Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Johnny Angel" data-source="post: 6369454" data-attributes="member: 13334">They were musical wizards in 2nd Edition, when I fell in love with the class. Back then, their inspiration abilities were kind of useless, because the situations where you weren't trying to win surprise or losing surprise were rare. In 3rd edition they lost the ability to cast fireball, but they gained the ability to heal. I thought it was a pretty good trade-off. But now in 5e with Magical Secrets they can cast fireball again. And the inspiration became something they could kick off in battle and then jump into the battle for five rounds, or maintain for no additional cost except for the other actions they could have been taking. They are capable of a jack-of-all-trades build, though the relatively flatter ability bonuses all-around may make that kind of moot.And the jacking-of-all-trades was in fact worse in 2nd and 3rd edition, because in 2nd their thief ability points were so token they'd never be qualified to carry the thieves' tools, much less stand in for the thief in a pinch, and in 3rd edition there were never enough skill points to spread around the big skill list even if you put 18 in your Int. In 5e, however, you can actually be jack of all those trades and master of a few to boot.The inspiration die, and the can't-see-the-results-first rule WotC loves so much, seems pretty weak to me at least until you get to 3rd level, where the bard can actually use the die as a reaction to mitigate monster damage (College of Lore), or increase a friend's damage (College of Valor). That's better. As a damage buff/debuff you don't have to guess whether or not the roll would be useful. The wording is "You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the attack roll or ability check succeeds or fails, or before the creature deals its damage." It doesn't even say before the creature rolls its damage. It says before the creature deals its damage. You don't have to be a hard-core numbers cruncher to know what target number you're looking for after a couple of rounds, especially with 5e's flatter advancement curve and DC 30 hard ceiling, but yeah you're gambling on wastage everytime you use Inspiration to modify an attack or check. But for damage -- even if the GM won't tell you how much damage is coming, you are allowed to use the ability knowing that damage is definitely coming. You'll soak up or dish out at least a point of damage.Of course, even then I'm not sure why even this was seen as powerful enough that it could never be allowed to have unlimited uses like Barbarian Rage does at 20th level. But refreshing the uses after a short rest at 5th level seems like it should be often enough.</blockquote>

Verification