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3.5 Bard's power?
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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 5502149" data-attributes="member: 15999"><p>Inspire Courage is <em>amazing</em>. It gives a bonus on par with what magic weapons of that level can give. +2/+2 is equivalent to "Aid Another + Favored Enemy: All." In a low-optimization Core game, it adds about 20% damage at level 4 and 40% at level 8, mostly because of the bonus to hit. In a high-optimization game, since IC is also optimized, I assume it is around the same contribution, but I haven't done the math.</p><p></p><p>Now, the problem is that the DM might just scale encounters to match. But then again you'll gain XP faster. So, IC is awesome, but it's not. YMMV.</p><p></p><p>IC is, of course, just one of the bard's standard actions. Boosting weapon damage output by 40% at level 8 with a single action is already pulling his weight, and then he still has spells, skills, and decent weapon attacks, which is just gravy.</p><p></p><p>I found the IC bonus to be exceptionally powerful in a party with TWF rogues and druids (depending on your game, druids, their companions, and their summons often have many attacks with only a fair-to-good probability of hitting). +2 to hit shifting your summons' to-hit rolls from 18+ to 16+ is very, very nice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 5502149, member: 15999"] Inspire Courage is [I]amazing[/I]. It gives a bonus on par with what magic weapons of that level can give. +2/+2 is equivalent to "Aid Another + Favored Enemy: All." In a low-optimization Core game, it adds about 20% damage at level 4 and 40% at level 8, mostly because of the bonus to hit. In a high-optimization game, since IC is also optimized, I assume it is around the same contribution, but I haven't done the math. Now, the problem is that the DM might just scale encounters to match. But then again you'll gain XP faster. So, IC is awesome, but it's not. YMMV. IC is, of course, just one of the bard's standard actions. Boosting weapon damage output by 40% at level 8 with a single action is already pulling his weight, and then he still has spells, skills, and decent weapon attacks, which is just gravy. I found the IC bonus to be exceptionally powerful in a party with TWF rogues and druids (depending on your game, druids, their companions, and their summons often have many attacks with only a fair-to-good probability of hitting). +2 to hit shifting your summons' to-hit rolls from 18+ to 16+ is very, very nice. [/QUOTE]
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