Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New PFH announcement.

The act of giving a Bardic Inspiration die to a party member has always been a bonus action. Cutting Words was originally a reaction, and depending on what a Bardic Inspiration die is used for, the act of using it is either a free action or a reaction.

Actually, looking back at the tooltip, I grabbed an image of it. It DOES say Cutting Words is a reaction. It just looks like it got MASSIVELY buffed compared to its tabletop incarnation, where it only affected one parameter instead of ALL of its possible parameters.



EDIT: Oh, I didn't notice they looked at Combat Inspiration too, was too distracted by Cutting Words. Combat Inspiration (or well, the base Bardic Inspiration part of it) has actually been NERFED from its tabletop incarnation. It says NEXT roll instead of being able to hold onto it and use it whenever you choose, and the wording implies that it's the Bard that controls what effect it's used for upon granting the die, rather than the recipient.

I have mixed feelings about a flat +4 AC increase, but long term it's a nerf when in later levels it could have been 1d8 or higher instead (as bardic inspiration gets a bonus d2 at set levels), unless the effect also scales and we just don't know it yet. Regardless of how it works, it's going to be bad compared to Cutting Words or its tabletop incarnation if you can't even choose when to expend that die.



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No reaction rework it seems. Cutting Words may be listed as a reaction in the tooltip, but in the combat demonstration they just showed, it appears to be a free action.

All my fears may be coming true. Proper reactions were my baseline expectation for the game, and I was willing to overlook literally everything else for it. But now... I fear for the long term combat design for the game now. If Bardic Inspiration is this restrained, imagine the future Counterspell. It's time to approach every fight with the same mentality I utilized in my DOS2 Tactican runs - powerful sneak attack alpha strikes to kill that fireball caster since we clearly can't rely on the possibility of counterspell anymore, if it even makes it into the game at all.