[Thorfinn]

If not for the fact that the Helm is free and available right out of the gate, I probably wouldn't bother. The Resist Damage from the Dragon Helm, Helm of the Rock or Helm of Defense (?) is usually better. One point better save vs magical fire is nice, but 20% damage reduction will help out a whole lot more.

AC 0 armor is available fairly early, at least with Tactics, though I'm pretty sure it is there even in the base game, and 4 more HP is not going to make or break you. Neither will +1 Charisma, considering that you are going to be forced into taking a Ring of Human Influence, and you are going to pull the Nymph Cloak out of your backpack whenever you go into shops.

Cloak of Balduran I already admitted I did not know was in the game, and isn't, unless you count mods. 25% MR is sweet, indeed, assuming you can remember to remove it when you want to buff.

Sword of Balduran is just a regular +2 sword except for the lore and the MR. MR, again, is nice, as long as you remember to remove it before trying to buff. Lore is nice, I guess, and I used to swear by bards, until I played a game without. After splurging on the Glasses of Idenfication, we were carrying around a small handful of unidentified stuff through the midgame, but by the time we were wandering through Underdark, we were sitting on over 20 Identify scrolls. I agree that the sword would be useful with, say Imoen or Jan, who are your primary Lore people, but neither of these can use the Plate. Even if you had a fighter with an 18/18 Int/Wis (and presumably, would have 18 exceptional str, 18 Dex and 18 Con, before throwing points into non-class stuff) all you would get through SoA levels is the ability to identify +2 arrows. Passing them to the Mage is just not that difficult.

Shield I do agree is overpowered within its realm, and I thought I said as much. Though I would not equip it unless I was expecting to encounter beholderkin -- the strength loss is too extreme. It reduces your Girdle of Hill Giant Strength (+3/+7) to a flat 18 (+1/+2), and 18 Exceptionals (up to +3/+6) to a 17 (+1/+1). Thank God you are wearing the Helm of Balduran to offset that loss a little bit, but if you are a fighter (and who can use a sword and wear plate mail and helm but a fighter type?), and have at least specialized in long sword (who wouldn't, if he planned to use Balduran's Gear) he is throwing away up to 10 points of damage per round (20 with criticals), and 1 to hit, the Helm having offset part of the shield's penalty.

Now if you are adding more niceties like the Gauntlets of Balduran, Balduran's Belt, Balduran's Penny Loafers, Balduran's Tie Tack and whatever else, of course you would be able to make a set that would be worth having. On the other hand, anyone other than a diehard Balduran groupie would probably put the shield away most of the time, and grab the Fortress Shield, or Daystar in that other hand, and would grab something like Adjatha or Ras or Namarra in the primary hand unless actually facing magic-using creatures.

Yes, individually, used at the right time, the components are great. But as your standard equipment setup, you can do much better.