Re: My take on 3e helms

    Let me answer a bunch of questions at once.  Oh, and please dissect &
challenge!  This is still rough-draft format, and if it sounds silly or
unreasonable, please let me know!

> I take it that in your game you circumvent the spellcaster only/ spell
> draining aspects of the helm?

    Correct.  I'll explain the reasoning for this below.

> What's your reasoning in removing the 'Plug and Play' aspect of the
original
> helm?

    Not entirely sure what you mean by 'Plug & Play', but here's the
reasoning behind this helm:

    I certainly don't think the original helms were deficent, silly, or any
such thing, but rather that the context of the 3.x game makes the true
"Spelljamming helm" somewhat implausable.  The assumed party is much
smaller, on the order of half, and there is far less use of henchmen &
hirelings these days than before.  Where as before a typical party was
assumed to be 6-8 PCs (with many spellcasters) plus several henchmen,
followers, & hirelings (many of whom could take the helm, if necessary), the
trend in the current edition seems to assume 3-4 PCs and only a few NPC
characters, with a goodly chance that most of the NPCs being animal
companions or familiars!  Additionally, trying to balance the spell-drain
aspect of helms into the CR system can be a pain for DMs.  Spell-drain is
not a big deal for larger parties, but when you're a 4-man party, two-man
shifts on the helms can remove spells entirely from the party.  So I figure
its easier to do away with it rather than develop some complex formulas for
handling partial spell-drains.

    Again, these are just my observations, so again, disagree if you see
things differently!  As someone on the boards already pointed out, you do
lose all the nifty fluff-related aspects spell-drain brings to the table
(why have life jammers or any other such helm?)

> And you would give Knowledge (Spelljamming) to which classes? I might make
> that a Knowledge (Arcana) check instead. But all in all you have some good
> ideas

    That's obvious something I didn't make clear :)  That should really be
Knowledge (Arcana: Spelljamming)...I assume a subset of Arcana knowledge.
Another area I need to clean up :)

Adam

Look for my coming on the seventh month of the fifth year.  At dawn look to
the world were the Trio (plus one) that is Untouchable reigns supreme