In the old DW Q&A post, I asked if there was a bonus, besides the space wolves solo mode ability, for marines not wearing their helmets. In the RAW, there is none.

A proposed house rule:

During the oath taking portion of the mission, the squad leader may opt for a "Display of Bravery," and choose to not don his helmet this mission. Doing so increases the squad cohesion by 3 points, as his faith in the Emperor's protection increases squad morale. The helmet must not be worn for the entire mission, or else the bonus will be lost. Certain situations (such as having to walk in void) may be exempt of this requirement, as decided upon by the GM, but generally when death is a given if they do not wear the helmet.

The goal with this is to match the modeling conventions and artwork, fitting to the setting, while providing a tangible bonus to the player for doing something "dangerous." Also, it is helpful in allowing new players who have rank 1 characters (like my group, 2/3s of which haven't even played DH/RT), to be more able to experiment with squad mode. I do not think the extra cohesion will greatly unbalance the game, as it basically will allow for one or two more squad mode abilities to be used. Probably the worst thing it does is make the cohesion test easier to pass (at early game).

The negatives of the decision probably outweigh the balance issues though. Without a helmet, a squad leader is much more vulnerable enemy attacks, along with environmental hazards. Also, it will become easier for certain enemies to recognize him as the leader.

A few other possibilities is to allow this decision to give a +10/+20 command bonus (or to use that bonus what causes the cohesion bonus, and make it say +20 command/ +2 cohesion, etc.), force a negative on cohesion if the squad leader puts his helmet on (say a -1 to the max cohesion), or to give extra fate points, or perhaps that ability void born have in DH that allows FP to not be lost.

Ideas/suggestions/comments?

Personally, I plan to go the other way; I expect the PCs to wear their helmets, save for the Rune Priest (and even then, he'll still carry his around just in case - it takes a half action to lock or unlock a helm and seal it into place), but there will be situations that force them to remove their helms and fight bare-headed, the most common one being damage. Any hit that causes damage to the wearer breaches the armour anyway, so logically, a helmet breach could cause damage to the autosense systems, etc, making a damaged helmet more of a hindrance than a help. I'm still fine-tuning the details in preparation for my group encountering enemy snipers, however.

KommissarK said:

Yes. I believe I raised the issue originally and my suggestion is to give the player additional renown. And probably an additional karma point, even if it's just a dedicated karma point that may only be used for head hits. But then again there is still True Grit, hmm....

With my players at least I consider renown to be a greater motivator as it will allow them to "unlock certain features" (lol) earlier on than the rest of the group.

Hmmm... perhaps even an option of foregoing the extra fate point for even more renown?

And... I don't think any bonus should be per mission. It should be per character (or at least per rank).

Alex

Before I offer up my opinion on the subject, I just want to say that I think KommissarK has a well thought out idea.

The representation of helmetless Astartes in the tabletop wargame primarily stems from the necessity to pick a squad leader amongst numerous other models. While it has evolved into a dramatic display choice, I don't think it translates especially well into the RPG. The Astartes Power Armor has been designed to facilitate the Emperor's Angels of Death in their sacred duty. To forgo an essential piece, like the helmet, could be considered foolhardy, if not sacrilegious. Sure, some less-codex oriented chapters (such as the Space Wolves) may revile in tempting fate by removing the helmet, and some especially charismatic leaders may go helmet-less in defiance of the enemy's power. But, overall, I don't see many Astartes making the choice to forgo the helmet, in the same way that they wouldn't forgo a combat knife because they can just beat foes bloody with their bolter.

I'm still trying to think through an appropriate rule to go with the choice, but in the end I think it represents a role-playing choice and doesn't really merit having any additional rules associated with it. So, I'd let my player go with it, but wouldn't give them any mechanical benefit for doing so.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Honestly, I interpreted that particular bit as " once the Space Marine has sustained a total number of Wounds equal to or greater then the AP provided by their armor, a breach has developed. " The thinking behind this is that some of the lesser damaging hits might be more defined as bruising and painful burns without the attack actually having been truly penetrated. Otherwise, the first point of damage is a breach.

