Regular belts

[vstat]

I just picked up a hardened leather belt. It has defense or armor bonus. Can belts get the same bonuses as helmuts, boots or gloves of the same type?

[ghostbuster]

Belts can be enchanted and some ego belts do increase your defence.
But otherwise, regular leather belts, whatever their material, just increase ... your encumbrance.

[Sirrocco]

also, this should not be in the "ideas" forum

[vstat]

also, this should not be in the "ideas" forum

Now to the idea, add a small defense or armor bonus to regular belts.

[Shoob]

how do belts give you armor or defense though?

IF they do give a bonus, I would propose a flat +1 base defense for all the belts (egos can raise it). As really all they would be doing is holding loose clothing together making it easier to dodge, and material wouldn't change that.

[ushumgal]

Not that it's really relevant to Middle Earth, there have been many wide, bronze belts found in sites from ancient Urartu (modern Armenia and eastern Turkey) - to the early 1st Millennium BC. At the time, wide fabric or leather belts were high fashion (just check out any Assyrian palace relief), but the Urarteans liked to make them out of bronze, embossed with designs, and they certainly functioned as armor, protecting a significant part of the abdomen. So if belts should have armor values, there should perhaps be a distinction between "narrow" and "wide" belts, as well as the material they were made of.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering how you put on a belt made of a solid sheet of bronze, they just used the natural springiness of the metal to bend it open, slip it on, and let it spring shut, just like with Greek greaves.

[Zonk]

Related to upgrading 'regular' belts: someone suggested to make regular belts have a single inventory slot, so they can hold a potion or whatever.