Quantifying it Bardic Inspiration isn't helping that much and in the best case scenario it's about 1/3 as impactful as implemented vs being rolled only when it has a chance to make a difference.
Just considering non-advantage attacks for now for simplicity, on a non advantage role assuming it's possible for 1-6 to be the range of failure (favourable assumption for BG3's implementation) the odds of it turning a failure into a success is about 17%. But the odds of turning a failure into a success if you only rolled is about 58%. There's the issue of if it's used but after 6 attacks it would be about 88% chance it's used, giving an expected about 51% chance of having turned a miss into a hit. Six attacks might sound like a lot but even in EA it's possible for a fighter to make 4 on their turn and possibly one as a reaction, the most I can think of Sorcerer making nine (3 x Scorching Ray). Without the rounding that's just about 1/3. If for example you are using it on Great Weapon Master attacks, realistically they will have an average damage of at least 20 on a great sword (10 GWM, 3 ability, 7 from 2d6). The bardic inspiration is contributing about expected 3.5 damage in this case, versus the 11 it "should" be contributing. That's pretty bad for a feature that takes a long rest resource and a bonus action.
Taking into account saving throws, quantifying its impact numerically is difficult, but assuming you would have wanted to avoid the effect it's more opportunity for the inspiration to work, which in practice makes it better, and more of a pity if it's wasted on an unnecessary role.
A quick side note if instead of rolling on a degree of failure from 1-6 you rolled it on a degree of failure from 1-5 it would have 80% chance of turning a failure to a success at the cost of a slightly lower chance of being rolled. After six attacks it would be about 66% chance to have turned a failure to a success. So it's more like four times better.
As for high ground and advantage, they make its loss in effectiveness worse. High ground makes it more likely the required roll range is such that inspiration will be wasted, advantage slightly pushed up the chance of turning a failure into a success but increases the chances of being rolled when not needed. And this is far from the biggest beneficiary from the lack of long meaningful long rest restrictions, that's kind of a whole different can of worms as far as balance goes.
A 1/3 effectiveness nerf to a feature is absolutely brutal.
Last edited by Panda Warlord; 04/10/22 04:15 PM.
