The Eloquence Bard's "Best" feature isn't so good: D&D 5e
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:47 The value of bardic inspiration
5:40 Using Unsettling Words
6:36 The Math
12:20 Wrap up 
Игры
I never thought it was the best feature; as an eloquence Bard lover, it was my least used feature. However, sometimes 17.5-31% improvement to the accuracy of a particular spell, in a particular circumstance, is phenomenal. It's circumstantial, but I've been very glad to have it in those circumstances - sometimes the cost of the spell not succeeding are so high that even multiplying the benefit by 0.175-0.31, it's worth it.
Exactly, 17-30% improvement is taking you from 50% chance the enemy fails to 70-80% chance the enemy fails. It's just as powerful as giving them disadvantage on the save. I find this meta so weird TBH, when Bless is considered absolutely a must take when on any particular roll, the chance that Bless does anything at all is less than 10%. Why is Bless a must-take & must-use when 90% of the time it does nothing at all? But Unsettling Words with double-triple the chance to do something is suddenly considered "bad"?
@@agilemind6241 I mean, bless affects all attacks and saves of 3 people. With at least 2 attack rolls per round. A 90% that you roll 6 times (2 attacks, 3 players), is almost 50% of affecting at least one roll. And that's one round, and not considering any save you may have to make.
@@agilemind6241bless also lasts much longer, although I will concede that being offset probably for the concentration slot.
Honestly, when I read the title of this video, I thought of every ability except for Unsettling Words and I thought to myself, "How are any of these not great?" I completely forgot Unsettling Words existed lmao.
Same, I'm currently playing a 9th level eloquence bard, and I completely forgot this existed. I was never even tempted by it.
100% thought he was going to talk about how this bard can basically autosucceed CHA checks. This ability seemed like a ribbon feature to me lol
@@Onethirdlessah yes, rogue's 11th level feature at level 3 is a ribbon, nice to know
@@xolotltolox7626 Unsettling Words was what felt like a ribbon feature to me. Reliable Talent and the eloquence bard version are great.
@@Onethirdless yeah, fair enough, misunderstood you then
and really nice to know as a rogue player that a bard gets your captstone at 3
75 percent chance it does nothing? That sounds like regular Bardic Inspiration right there. Stop forgetting to use the inspiration I granted you!
Completely fair points, but I’ve always seen and used Unsettling Words as a way to hedge your bets. If I really need to stick a spell, I don’t want to risk everything on a 50/50, I’d much rather have a 72.5/27.5 even if it comes at the cost of a bonus action and inspiration. The numbers work out in a white room, but it still has abundant use situationally.
Exactly, and so, what is more difficult to do is trying to find statistics with context. For example a spellcaster have charmed with hypnotic pattern 2 of my companions. I want it to fail his concentration so that my friends get to play. I can use this feature and almost guarantee that in this round the spellcaster will loose concentration. Or I can use two rounds of actions and movement to shake my friends up. Playing an eloquence bard right now. Unsettling words is the feature that I use the less often and it is for the same reason that Treantmonk is showing here, but it is not useless as he might say either.
Ye looking at it in a way that it always increases your chances on the use is something you can do. And if you then put it relative to the base chance, since spells barely ever have 100% success chance, puts it in a bit of a better light. Sure it probably isn't always worth, but there might be important situations, where a spell needs to stick, as you mentioned or your expending a high level spell slot, where the investment might be worth it, as that makes it more likely, that your high level resources do anything and aren't wasted, so basically trading in bardic inspiration for a partial higher level slot in a way.
@@tremblfr
He is claiming it is overated though. His argument is against builds that take 3 levels in bard just for the feature. Not against eloquence bards that mainly use the other features and sometimes use unsettling words when convenient.
@ODDnanref yes and no. He is saying it works 22% of the time, 77% of the times it does nothing. My argument is that yes by using only stats without context, it shows that, but there is more to tell, and I give a really common example of using a resource push the odds in my favors. Treant often uses every tool when making a build to secure as much as possible the build he wants. For example, he often uses many resources (abilities from class or species, feats, etc) to make sure that a grabbing build always or near always land. So, one could argue that one feat too many is taken and he should give use the feat for another purpose. And the answer, of course, is: it depends on the context.
All in all, I love Treant content and never miss a video. I just felt that I needed to add context to the video.
To further the point, if I have a 25% chance to succeed at something, and boost the rolls so that I now have a 50% chance to succeed, it would be intentionally misleading to say my boost was only 25%. I doubled my effectiveness. Telling you that 75% of the time, my boost didn't matter seriously undersells that I just DOUBLED my chances.