Ooh, I think I might implement that in the other settings for things like the void suits, boarding armor, and other such.

As to the original Post, I kind of like that idea of the " show of bravery ." It's a very Astartes sort of thing to do, and something I would see chapters with fine traditions of boasting *Cough* Space Wolves *Cough* doing rather often.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

You're probably right; I've not got my rulebook to hand just at the moment, so I was going from an extremely vague memory. Either way, the plan was to use the rules for a breach to define other situations in which armour itself might be damaged.

The Broasted said:

To me, going helmetless may be 'foolhardy', but it's very epic, and very old fashioned. It lets your team see your face, see your expression, the steel in your eyes. It lets them hear your voice- your real voice, not the mechanical vox voice they would hear with your helmet on. It is an inspirational ability, not unlike generals of old marching up and down their lines on horseback rallying their troops and giving commands. How many years after we stopped using horses did many of the world's militaries still display the command insignias prominently on their uniforms, despite being tasty targets for snipers? In a society where old = good, I could totally see people doing this as a way to inspire their troops and to show off how super brave they are.

I really like the squad cohesion idea, especially for starting players, as it's kind of a tough system to figure out just by reading it (at least for me), so opening the door to this earlier on could be really helpful. Maybe allow it to provide +3 cohesion OR a +10 to command (player's choice) to allow flexibility later on?

Except that the vox-bead of a Marine is in his helmet. If he's not wearing his helmet, arguably it'd reduce cohesion (though it means that it's easier for him to be outside Support Range, which is a fair balance), not increase it, since he wouldn't be in the squad's vox-channel, and wouldn't have all the HUD based stuff to tell him where his fellow squad members were in disorientating situations, which he would have if he was wearing his helmet.

As you can probably tell then, I think wearing a helmet or not is a roleplay thing, and there shouldn't be any mechanics to balance not wearing it and wearing it.

If I were to try and grox up a reason that Space Wolves would have better sensory perception than other Marines I wouldn't even bother trying to BS it with the idea that they take their helmets off and thus "with the sweets the sorrows." Could you just give them the ability to sense more options from the data that is fed to them? It is, after all, mean to be a partnership between the two (armour and Marine)...?

As NH says, the only thing that should make a Marine to want to remove the helmet is damage, and any other requirements ("Oh, don't be afraid little squishy child, behind this helmet I'm a scarred and torn-up veteran of the Angels of Death !"). Err, those other requirements going beyond the idea of a tendency for Space Wolves to smell each others' backsides.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

By which standard? Realism? Certainly.

You know, it helps if one, as a Gm or Game Designer, determines the flavour of the game. One of the aspects of that is being realistic vs. cineastic. Undubitably the 40K universe leans towards a cineastic interpretation (which I am inclined to share). I will again point out that not only there are minis without helmets, there are also illustrations of marines without helmets in combat. And not too few.

To make it short: as with FSM every GM will have to make the decision for themselves whether they want more realism or more unrealstic but heroic action. FFG/GW will have to make such decisions too when designing their games. Again, it can be argued that they have already been leaning towards the unrealistic heroic spectrum.

But to state in that context the quote above, as if it wasn't just personal interpretation (which leans more towards the realistic end and not necessarily more to the GW/FFG heroic end), is... misleading.

Furthermore I would dare to assert that allowing PCs who want to run around without a helmet and giving them a chance to actually survive is more in-theme with 40K than not doing so. But since it's all a House Rule, it's up to everyone's personal interpretation of 40K.

Alex

ak-73 said:

As The Broasted pointed out above, the lack of helmets on minis is probably just there so that players can easily tell the squad leaders from the rest of the squad.

As for the illustrations, how many of those images are propaganda where the artist decided to make them look more heroic by removing their helmets ?

