One of the tropes that gets a lot of play in fantasy and sci-fi games is having an underground resistance fighting against a tyrant or dictator. The hopelessly outmatched and untrained citizens band together, led by a few nobles, knights, or otherwise socially and militarily prominent figures. There is usually some sort of symbol to mark the resistance, one that is inadvertently made important by the ruling elite. This trope is as common as finding magical armor that protects the bearer from ice, flame, or any number of other hazards. It’s only natural, then, to add a small word to this classic armor, changing from one type to the other.
Armor of the Resistance
Armor (light, medium, or heavy), very rare (requires attunement)
This battered-looking armor is emblazoned with a symbol upon the breast. Most suits also display a symbol upon the shoulder, though this may differ from the symbol upon the chest. This armor possesses 7 charges. The armor regains 1d6+1 charges whenever you surprise a creature in combat, or when your current hit points fall below half of your maximum hit points for the first time in a day.
Iconic. You may expend 1 charge to reroll a Charisma ability check you make. You must use the second roll.
Martyr. Whenever you are below half of your maximum hit point , or after you have been critically hit, you can use your reaction and expend 2 charges to allow the next attack against you to have advantage. Doing so grants allies who can see you advantage on the first attack each of them makes before the end of your next turn.
Tenacious. Whenever you are below half of your maximum hit points, or you and your allies are outnumbered in a combat, you may expend 3 charges to grant yourself 3d8 temporary hit points as a bonus action. While these temporary hit points remain, you have advantage against being charmed and frightened, and you may use the help action as a bonus action.
This is fun! I like the idea of armor with charges. The Martyr ability could be fun in the right groups, and the other two abilities are pretty solid.
Martyr is definitely a “right moment” ability. I think the right character and group would have an amazing time with it. Not just for the mechanics, but for the story around it. The over-dramatic bard with a theater background has his day!
I am glad you like the charged armor. I didn’t think there was anything stopping this approach. It just seemed like there wasn’t much thought given to armor to begin with. There are a lot of great items, but the armor selections are fairly bog standard.
Yeah, armor isn’t very interesting in general. They shove most of the “fun” mechanics into weapons or wondrous items, which I totally understand from a design perspective (armor is your passive magic item, weapon is your active one). Nothing stops you from switching it up, of course. I think the most active-use armor in the DMG is the Demon Plate thingy, and even that’s not very mechanically deep.
Armor of Invulnerability has an active component. It’s pretty slim pickings on the interesting armor front. With bounded accuracy, I’m much more included to have most things be active rather than passive, anyway. Weapons have the added advantage of carrying the “magic” tag with them, so even if they have active abilities, they are bypassing resistance and invulnerabilities.