If you told a fighter he could have a +6 (30%) to his ability to hit a number of times a short rest equal to his strength mod, he'd be over the moon.
yeah, i will say +3 in most of cases.. and shut down is best then damage.
Magic Resistance dramatically increases the probability that Unsettling Words changes a save into a failure. I.e., the enemy having advantage on its saving throws creates a bell curve with the bulk of the probability mass being just above your spell save DC.
But it also pushes the chances of getting a roll too high to be affected (especially at smaller die types)
I’m very interested in seeing the math on how advantage/disadvantage changes the impact of this feature. Maybe worth a follow up video
Yeah, with the same 50% chance to succeed normally adding advantage makes them succeed 75% of the time, but if you add unsettling words (1d6) they only succeed 53.71% of the time (so a d6 is increasing the chance that your spell lands by 21.29%). Thats still not crazy, but make it a d10 (10th lvl or higher which also means you have magical secrets) and it changes the same 75% to only 37.88%, which is 37.12% of the time your bardic is affecting the outcome.
Then add in that just like AC increasing only ever affects 5% of rolls but could half the expected damage taken at the extremes, having more reliable spells can make very big differences at the extremes.
it is more complicated because each die result has a different weight
Silvery Barbs also dramatically increases the probability of Unsettling words changing a save into a failure for the same reason. For the amount that the video discussed legendary resistance, I find it strange that it didn't mention either of the 2 very common features that make unsettling words way more likely to be useful. Generally if I'm using an unsettling words to stick a spell, I'm also willing to use silvery barbs to make it work.
I take all of your points (you're by far my favorite D&D youtuber) but I think you're underselling the value of making a "save or suck" spell almost 20% more accurate. I'm very willing to consider that option for my bonus action and inspiration sometimes. ESPECIALLY since I can get so much mileage out of the other inspiration use built-in. I listened in earnest, Chris and you usually persuade me, but not this time. I still think it's a very good feature - albeit maybe overrated by the community.
My thoughts exactly, well put
Yeah I'm frankly a bit disappointed here but alas everyone's gonna have a bad take every now and then
Saying it does nothing is either a fundamental misunderstanding of statistics or value or effect
I was half expecting this to be about the autopass skill checks trait as that is the much malligned ability from dms, which regardless of ways around it, I think is a problematic ability because it encourages the bard to hog the spotlight in most social situations AND basically makes persuasion into "not mind control, but otherwise always works" which cuts a lot of tension.
Yeah, that's the one that I particularly despise as a DM. My main issue comes down to how much it overshadows any other CHA characters in the party - a warlock or paladin might be meant to be good at conversations, but if the bard is that much better than them it can feel terrible for a player and incentivize everyone letting the bard take the lead no matter what.
If they're the sole CHA character in the party then I think it's a lot more workable, but usually I find at least 2-3 players like being able to talk to NPCs.
Well… they are an Eloquence Bard. I really dislike the fact that in 5e even highly skilled characters get to fail miserably and characters with no skill at something can just succeed.
It’s all up to the dice which is pretty stupid.
As a DM you have plenty of tools to create tension. Surely an NPC who dislikes the party for whatever reason will never be swayed unless there’s very good reason for it.
@@sharp_iodine2737 As a DM you can set situations up where skilled characters can just succeed - dice really should be only when there's a chance of failure & success.
If it's a problem that skilled characters can fail too easily, the answer to that isn't to tack on to one subclass a feature that outshines any other skilled character in the party at talking, that just overshadows them even more. Yes, there's ways to adjust to it - but the main issue is that if you're ever setting DCs for the party, they're not going to work well for everyone.
It'd be like if a fighter subclass got expertise on attack rolls - either they basically hit every time against standard ACs, or if you bump up the AC to compensate the other martials would miss way too often. There wouldn't be a way to balance that combat accuracy in a way that worked for all characters.
I think Unsettling Words is really good if you remember 2 things: Stacking and Teamwork.
Sure, it's fun to hit them with this and then immediately hit them with a spell or effect of your own. But you know what's even cooler? Making sure that an ally's save or effect works. Bards shouldn't shy away from being support.
