I really like the idea of rare+unique lower-tier items. That way, you’d have the same excitement of collecting and equipping them in the early game, but scaled to company grandeur. I think it would be good if there was more overlap between the defence afforded by the best non-metal helms (currently 40-50) and the worst metal ones (currently 70), especially since the current most protective non-metal helm (the full aketon cap) looks uncool in combination with most lower-tier body armours (e.g. it obscures the bone necklace decorating the blotched gambeson that you can scavenge from thugs/marksmen). There’s already good overlap for the body armours (80-95 versus 90-110, not counting some rare leathers that go into the 100s). Rare lower-tier helms could be used to create more overlap.
