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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 7625729" data-attributes="member: 6966824">I expect the most common uses of each are equivalent in effect, namely turning hits into misses, though I had honestly forgotten that you could use cutting words on damage rolls. This could be a very nice thing to be able to do if the attack roll is too high to be able to turn it into a miss and the ally would likely go down from the full attack, but otherwise it'd be better to save it to turn a hit into a miss. Similarly, using combat inspiration to boost damage could be very useful if you have a good idea that the straight damage roll isn't to be likely enough for a kill but the boosted roll would down the enemy, or if you otherwise think it will cause an enemy to go down before its next turn. But both of those are relatively situational. It seems like the main differences between the two types of inspiration, besides the fact that you can use cutting words to protect yourself, are the action economy and when use decisions are made. Combat inspiration uses your bonus action and your ally's reaction to make attacks miss; cutting words uses your reaction. In a party with a melee front line that makes a lot of opportunity attacks or otherwise is reaction-heavy already (if you have a sentinel / PAM / riposte fighter, for example), cutting words looks better, since your reaction is less valuable than those of your meat shields. For a changeling bard in a hit-and-run party, on the other hand, l have multiple self-defense reactions already (unsettling visage and the shield spell), whereas the rogue and monk won't have that many (really just uncanny dodge (after 5th) and deflect missiles, both of which are only used after already being hit). So on the action economy front, using my bonus action maybe looks a little bit better. Decision flexibility is also a mixed bag: cutting words dice are less likely to go to waste, which is a big point in their favor, but combat inspiration dice can also be regular bardic inspiration dice, allowing for flexibility between using them offensively (turning your misses into hits) and defensively. I probably lean a bit in favor of cutting words here, since with a limited resource, it feels worse to waste it than to end up using it perhaps suboptimally.In any case, all of this is outweighed by the fact that I'd have a mostly dead level at 6th as a valor bard.Yeah, I think this is what I'll do.</blockquote>

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