Say in the first round of combat you throw out a Bane spell. 1st level, concentration, but -1d4 from saves and attacks is pretty good. Then you hit them with Unsettling Words. Now when your ally goes in for a Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern or whatever, they are actually much more likely to succeed. With a little multiclassing or a feat, you could be able to throw Mind Sliver out there too. So now they are getting -2d4 and subtracting your inspiration die as well. Suddenly enemies that were even likely to make a saving throw are now more likely than not going to fail it. This can open up a load of options for your teammates. (Just make sure to save the Unsettling Words for the end and not waste it on your own minor spells)
I view Unsettling Words as insurance that your high-level save-or-suck spell sticks. Even when the high priority target would've failed regardless, it doesn't feel bad to have paid an insurance premium for a spell that wins the big combat of the day. Just don't use it on every spell or against enemies with legendary resistances.
You have a point that the opportunity cost is ironically increases by the amazing Unfailing Inspiration feature, but at that level your pool of Bardic Inspiration resets on a Short Rest, so you should still have enough Bardic Inspiration left to help your allies through the combat. On the contrary, spell slots only reset on a long rest, so wasting your highest level spell slot hurts more.
In terms of action economy, it can't be understated how important it is to make your big spell stick on the first round of combat. If you anticipate a fight, you could even hand out all but one Bardic Inspiration to your allies before combat begins, in which case you're unlikely to have a better alternative for your Bonus Action. Even though Bardic Inspiration lasts 10 minutes after being handed out, it often ends up being wasted due to not being needed, just like Unsettling Words might not always be necessary.
Honestly even dropping Legendary resistances so that way hopefully the Monk’s stun can go off sooner or the Wizard’s Control effect goes off, is A-Ok with me.
Spending an inspiration to remove a Legendary resistance would be incredibly strong on any other subclass of bard, it’s just valued a little less on this one because the value of an inspiration is so much greater here.
You have expressed exactly what I was thinking very clearly. 1 Bardic die and and a Bonus action really isn't much cost compared to the waste of the high level spell.
Also as you know what was rolled on the unsettling die before you choose the spell that forces them to take that penalty you know you have improved your odds by approximately roll result * 5% (5% because they are rolling a D20) - so if its a good roll it is definitely worth spending the highest level and most effective spell possible, if its a bad roll use something lesser and keep the good stuff for later.
Great point that you roll the penalty before you decide which spell to cast.
If your turn is right before the Monk, you can even let them apply the penalty for Stunning Strike.
Going from 50% success rate to 67.5% success rate is an increase of 35%. The same way increasing your AC with 2 does not equate to taking 10% less damage. Apart from bardic inspiration and BA's, high level spell slots are also a finite resource, likely more finite than inspiration. So spending inspiration to improve success rate of a 4th level spell by 35% is often a good investment. Especially with any form of advantage or disadvantage in play, because that shifts roll distribution towards your spell save DC, which is the area the inspiration has potential impact. This can easily be created by Silvery Barbs, for example, which I would want to spend on high level spell failures.
I think one thing to take into account is that in my opinion unsettling words should not be seen as a "how often does the feature do something".
It should be seen as an resource expenditure that increases the likelihood that something ELSE does something - namely usually a save or suck spell.
Save or suck in general is a statistical risk (which is why in optimized situations you should rarely use them) - you put up a very high resource cost for a potentially incredible gain but at the risk of gaining nothing and loosing everything. When there is any safer situation you don't want to use save or suck because you don't want your success to rest on a single roll.
However, in the end save or suck can be sometimes your best or only option. In some dire cicumstances you may have only one shot at hitting a certain spell and you just straight up win if the enemy fails and you loose if they succeed (and there may also be players who just enjoy the thrill of chance). In this case it doesn't matter that 82.5% of the time your unsettling words didnt change the outcome, it matters that it increases your odds of succeeding on the save or suck spell.
Assuming the enemy has a 50% chance to succeed their save your odds with unsettling word increase to 72.5% of them failing (assuming a d6, only gets better with higher dice). That resource expenditure made success on the save or suck 50% more likely. This is also why I would disagree that the likelihood of the enemy succeeding is irrelevant to the power of the feature. If you really need to stick that DC 15 Wisdom Save on someone with a +13 modifier your base chance of success is 5%. With unsettling words it goes up to e.g. 22.5% in case of a d6. If your campaign relies on that roll failing you just quadrupled your odds of survival/success. On the other hand, if they only succeed on a 2 you only increase your odds of success maginally - but you half your odds of failure! So I'd argue that using unsettling words increases reliability of save or suck spells especially in cases where the enemy is likely to fail or succeed.
Indeed, and even more usefully as you rolled the unsettling before casting the save or suck if you rolled poorly on unsettling you probably don't waste the save or suck spellslot at all, let that extra 2 from unsettling be spent against something cheaper that the opponent still won't enjoy. And if you still have inspiration die try again next round.
