D&D 5E Inspiration wonkiness?

[CapnZapp]

I like the idea of inspiration, and I am aware of the drawbacks of 4e action points.

But.

Inspiration does not provide anything unique. It comes across as just another source of the standard bonus of the game. Nothing special at all: lots of spells and conditions hand out exactly the same advantage.

Inspiration doesn't stack with good tactics - if you already have Advantage (because you burn your character powers or because your team cooperates well) Inspiration does nothing for you.

Inspiration it is still bound by bounded accuracy. You can only do things you always can. It is a far cry from heroically performing "above and beyond".

Inspiration can't help you if you already have advantage, but it can help you when you have disadvantage. In fact, no matter how many sources of disadvantage you face, Inspiration can negate them all. In this way, Inspiration is both powerful and boring at the same time. Powerful because a single source of advantage negates several sources of disadvantage. Boring because all your inspiration nets you is... the status quo. (Getting rid of penalties is much less flashy and interesting than gaining new bonuses - especially when you gain new abilities you didn't have before).

And that is my main beef with Inspiration. As a hero point or action point alternative, it simply provides nothing you couldn't already do.

---

So, then?

What could be done to make Inspiration more... inspiring?

Suggestions:

A) When you spend your inspiration on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check, you succeed automatically, no roll required.

B) When you spend your inspiration on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check, you gain +8 to the roll and then you roll the dice.

C) When you spend your inspiration on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check, you may choose between

C1) gain +8 to one d20 roll and then you roll the dice.
C2) gain +5 to each of two d20 rolls and then you roll the dice. These dice can be rolled in sequence (such as when escape demands two ability checks, one after the other) or in parallel (such as when you have disadvantage on a single check)


In all cases, you can still instead spend your inspiration to give another character inspiration.


What do you think?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it's an area that could be made richer. Advantage itself certainly isn't anything SUPER special. Nice, but whatev.

I played with the idea a bit with my faction backgrounds, using them as a source of magical abilities, though I'm not convinced they're the best balanced in that regard. Or, at least, they could be better balanced.

 

[Joe Liker]

Not long into my campaign, I realized that my players do not need any external motivation to roleplay or try to do awesome things. So I dumped Inspiration altogether and started using Hero Points.

Now I don't have to remember to reward behavior that's going to happen anyway, AND it's a little easier for everyone to do awesome things (because Hero Points)! It's a win-win for me.

I suspect it's intentional that Inspiration doesn't let you do anything outside the norm. It's only supposed to make it easier to succeed, not make you a superhero.

If you want a bigger boost, why not just use Hero Points? If you want to add an RP element, award Hero Points for good RP, or have players award them to each other -- or my favorite method, award Hero Points when players voluntarily introduce complications that will work against them.

Hmm ... I might start doing that in my own game. The automatic Hero Points per level seem like too much of a freebie ...

 

[Blue]

Now you can get advantage by carefully setting up a tactical situation ... or by swinging on a chandelier and doing a backflip to land perfectly on a tabletop in front of your father's killer. Both are great ways to play, it's cool to see players that enjoy either of these styles supported by the rules.

Plus if Inspiration was too powerful or worse yet stacked with everything to give even more bonuses, DMs would be loathe to give it out. We want DMs to feel they can reward awesomeness all the time, so players try to be awesome with their characters all the time. This way leads to greatness.

 

[Roger]

Auto-natural-20 might be good enough if I were inclined to renovate.

 

[rjfTrebor]

I'm thinking of tying a scaling XP bonus as well as a static +2 to AC and saves for the round after spending one. My problem with them is that players hoard them for death saves.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, what you want is something that isn't used either to nova or to passively avoid death.

You want something that specifically encourages heroic behavior, such as dashing madly toward the evil wizard, throwing yourself in front of the arrow meant for the princess, jumping out of the window to hang from the ledge, and such. Swashbuckling stuff essentially. And what's the basic building block of that? Movement!

So one idea is to keep Inspiration as is, but to couple it with a free extra Dash action you can take at any time, even interrupting another creature's turn.

(You always take the Dash action yourself, but you can still give the advantage to somebody else. Preferably related in some way to your actions, but I'll leave that up to the player)

This would turn Inspiration into something "above and beyond" but still not break reality. Even though the actual inspiration isn't any better than before, it still means being able to do stuff you couldn't do - in such a short time.

If you just use it for death saves, you lose the movement (since you won't get to move when unconscious )

It can still be used to nova, but I don't see any good simple solution to that. (Saying "can't be used during first turn of combat" isn't one, for instance)

 

[PnPgamer]

I'm thinking of tying a scaling XP bonus as well as a static +2 to AC and saves for the round after spending one. My problem with them is that players hoard them for death saves.

I think the death roll is not a save at all, it is a death roll. Nothing adds to it, nothing substracts from it.

 

[Paraxis]

It is a death saving throw, anything that adds to saves adds to the death save. Things like halfling's luck ability, bless spell, magic items like cloak of protection, paladin's aura of protection, all modify your death save.

 

[PnPgamer]

It is a death saving throw, anything that adds to saves adds to the death save. Things like halfling's luck ability, bless spell, magic items like cloak of protection, paladin's aura of protection, all modify your death save.

Oh. Cool.