat/helmet and I was wondering how do you "balance" the stats (Deflection 2 and Defense 1 mainly)? It seems really strong to be able to have a ranged defense of 2 with a melee defense of 1 with just a helmet and then add on top of that your armor.

There are no official "rules" like using a maneuver maybe to kinda ready yourself and aim the hat at the enemy to deflect the blaster bolts or whatnot.

Funny enough, the rules on armor & defense basically go against everything this helmet is about, since you cannot stack soak from different armors and defense from multiple sources cannot stack... under RAW, you'd have to choose the soak and defense of your helmet or the soak and defense of your armor.

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Funny enough, the rules on armor & defense basically go against everything this helmet is about, since you cannot stack soak from different armors and defense from multiple sources cannot stack... under RAW, you'd have to choose the soak and defense of your helmet or the soak and defense of your armor.

The shield has Defensive 1 and Deflection 2, which is not the same has defense. Those rules increase defense, rather than set a defense value. I would say that it would add to the defense of your armor since it says increase, rather than "the wearer has a X defense equal to rating"

3 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Funny enough, the rules on armor & defense basically go against everything this helmet is about, since you cannot stack soak from different armors and defense from multiple sources cannot stack... under RAW, you'd have to choose the soak and defense of your helmet or the soak and defense of your armor.

My understanding of RAW, is that you would choose the best ratings for each (soak, melee defense, ranged defense), and apply those- regardless of the source, and not necessarily the same source? Am I mistaken in this?

The defense rules are currently under revision, heaven knows when we'll get the new rule. The EotE FAQ clarifies it stacks, then a developer question says you only get defense from a single source, with absolutely no stacking (and the whole "increases" and "gives" terminology is just semantics and means the same thing).

Personally, until otherwise changed, I'm going to use the FAQ ruling, as I view it as being slightly more "official" than a developer question.

EDIT: Also, as to the question, I recall that Embo uses his shield in a number of different ways. Generally, I'd say that the shield is usually used as a shield (as in, with the user's arms), while the hat portion is a convenient secondary feature. I think Cumbersome 3 and the relative rarity and price are balance enough for the item.

Thank you all for your answers, appreciate it.

Ah, right, Defensive & Deflection. I confuse Defensive for Defense a lot because it's almost exactly the same word. Super annoying they chose the same root word for 2 mechanical effects that differ enough to warrant different names.

12 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Ah, right, Defensive & Deflection. I confuse Defensive for Defense a lot because it's almost exactly the same word. Super annoying they chose the same root word for 2 mechanical effects that differ enough to warrant different names.

They are mechanically not different at all, defense 1 is just defensive 1 + deflection 1, melee and ranged defense are subsets of defense. Outside of the defense rules being subjected to a complete rewrite, we have conflicting developer statements how to handle them, but once of them considers defensive as a source of defense and thus not additive, which makes totally sense as defensive is melee defense.

So you can take the shield-hat for your defense and wear proper armor with soak, those two combine rather well. Lastly if you want to apply the defense bonus from the shield when wearing it as a hat as up to the GM. Narratively there is no reason against it, mechanically you still could require to have a freehand for it.