💯
This might be the most Treantmonk video ever. Good stuff. Thumbs up.
I played an Eloquence Bard in a long, socially heavy campaign. Lots of social encounters, lots of Knowledge rolls, tool usage, every day problems. Eloquence Bard really felt like cheating for that campaign, it was so strong. I think I got a success off the back of Unsettling Words once in the entire campaign. The idea that people think it's the best part about the subclass is hilarious.
I mean, at sixth level, Eloquence Bard gets an ability to recycle their Inspiration failures for any use of Inspiration *except* from this. In case you needed a hint that you should be using your inspiration for other things.
Happy 80k subscribers Chris 🙂👏🏻
Chris doesn’t have 1M subscribers? Odd.
He deserves much more, but he isn’t as “flashy” as many other channels that have more subs, but content of a much lower quality.
To be fair, Unfailing Inspiration is also not guaranteed to do anything. I can't count the number of combats I've seen in which the Bard has thrown inspiration to a friend, and then none of that friend's rolls during the combat are within the range in which the inspiration has any chance of helping, so the inspiration ends up expiring unused.
I always try to remember to use the baric after the combat in that case. Rolling checks to investigate the area, loot bodies, etc.
So do I, but my DM is lenient enough that they don't ask me to roll for trivial tasks, so having an unused Bardic Inspiration mostly results in me hugging the spotlight.
Having played an eloquence bard for a long time I can say that I never felt Unsettling Words to be overpowered, I just think it's neat
While I largely agree, I hope this doesn't become unquestioned community knowledge. The issue has a lot of similarities to Hex/Hunter's Mark or Bane vs. Bless. It literally has the same breakdown of player vs. monster saves as Bane vs. Bless. Like if PCs aren't rolling saving throws but they are using saving throw spells as their primary mode of offense, then Bardic Inspiration does almost nothing, but Unsettling Words is a meaningful attempt to contribute in that context.
UW also scales with the power of the saving throw effect you are using. In that way, it is kind of like Heightened Spell metamagic or especially Shadow Sorcerer's Hound of Ill Omen. It could be a really good deal for a Bardic Inspiration die to be worth 31% of an 8th level spell or even for example a 9th level Dominate Monster. With advantage on the saving throw (e.g. magic resistance), Unsettling Words could flip enemy successes into failures as much as 39.5% of the time. Using spell points as a rough guideline of spell value, 0.395*13 = 5.14, more than the value of a 3rd level spell. If you run into a situation where your BI could have that much value, you should definitely consider it. In general, using it to set up a 5th or higher level save-or-suck is potentially worth it. The main limitation with the feature is that save-or-suck should be a less common strategy for a spellcaster.
Another way of thinking about the math is that Unsettling Words is effectively increasing your spell save DC by an amount equal to the average of the bardic inspiration die. (+3.5 for d6, +4.5 for d8, etc), and you can calculate the impact of Unsettling Words as the difference between the odds of passing the original DC vs the new DC.
While it's a fine analysis it's missing the arguably best use case for the feature: creatures with Magic resistance.
Advantage on STs change the distribution quite a lot.
...maybe? There's an argument to be made that if they have advantage on the save, even with cutting words you shouldn't be using a save or suck spell in the first place unless that save has an extremely garbage modifier.
Doesnt change how much this affects the outcome.
@@quincykunz3481 If you have a resource that can counter save advantage to the point it rebalance the odds, you would rather not use it at all?
What's the point of having good control spells if you refuse to use them against the most annoying opponents?
@@stefanoanselmi12 I'd prefer to use my inspirations to have a guaranteed effect on my allies abilities, and my spell slots on utility that never fails, or offensive effects that are likely to work.
The point of good control spells is generally to exploit groups of enemies with poor saves.
There's also no small amount of overlap between enemies that have magic resist and enemies with legendary resistances, the combination of which makes strong save spells truly useless.
Can unsettling words work against magic resist to land a sick spell? Yes. Is that a good investment of your resources? It varies, but I'd say it's generally questionable.
@@quincykunz3481 - The overlap between Magic resistance and legendary resistance is actually very small.
Hard number crunching check (using D&D Beyond data): in the Monster Manual there are 39 legendary monsters, of those only 5 have also magic resitance. (Empyrean, Mummy Lord, Unicorn , Solar, Tarrasque)
Of those five the only one of low-ish GS is the Unicorn (GS 5), the next one is the mummy lord at GS 15 and everything else is above GS 20.
