At-will bardic-style inspiration - balanced?

[TwoSix]

So I'm working on a homebrew class, and I'm wondering if a major class feature I'm thinking of is balanced, or if there's something abusable that I'm not seeing. (I'm not as worried if it's undertuned, as other class or subclass features will also strengthen it.) I'm also not too worried about flavor right now, I more looking into making sure the mechanical hooks are interesting and not too strong.

"Inspiration": As an action, you may grant "Inspiration" to any non-hostile creature, other than yourself, within 60 feet that can hear you and understand your speech. That creature gains an "Inspiration" die, a d6. They may add this die to any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw they make. The creature can wait until after it rolls the d20 before deciding to use the "Inspiration" die, but must decide before the GM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. At the end of the creature's next turn, or when the "Inspiration" die is rolled, it is lost. No creature may have more than one "Inspiration" die at any given time.

Basically, it's Bardic Inspiration. But it costs an entire action, and it can't be used preemptively, since it only last till end of next turn, which I think balances out the fact that it's at-will. It's intended as the default at-will ability of an Intelligence-based, non-spellcaster support class. Not too crazy, right?

 

[Krachek]

A 'Guidance' with a d6, + attack rolls and save.
There is already some people that found out Guidance a bit too much....

 

[TwoSix]

A 'Guidance' with a d6, + attack rolls and save.
There is already some people that found out Guidance a bit too much....

I've never been one of them, personally. And I think any character focused on support is probably going to try and grab Guidance, anyway. So having a slightly stronger version isn't a big deal.

It does run into stacking issues with Guidance, though, which isn't something to dismiss. Maybe I should split out the ability check portion of the ability, or just add in text specifying it doesn't stack with Guidance.

 

[Grubble]

Seems pretty close to a ranged "help" action to me, I wouldn't say it's too imbalanced.

 

[Xeviat]

Yeah, ranged help. As long as it's only slightly better than help, it should be fine. As an example, shield mastery let's you push as a bonus action. Help as a bonus action would probably be a fair feat ability.


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[I'm A Banana]

So I'm working on a homebrew class, and I'm wondering if a major class feature I'm thinking of is balanced, or if there's something abusable that I'm not seeing. (I'm not as worried if it's undertuned, as other class or subclass features will also strengthen it.) I'm also not too worried about flavor right now, I more looking into making sure the mechanical hooks are interesting and not too strong.

"Inspiration": As an action, you may grant "Inspiration" to any non-hostile creature, other than yourself, within 60 feet that can hear you and understand your speech. That creature gains an "Inspiration" die, a d6. They may add this die to any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw they make. The creature can wait until after it rolls the d20 before deciding to use the "Inspiration" die, but must decide before the GM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. At the end of the creature's next turn, or when the "Inspiration" die is rolled, it is lost. No creature may have more than one "Inspiration" die at any given time.

Basically, it's Bardic Inspiration. But it costs an entire action, and it can't be used preemptively, since it only last till end of next turn, which I think balances out the fact that it's at-will. It's intended as the default at-will ability of an Intelligence-based, non-spellcaster support class. Not too crazy, right?

I'm not a big fan.

In combat, it's almost never worth your action - spending a turn to buff is usually a losing proposition if your buff only lasts 1 turn.

Out of combat, it's a free +1d6 to any check. Not apocalyptic, but it stacks with guidance, bumping up the bonus-stacking tower of cards you can have. +1d4+1d6 is likely to overwhelm the proficiency bonus at lower levels, and threatens to overwhelm the die roll at higher levels (creating more "impossible to fail" situations).

Any reason you can't just give the class the guidance cantrip?

 

[Satyrn]

Following on what the banana said, I'd drop the ability check part. Have this work only on attacks and saves, and tack on using it to up AC for 1 attack as an option.

And then tack it on to the attack action, weakening your attack roll or damage in some way to compensate.

 

[mellored]

A 'Guidance' with a d6, + attack rolls and save.
There is already some people that found out Guidance a bit too much....

Closer to at-will bless.
Which you can more or less do at level 5+, if you spend all of your spell slots on it.


So... maybe 1 inspiration at a time, and make it a d4.

 

[Leatherhead]

Is there any reason this isn't simply Advantage? Like, are you planing to scale it to levels?

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not a big fan.

In combat, it's almost never worth your action - spending a turn to buff is usually a losing proposition if your buff only lasts 1 turn.

Well, this is in the context of a class that's intended to be a noncombatant. Not pacifist, rather, I want to give them an at-will option that is competitive with weapon or cantrip attacks, but instead gives other characters an offensive buff. Ideally it wouldn't be a Commander's Strike clone, where the character sacrifices an action to give someone else an attack. I'm also thinking of an option where the character can give someone else a free use of the Ready action, but the character is the one that determines the trigger. Gives a bit of a "tactician" vibe, but prevents the issue of "you're telling my character what to do".