Giant2005
First Post
You and many others have stated that sentiment and it's one I held a while back on the WOTC forums. I would disagree now unless the party has some very good between combat healing sources. Looking at the first combat of the day it is definetely true that inspiring leader is better for that combat. But there's going to be about 5 more encounters over the day. The ability that can cause more net hp gain is going to be much better in the later encounters unless there is enough healing in your party such that it's not very difficult to get back to full hp without the healer feat.
But the difference isn't really very significant, one is 1d6+4+level, the other is chamod+level. Assuming that the person with Inspiring Leader is a Sorc/Bard/Warlock/Paladin that will be maxing out its Cha, you are only looking at an average difference of 2.5 hit points (or even less if you manage to get yourself some Tomes of Influence or something).
Sure it is possible that those 2.5 hit points could make the difference, but I think it is more likely that Inspiring Leader's proactive approach will make the difference by giving you the hit points prior to the fight that you need them in, rather than after the fight when you are already dead.