We are not talking about averange encounters of a campaign, especially not in the level range supposed by Chris analysis.
(Successive manuals added a bunch of demon lords, archdevils, etc.. that do raise the number of "legendary with magic resistence" monsters but still keep doing this on the higher end of the GS scale)
On the other hand there are entire monster types and subtypes easily recognizable that are characterized by Magic (or Spell) Resistance covering all levels of play from GS 1 onwards: all Devils, all Golems, all Mind Flayers, all Yuan-ti, all Drows, all Duergars...
- Changing a missed attack into a gauranteed hit or an hit into a gauranteed miss is good, but it's also less impactful than a failed saving throw.
And it lowers in value the longer a campaign goes on, due to how extra attacks and multiattacks become the norm.
a - D6 penality average at 3.5, while d20 advantage averages at about 13.82, a nice fitting counter on average (a -D8 or -D10 is obviously even better) and due to the bellcurve distribution of 2D20 pick best (very less "below 11 rolls", a lot more rolls of 11+ and expecially the 11-16 range) that penality will land succesfully way more often than with a standard ST (the one shown by Chris).
In my humble opinion this is way better than "generally questionable".
Thanks so much for posting this...
I played an eloquence bard up to 12th level. If you had asked me before this video how often Unsettling Words "worked", I would have said 1/3 of the time. Now I'm thinking I was kidding myself.
I certainly would have said it was disatisfyingly unimpactful. Never helped to get a debuff or effect to stick on a creature that wasn't going down in a round anyway.
All that said, playing the Eloquence Bard was great! Highly recommend.
Also sticky inspiration only works if your allies need it. There’s still plenty of times it goes unused cause they don’t bother rolling it because they know already succeeded.
To echo some other’s thoughts, what makes Unsettling Words so powerful isn’t how it changes the probability of the outcome… but the *impact* of that outcome. Landing a save or suck spell has a profound impact on a battle, often times completely negating the most dangerous threat. The difference can be much greater than “oh yay, I landed one more melee attack” or”oh yay, I negated 7 points of damage”
I’m having trouble understanding the line of thinking that if you don’t roll the specific numbers, it didn’t matter. Surely the same could be applied to abilities that are definitely good?
Say you’re a level 6 fighter, and you pick up resilient wisdom. you increase your odd wisdom score to an even one, and add your proficiency bonus to wisdom saves. But that ability only does anything if you roll one of 4 specific numbers on the d20, which means that 80% of the time you roll a wisdom save, resilient wisdom does nothing. Does that make it a bad feat?
Just wanna say I absolutely love your content, this is just something I’m genuinely confused about!
There might be an argument that certain lategame saving throws are so brutal against PCs that Reslient becomes worth taking even if it only comes up 35% of the time at best. This is doubly true for getting CON save proficiency on casters. If that same spell kills a big monster, well, there'll be another big monster next week, but a PC death is a much bigger deal.
That said, I've totally had this experience LOL. Took Res:WIS on a fighter for the last session of a campaign that closed off at 8. During that campaign I'd been struggling with getting hit by Command frequently, and then it turned out I didn't make a WIS save for that entire final session.
I play an eloquence bard and what your math doesn’t account for is, since you roll the inspiration die before casting the spell, you can make an informed decision about the odds of the spell sticking, not wasting a high level slot. So if I roll a 1 on my unsettling words die, I might change tactics, whereas if I roll a 9 or 10, I confidently fire off the big spell knowing it will work. Since we get inspiration back on a short rest, I’d rather “waste” that resource to protect spell slots that only come back on a long rest.
And bonus actions for bards aren’t valuable besides inspiration. I mean, if I’m concentrating on Animate Objects, I’m using my bonus action every turn for that, but then I’m probably not casting a save or suck spell since most are concentration.
It's smart to let the roll inform your spell choice though I might still decide to attempt my big spell early in the combat despite I only rolled a minor penalty to their save.
That only improves the issue slightly. It's still true that the monster is more likely (around 70%) to roll a save number that makes the inspiration meaningless.
@@ByssbodNot according to look on my DM’s face when I turn a DC17 save into DC27
I was really curious about how you were going to convince me that Silver Tongue isn't as good as it seems, but Unsettling Words makes sense. Though while I understand the presentation, I feel it's a little too narrow to just look at whether or not the Bardic die was useful or not. Unsettling Words is risk reduction. It's pushing success further off the table of possible results. And while, yes, the majority of uses of Bardic inspiration across the class do the same thing, the only thing that changes here, like you said, is the order of operations - which you can change without affecting the functionality of the feature.