For an example of definite propaganda, look at the covers of the Caiphas Cain books :

There is a little confusion over the covers of the novels and their representations of Cain. The artwork by Clint Langley, on all six covers, show Cain with a bolter or bolters, while in the stories themselves show that Cain never uses those weapons, especially dual wielding them as seen on the cover of Death or Glory, and prefers to use his standard issue laspistol as a sidearm in conjunction with his chainsword. This is generally accepted by most readers to be Imperial propaganda showing Cain as a heroic individual as he is supposed to be in the eyes of the everyday Imperial citizen.

For those who haven't read any of those novels, to give you an idea about how much he prefers his laspistol, in the first novel he was offered a hellpistol while being equipped for a dangerous mission by an Inquisitor. He refused the hellpistol because it would throw off his am.

To convince me about Space Marines fighting without helmets, find me passages from novels or codex's that talk about them going without helmets.

Kage2020 said:

It could easily be that their armour doesn't pick up the detail their senses can. For example, their armour might not have any atmospheric analysis sensors equivalent to their sense of smell.

Or the armour might be unable to display the information it collected because of low resolution displays, bad speakers, etc

Or they could be having to cram multiple sensor feeds into a single display. For example, lets say that the armour can produce audio and video in better quality than the Space Wolves eyes and ears can register. Any information regarding atmospheric analysis would have to be displayed through the armours visual or audio systems, meaning the armour has to reduce the detail from external cameras and microphones. Remove the helmet and there is now a third sense that can receive information, smell, so the other senses can also get more information through them.

Bilateralrope said:

You've been avoiding my line of reasoning. Beyond that, whether any illustrations are propaganda or not is for individual GMs to decide. Just as the existence of the elusive females space marine. (Anybody seen it? )

Bilateralrope said:

No, thanks, I'll have to pass that one up. My goal isn't to convince anyone of anything.

You and I are coming from different angles. I am not trying to reproduce novels faithfully. I'm trying to capture what I perceive as the spirit of the 40k universe - which is tbh filled with ridiculous heroics. And as I have said in my previous posts, if you have a different interpretation, no problem. If FFG's aim with DW was to allow gamers to reproduce the novels, no problem.

I, however, am interested in a more flashy interpretation of the 40K universe, which I consider thematically more in line with the core of it (the tabletop, including minis and illustrations).

You know - the 40K before there were any novels. And minis and propaganda illustrations were all the visuals you had back then.

In conclusion I have to say you are bending things a bit to your liking. Illustrations are propaganda and if a mini doesn't wear a helmet it must be because he's a squad leader? Desired outcome seems to drive the interpretation in your case just as it does in mine. :-)

Alex

Miniatures have their helmets off because named characters need faces. There are a number of tough downsides to not wearing your helmet: lack of environmental seal, loss of tactical readouts, loss of microbead, loss of 8 armor to the head, showing off your eternally 40 male-pattern baldness and so on. I think anyone who wants to rock the no-helmet look deserves what they are getting themselves into. There is. No good reason to incentivise not wearing the darned thing. Besides, just because you keep it on to save your pretty face from a bad case of Carnifex guardsmen-breath doesn't mean that it has to stay on for the post-battle team photo in frontof the dead carnifex.

Xenoviel said:

That's not my interpretation though. Your first statement seems to be not correct though. Among the earliest Marine minis there were quite some without helmet and they were not designated as sergeants or character models.

And marines without a helmet usually wear a microbead, I guess

Alex

ak-73 said:

I made the assumption that the Space Wolf Rune Priest in my group - who I knew would take his helm off the moment the team landed - had a microbead in his gorget for such an eventuality, given the Space Wolves' inclination towards hatlessness. Other marines don't necessarily have that luxury, but I imagine it's a long-standing variation in the power armour of Space Wolves.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Certainly any other marine (except a Dark Angel maybe) would gain in standing with a Space Wolf if they fought without a helmet on.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Well i would assume then that you don't like the DH or RT rules either. Nowhere in these rules do they try and create ridiculous heroics in the vein of 'not wearing a helmet makes you 'ard'.

You've answered your own question - FFG made the game in such a way as to penalise people not wearing their helmets, regardless of who they are. No one in all three games has received a bonus to not wearing a helmet, to put one in DW only would be applying double standards.

