Bard song and breaking down doors

Allegro

First Post
In OOTS 610 in panel 8, a NPC claims bard song is worth at least +2 to break down a door. Inspire competence seems to only give a +2 to skill checks and breaking down a door is a strength check not a skill check. Is this artistic license or can bard song actually do this?

-Allegro
 

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Inspire competence can be used to 'help an ally succeed at a task'.

Only later in the description of the ability the reference to skill checks is made.

Not all tasks are covered by skill checks, and those not covered by skill checks are done by ability checks. (which are, essentially, skillchecks you can make untrained checks in, but can't buy ranks in)

In short, I see no reason why it shouldn't work.
 

I'm going to disagree with Herzog (or at least arrive at a different conclusion). The mechanical effect of the ability is explicit: "The ally gets a +2 competence bonus on skill checks with a particular skill..."

If the effect is interpreted as helping an ally succeed at any task, then I guess it should also give a +2 on caster level checks to dispel magic or overcome spell resistance, or any other d20-based roll.
 

I agree, you shouldn't be able to use Inspire Competence to do that normally. A lot of times oots doesn't perfectly follow the rules, so that's a possible explanation. Another is that Rich goofed. The reason I assumed from first seeing it (and I recognized right away "you can't do that") was that it was a joke. The NPC was misinterpreting her own class feature's rules.
 

I agree, you shouldn't be able to use Inspire Competence to do that normally. A lot of times oots doesn't perfectly follow the rules, so that's a possible explanation. Another is that Rich goofed. The reason I assumed from first seeing it (and I recognized right away "you can't do that") was that it was a joke. The NPC was misinterpreting her own class feature's rules.

Which of course makes it funny.
 



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