In this way, I would suggest letting the player roll the Bardic first since it has to be used regardless, and effectively add the result to the Bard's spell save DC for that save. Tell the players what the enemy needs to roll for success and roll in front of the table. There's a big difference in how it feels when players are in a situation where they know Unsettling Words can't change the outcome, and telling them that the enemy now has to roll a 16 or higher to succeed instead. Even if the enemy has to roll a 3 or higher to succeed, creating that suspense is just more fun for the table.
That being said, I would never take 3 levels of Bard just for this feature unless maybe it were levels 18, 19, and 20. Even then it's unlikely.
I never realized the numbers were so bad! I ran a table with an Eloquence bard that ended up wasting their BI a lot, it was fun-gambling at the beginning, but it got frustrating after a few sessions. We ended up house ruling that they had the option to use Unsettling Words as a reaction, kinda like Cutting Words. I guess it defeats the purpose of the feature because it becomes too much like another subclass'. It wasnt an optimized game anyway, but it kinda worked for us.
I can't help but think of the level 20 one-shot you ran and posted to this channel, and how just honestly not that many big saving throw spells were used at all on monsters. Monty used an upcasted Banishment that hit a couple targets. Telekinetic shove was used a couple of times (in fact, the Divination Wizard's portent was used on a Telekinetic shove). A few monsters had teleports so had a saving throw to try and escape a forcecage. There were some Scatters and some Vortex Warps casted--those have saving throws.
Where would you even use an Unsettling Words among that play session? I suppose you'd use it on monsters that you know have a teleport and are inside of a forcecage? Or maybe use it on one of the multiple Banishment targets? Or maybe on a vortex warp to warp someone inside of a forcecage? All of these are...fine, they're ok, but I'm not blown away by any of these.
Even at lower levels, if you're casting Hypnotic Pattern on five enemies, is it really that big of a deal to make one of the five have a harder saving throw? I mean, it's not bad, it's a bit like having an overall +1 to your spell DC for one spell. But it's not like "this makes Eloquence the best subclass" level of amazing.
It has always felt to me like Unsettling Words is just not that high impact UNLESS you pick spells that are normally bad, that you normally wouldn't pick. Like if you're casting Hold Monster on a single target. Hold Monster is normally too risky to cast on a single target, but maybe Eloquence Bard reduces the risk enough that it's a reasonable pick.
But the ability to incorporate some normally bad spells into your spell list also doesn't sound like "the greatest class feature of all time" or anything. It sounds fun--I like seeing a good excuse to use some underused spells. But it never struck me as an ultra high power feature.
Banishment seems like the perfect case for Unsettling Words.
I don't think you have to pick 'bad' spells to make really great use of it. Though it is certainly true getting in effect a huge boost to your spell save DC can make less used spells/skills really potent. Really "Unsettling Words" is just a very good tool for getting that effect you really need to stick to stick, or even just as part of getting really huge damage on the most important target. Almost any spellcaster build will tend to have prepared a great nova damage spell with saving throw for half, and a real nova damage build built with every trick for maximing damage once could be a great combination. All for the paltry cost of a bonus action and inspiration die that as a Bard its reasonably likely you didn't have anything to do with on many turns once combat starts - odds are good at least some of if not all your allies got inspired before the fight if it was an expected one, and will then never use that die, the leftovers in combat might as well be useful.
I feel like this is a very white room evaluation. Having just DM’d for a long campaign with an Eloquence Bard, this is a pretty strong feature in play. Once that inspiration die gets to a d8 or d10, it can help shut down encounters. I can’t tell you how many times the Bard in my party used this to guarantee Psychic Lance would work. A DC 17 INT save with a -7 to the saving throw thanks to unsettling words…? And now the enemy is *incapacitated*.
Yeah. I learned this a while ago. I run a lot of level 20 One Shots and noticed basically no party ever cleared all LRs I decided to test something the next time I was a player for a one shot. Got really lucky and was a part of a playtest for 2 CR 30 Giants for Giant's Guide to Xen'drik on DMsGuild. Both Giants had 4 LRs. I built my character specifically to burn them.
Base DC 23 for Spell Saves (8 + 6 [Prof] + 5 [Cha] + 2 [+2 Rhythm-Maker Drums] + 2 [Robe of the Archmagi]).
On top of this I was a homebrew race with who could, Prof Bonus Number of times per day, add half my proficiency bonus (rounded down) to my Spell Save DC again.
So for those keeping track that is a DC 26 Spell Saving Throw with -1d12 from Unsettling Words. So anywhere from Effective DC 27 to DC 38.
