Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Bardic Impotence

So this is feedback more than a suggestion, as I know it's not likely to get changed, because this is the way it works in tabletop.

But coming from the Pathfinder games, where Bardic Inspiration affects everyone in a radius, I was massively disappointed to discover it only affects one target in BG3 / 5e.

This seems to be an overly-drastic nerf to me, and really cripples how useful a bard can be to their group. Plus, the number of casts is the same.

As it lasts all day before a rest, should I be pre-casting it rather than casting it in combat?
Does that even work?
If so, it seems like needless busywork to me, which I had the impression 5e was designed to eliminate.

I completely see where you're coming from. Systems where Bards have actual songs that affect the creatures around them through their performance makes the class feel so much more like the magical musician they're meant to be.

BG3 is DnD5e and so the single-target flavourless bardic inspiration is what we'll have. If it helps I can at least assure you it's not a "nerf", it's relatively balanced within the system (although often awkward in tabletop as people forget to use it).
No need to pre-cast, I think. It's an okay way to spend your bonus actions. It resets on short rests once you hit level 5, so you won't have to save it for later as much either.

In tabletop, it only lasts 10 minutes, so you actually need to consider when you want to cast it on people. This removes some of your "needless busywork" argument, because you wouldn't just cast it on everyone at the beginning of the day. Plus, you might want to cast it on one person multiple times throughout the day instead of every party member once.

Otherwise, while it only affects a single target in 5e, its effect is more powerful as it adds a d6 (3.5 on average) instead of a +1, and this bonus stacks with other bonuses. Plus, a creature can save its use for 10 minutes, while in PF you only get the bonus while the bard is performing.

All that said, the fact that 5e Bards don't restore inspiration on a short rest until level 5 is fairly disappointing and makes early levels pretty boring/frustrating imo.

5e Bards get the overly-massive buff of being full casters in 5e, as opposed to be 2/3 casters in 3.5/Pathfinder.

How are you calculating "3.5 on average"?

Since the minimum of a die roll isn't 0, the average is greater than half of the die size. For the simplest example, take a d2. The options are 1 and 2, for an average roll of 1.5

d6: (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6)/6 = 21/6 = 3.5
d8: 4.5
d100: 50.5

(1+2+3+4+5+6)/6

the .5 is an artifact of not being able to roll a 0

if you could roll a zero, the math would be:

(0+1+2+3+4+5+6)/7

There's no need for such a long addition, the lowest + highest number is enough

1d6: (1 + 6) / 2 = 3.5 and so forth

That's only true is your die numbers are linearly distributed. (Though admittedly they all are in D&D.)