That's an absurd example, nobody would claim or suspect that a helmet or pair of gloves are capable of being worn as chest armor.I disagree with the premise
You do not need body slots to figure out where a helmet, gloves and chest armor go...
You do need something if you want to use that something to limit stacking of magic items not physically worn in a different location. It's telling that you choose helmet gloves and chest armor rather than something less clear cut like say... Any of these
- Amulet, Brooch, Medallion, Necklace, Periapt, Scarab
- Headband, helmet
- Cloak, Cape, Mantle
- Etc
They are individual issues related to a complicated problem. You can see proof of that in the way they interact differently with your overly simplified solution.that all sounds like the same item to me... hand out magic items, make encounters slightly harder, done. Pretty sure you also complain about how unreliable CR is, so you are not losing anything that way
Ithe part you are overlooking is where the impact on the check from magic items causes the DC ladder to lsg behind PC skills. Given how that happens even without magic items influencing skills it only accelerates the problem to add magic items to checksthat makes no sense, if the magic item affects your DC roll in some form, then it influences the check. The DC ladder has nothing to do with that, unless you want something so insanely hard that it can only be done with that one specific magic item that gives a +10 to that one specific scenario. At that point, forget about DCs and just say the item is required, because that is what it is, whether you hide that behind a DC or not