A way to hide helmets?

I can only think of removing the graphic from each of the helmets... this would definitely change the core files though.

This would be a nice feature. All heroes look the same in the end.

i think a better way would be to make it a choice. Having your soverign/champions face visible would boost the morale of troops, providing some bonus to the army, at the cost of sacrificing some personal defense.

Perhaps +1 initiative, attack and defense, and +3 dodge, spell resist and accuracy, for every helmetless champion in the army. Small bonuses but they'd nicely supplement groups of trained units.

How would you teach the AI to make such a decision? It would be too complicated.

Ya, I had already thought of the changing the graphics for them but was hoping for a simpler solution then that.  Personally I liked the Mass Effect 1 helmet toggle which allowed me to toggle them on or off for each person individually.

I do like NanakoAC's idea for passive benefits for not having a helmet.  But like seanw3 pointed out that would be hard to teach the AI.  Looks like the easiest thing for me to do would be just to modify my own sovereign and give her a trait to compensate not using a helmet.

I totally agree with the OP on the point that being able to see the face of your sovereign/heroes (custom or not) should be a clickable option even though he has an helmet.

I think having his face visible giving a boost to morale troops his too far-feteched though. Even more so of it is a stackable bonus according to the number of champions without helmets. This would be fluctuating if you play altar for exemple and have a ton of heroes, or if you play with the adventurer trait, or if you play with the cult of 100 eyes or juggernauts traits and give free defense to troops that should have none. Please, no.

However,because all champions are all magic wielding masters of the sword they are all the same.  I appreciate the customization but because all champions have access to magic and are master warriors they all act and look the same eventually.

They need to change how champions develop to eliminate this.  Make limitations based on what the champion is doing.  Example, a person trying to shoot a bow and arrow sitting on a horse in full plate mail armor---would never happen.  If they could pull the bow back, which I doubt, they would not be able to hit a damn thing.  Full chain mail would be questionable, but at least probable.  Leather would be the most practical.

There needs to weapon armor combinations that do not work together.  In my games, anybody that is casting magic, can only wear robes or leather---leather is rare, but I make the exception sometimes.  Never Chain or Plate.  Also any "magic-user" cannot be armed with weapons other than a staff of some sort, or sometimes they can have a dagger.

Just have an appearance tab, so we can keep them looking like we designed them.

Closed helmets - and armor should hinder magic abilities. Armor hinder delicate hand movement necessary for magical gestures and a closed helmet turns your incantation into illegible "hrrmphgrrrph". You should be forced to make a choice - either be steel-clad behemoth, or go light-dressed so that you can cast those complicated spells.

Having a greater amount of customization would be great, and yes having the professions be more different would be nice as well, but the profession thing I believe can be modded already at least Seanw3's Master Affliction mod has a bigger difference between the classes from what I could tell.

As for realism when it comes to using a bow on a horse history has plenty of examples of heavy cavalry that also used bows,  the Persians come to mind for one.  I will agree that a full plate one is silly, but a scale or chain mail one is fine.  But I agree with having some sort of class equipment restriction.  I suppose they tried to do that somewhat with weight.

Mostly I would like a greater range of customization for my Sovereign so that I can really make them look unique and personal.  Part of the joy of this game for me is creating my own faction and then leader and having them set out and conquer.  The hide helmet thing was just a way to keep a small part of that personalization without having to sacrifice an equipment slot to get it.

One of the things I've done with my mod is to create custom armor.   My sovereign gets a crown that does not hide her face. 

Isn't this already addressed by limiting certain champs to different schools of magic? There aren't many champs that have >2 schools at there disposal. In fact, I think most probably only have 1. 

The other things is there is already a limiting factor called encumbrance. You have to take abilities like path of the warrior/defender or strength to not end up being too slow to be effective in battle. I would say you're somewhat right in that it might be interesting to make encumbrance more of a factor though. Maybe make it so that movement range is reduced if too high, or perhaps reducing things like attack/spell mastery slightly too. 

I want to mod to limit each hero to only one Path.  I also want to limit certain paths to certain weapons and/or armor choices and/or spell choices.  I.E. Mage can't wear metal or use swords and Warrior or Defenders can't cast.   As it is now, every sovereign or hero ends up being a battlemage.