So by your own argument you are wrong. FFG designed it a certain way and that way is not to include heroic helmetlessness.

It wouldn't be an issue if they'd not used hit locations and/or already had helmetless=heroic in the rules.

As for space wolves, they have better senses in general. Any image they see in their helmet will provide more information to them than someone else, because their eyes are sharper.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

Possibly. That is, if the autosenses of that particular suit are of the "visor in the helm" variety, rather than the "direct neural interface with the perception centres of the brain, bypassing the eyes" variety, because I've seen both mentioned in a variety of sources.

Hellebore said:

No, I was merely didn't express myself precisely. But to be honest, I don't feel the need for dead precision in a forum such as this. Instead I am expecting other participants to gather the spirit of what I am trying to express and I think that can be gathered from my above's article.

If someone doesn't want to (to make the point I am wrong), my imprecision will allow for such to occur. It will make me clarify the way I do here though. :-)

To the other point, it doesn't make any sense. The same way I could claim that FFG designed it a certain way and it doesn't include dreadnoughts. Chaplains. Background packages. Just because mechanic doesn't appear in a core rulebook doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean it won't get included ever.

And more importantly it doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been a good idea if it had been included, which is my view of things and was all I was expressing.

Hellebore said:

Unless they are Dug In or employing Pack Tactics. Then their senses are as sharp or dull as any other marines.

And FFG 'designed it a certain way' and apparently was not meant to include being able to use Wolf Senses while using Squad Mode abilities. Which makes not much sense to quite a few people outside of FFG.

So much about 'what has been done' vs. 'what could have been done to make it even better'.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Not quite; Space Wolves characters start with Heightened Senses (Smell), which other marines lack; their Wolf Senses ability is on top of that.

Good to hear the thoughts on this. Still, I guess my point is this:

Yes, no helmet has terrible consequences for a character, it makes them much more vulnerable.

The goal of this house rule would be to actually create some sort of situation where it might even be worth considering.

This of course, goes with whatever the theme of the game being played is. Do you want realism, or cinematic? Personally, I like a mix of the two. I guess I still want to know if the idea of a bonus to cohesion (perhaps +2 or +3) is reasonable to give some balance between these two. Take the risk, but get the potential to lead the squad to glory sort of thing.

KommissarK said:

When I recently rolled up a random Chaos Renegade with Slaves to Darkness, he ended up with a Huge Lion Head. So some NPCs, important NPCs even, you might want to fight without a helmet too. And the PCs will probably make called shots like crazy (which can be legitimate in a case like this). Again I hint at dedicated fate points for head hits, at least for major actors.

Alex

How about this? Space Wolves are already fairly weak in comparison to other chapter when it comes to, well, just about anything. They also have a penchant for removing their helmets.

Do Space Wolves players really deserve salt being rubbed into such self-inflicted wounds (done for the character, let's remember)?

I think most people would agree that helmetless Battle Brothers are risking a lot when it comes to sudden vacuums, deadly gases, lack of oxygen, and rocket-propelled mini-missiles exploding in close proximity.

I don't think it unreasonable that, for the sake of story and, lets face it, pity on the foolhardy, one not always have every enemy everywhere make a called shot to wolfboy's pretty face.

Space Marines fight without their helmets in the fiction as well as on the tabletop for various reasons. Yes it leaves them susceptible to a headshot but most people in the imperium are terrified of them and many actually believe that they are immortal "Angels of Death". With the toughness of a space marine they are immune to most small arms fire even when helmetless.

Vox communication is handled by an earbead which is in their ears thus why scouts who don't wear helmets are able to communicate with the main space marine force. I like the OPs idea in regards to giving a bonus to a character who doesn't wear a helmet. also, in the fiction helmets are damaged quite often and must be removed.

I'm honestly quite surprised by the rancor surrounding this issue. The game obviously wasn't designed to be realistic you have giant superhumans fighting demons, and giant bugs in outer space... This is a Science Fiction setting with quite a bit of fantasy flavor and you're playing an RPG let someone Role Play their character it is a Role Playing game not a Roll Playing Game.