In BOTH fights I burned the final saving throw when the damage would have killed them regardless. And I wasn't the only Fullcaster for those fights.
I still like the ability because sometimes you want to make SURE a character fails a save cause it's ride or die and you want to boost the odds in your favor as much as you can, and it doesn't matter if they would have failed regardless because you were buying the peace of mind and security it offers... but don't target saves kids. AC in High Level D&D combat is a consistent weak link. It's infinitely more reliable to just ignore saving throw spells all together unless you're pulling Tempest Cleric shenanagains.
As an aside, the only time I've seen all saves burned on a fight was when 4/5 of the party were fullcasters and the Fighter was One D&D with the Topple Mastery. The level 15 party managed to burn the 4 LRs from the Cradle of the Hill Scion and the 4 from the Scion of Grolantor for 8 saves burned total in one fight. I was so proud.
Possible Fix: As a bonus action, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration and choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. The creature gains an Unsettling Die. The creature must roll the Unsettling Die and subtract the number rolled from the next saving throw it makes before the start of your next turn. If the creature still succeeds on the saving throw, they must keep the Unsettling Die and continue rolling it whenever they make a saving throw until they fail or one minute has passed.
I’m playing an eloquence bard right now! The amount of times Unsettling Words has effected the roll is not a lot, but when it does work it really matters. My dm also homebrewed a different feature than the auto succeed on deception and persuasion. It’s boring to always succeed! Instead, I can pick a single spell to prepare from the enchantment and illusion school up to third level.
Unsettling words I never used for my bard spells, but for ally spells. I see this as an early game use ability as the sticky bardic inspiration gets a lot more milage as the save of monsters get a lot higher as CR increases.
I always thought that it's the deception and persuasion checks can't roll below 10 that people considered the op feature for eloquence bards, since that's the one I see people complain about most of the time.
Yes indeed. TBH I think that feature is actually just straight up bad for the game, because it makes it pretty pointless to even ask for those checks.
Tbf that feature is just badly designed as it removes chance entirely instead of simply rigging the rolls in your favor. If it gave advantage on those rolls instead it would be similarly powerful but retain failure chance while also improving success odds for checks a fixed 10 couldnt beat.
@@luminous3558 The problem is not with this feature - it's with skill checks in an accuracy bound system where people still set DCs like it's 2003. And the reason they do is that the variance of a d20 roll is way too much in a game where bonuses are small.
Something very important to mantion is that the math around this feature gets a lot better if you also have Silvery Barbs. Assuming you do, the enemy would then need to pass two the check twice, making the reduction much more statistically effective.
Treantmonk, you’re so good. This is my kind of content.
It is clear that i would only use it on Spells with a strong enough effect.
BUT for comparison 1d6 (3,5) 1d8 (4,5) 1d10 (5,5) 1d12 (6,5)
Half Feat or 2 to Spell Attribut ---> only + 1 !!
And every one want`s to get 20 for +5 ,...
+3 would mean 26 in your Spellcaster Attribut and every one would say it is insane.
Even though I picked this subclass for silver tongue feature because I am playing as a merchant so he needs to be good at buying and selling items but there is away to make sure they fail their saving throws by using unsettling words and that is by adding heightened spell to it this combo has saved my character's hide when fighting monsters with high saving throws
Thanks for sharing this analysis with us. Really good to see the numbers.
So the strategy to make proper use of this ability is to gather a party of 12 Eloquence Bards; so long as everything works out to their averages: the first 3 bards manage to drain the 1st legendary resistance, the second set of 3 bards drain the 2nd legendary resistance, the 3rd set of 3 bards gets that last legendary resistance down, and then the 4th set of 3 bards gets the save-or-suck spell to stick.
Great video Chris! You have realized this about Unsetling Words recently? I remember other videos that you talked about this subclass and i remember you saying good things about this Feature.
Super interesting. Seems like an easy fix to improve it would be to give it the same mechanics as the other Eloquence features - if they still succeed despite the inspiration being used, you keep the inspiration, maybe let you wait to decide to use it until after the save etc? 🤔
I’ve been telling people this for years!!! Thanks for actually putting it into numbers
Thanks Chris, awesome as always!
I never thought it was about that feature, I thought this was gonna be about Silver Tongue
I agree that this is by no means a god tier feature and using BI to support is better most of the time, especially lategame.
But at mid levels where legendary resistance is not overly common getting a 17-22,5% increase to an encounter winning Spell of the wizard is probably still a good use of a mere bonus action and a die.
