Bravado as Armor

homebrew
#1

I had a fever-induced idea last night whilst trying to fall asleep: bravado as armor; it has no weight, and adds to your defense (or can be placed in your inventory, if that’s the sort of system you’re using), making you harder to harm. The catch is that based on how much you have, that sets the save you have to beat to avoid risky behavior, like running into a fight, waging all you money on one hand of cards, or trusting that merchant beckoning you into a dark alleyway. Also, in something like ICRPG, bravado is reduced by 1 every time your PC is reduced to 1 HP or less. How do you get it back? Critical hits, of course! I thought this was a fun idea if you wanted to play a swashbuckler or a warrior whose up front a lot, but it isn’t part of your fantasy for them to be weighed down with tons of armor.

Let me know if you notice something about this that I might of missed, or if you think it’s cool, or sucks - whatever! The conversation is the important part. Thanks for reading!

#2

That’s a fun idea! The bragadocious fighter or pirate “why do I need armor? No one can touch me!” Is super fun.
Here’s a different spin on gains/loss: what if it worked similar to the Battle Fury dice from Master edition? So gain a point of Bravado for critical hit, turn your Bravado die up by one. Maybe if you’re struck with a critical blow lose a point? Dropped to 1HP works too. Maybe gain points when slaying a high level monster?

I’m sure there’s a link here between Bravado and Charisma that could be fun to play with.

#3

That’s a cool idea. You could even roll it at the start of the session to see how full of themselves they’re feeling.

#4

You know something else that could be fun with something like this? “Greatest Fear” at character creation. I think fears are a fun roleplay opportunity, but the bravado thing could be a fun mechanical tie in. Run into your “greatest fear” and bravado counts against your action rolls? Or drops to zero? Your greatest fear is spiders, come across a drider archer and your bravado drops to zero!

#5

Oh, that could be cool - or facing a foe who has defeated you before - maybe you have no bravado until you make a HARD WIS or CHA check. Very cool ideas! I love it!