You can still cast and use the main part of your turn how you want and gambling a die on a at worst 17% increased chance of winning and saving recourses beyond that is good, considering the relatively low commitment.
Again everything depends on the type of table you play at, but even at decently optimised tables having that option in addition to amazing features is fun to be able to pull out.
It's the worst feature of a superb subclass, but a decent trick to pull out.
the thing is the wizards best spells either have many targets or no saves. this feature promotes using the worst spells - single target save or sucks
@@mathguydave3699 This becomes increasingly valid the higher in levels you go, but some save or suck spells are by no means bait imo (Banishment for example) and getting a 17-22,5% boost for such a low commitment is fine.
Again this is by no means the best feature ever, but a decent tool to have in your arsenal.
The feature ends up being a situational small bump to your save DC, at the cost of some resources. That still sounds alright to me
Dang man probability is a hell of a drug.
I played an eloquence bard in a lvo 20 one shot and unsettling words wasn't even on my radar 😅
I was all about that extra inspiration and support.
Unsettling words is a cool option for a battle master, not an optimal one but a very cool one
Wow, i was never under the impression that unsettling words was their best feature, we have an eloquence bard in our party rn and she’s never once used it, i guess now I know why
Thanks for the video Chris!
Wow. I never noticed the order of operations issue. Great video. Very insightful.
Just as a question: Does it have an impact in swaying a success when a creature might be rolling the save with Advantage? Like with magic resistance. Or is that just making the odds of it doing anything the same/less?
The thought is that with advantage the creature has an even better chance of rolling a success, thus the lower half of the rolls will be ignored more often meaning that the impact of the 11-16 rolls might come into play more often. But that is probably offset by the fact that the creature now has twice the chance of rolling an impossible to overcome success.
If a creature has advantage on the save, it would change the value proposition significantly. Rolling a 10 or higher goes from a 55% chance to an 80% chance
All that math and long spreadsheets to find 17.5%, I found it by taking the average of a d6 (1+6)/2=3.5 and dividing by the d20 (3.5/20)=0.175. Also works with the d8 (4.5/20)=0.225 and d12 (6.5/20)=0.325. Still excellent work spelling it out in detail, and mad respect for going though those epic long spreadsheets. Never going to use unsettling words now lol.
Well darn it math ruined my day...just started playing a Satyr Eloquence Bard in our new campaign. Not gonna give up my character concept though (charlatan/con artist & poet), but thanks for the perfect timed advice!
I haven't done the maths, but this feels similar to 1 extra AC having a lot more effect when you already have high AC because the change relative to your chances of getting hit are higher. What is the actual change in a creature's chance to fail their saving throw at different base odds of success because I feel like there's a bigger boost than what you're saying?
Edit:
Ok doing the maths for the d6 if we take 50% chance to fail their new chance to fail is 67.5% which means they are 67.5/50 = 1.35 so 35% more likely to fail their saving throw. For 40% chance to fail a 43.75% increased chance to fail, for 30% it's 58.3% increase and for 10% it's 175% more likely to fail the throw. Obviously there's a middle ground in terms of 10% chance to 27.5% chance probably isn't a good trade resource wise but still. Going up it's obviously less impressive but for completeness the highest you want to go for rolling a 6 to do something is a success on a roll of 14 or higher (14+6 is 20). That represents a 70% chance to hit which turns into an 82.5% chance to hit or a 17.86% increase which is STILL HIGHER than what 17.5% chance of doing something implies.
I'm not going to do it for all of the other die but I'll do a couple examples for the d12. A 12 on the die can still do something when a success is a roll of 8 or higher which represents a 40% chance to fail. The d12 turns 78 out of 240 d20 rolls into a failure which is a 72.5% chance to fail which is a flat increase of 32.5% but represents a whopping 81.25% increase in chance to fail. I mean it literally goes from more likely to succeed to probably going to fail the save. Obviously going down the percentage improves, I mean you can literally turn a success even on a 1, to a 32.5% chance to fail, but going up is also relevant. The maths gets a bit more complicated but for 50% chance to hit, that's where you see the 31.25% mentioned in the video, because rolls higher than 10 don't do anything. So that's 50% to 81.25% or a 62.5% increase, and for 60% it's a 47.2% increase.
Overall, not only does the roll have a much bigger effect than what you said in the video, but the times when the rolls are most effective are when your resources are most needed: when you're facing a difficult enemy, because the difficult enemies are the ones most likely to succeed on saves. I'm actually baffled at how this wasn't picked up on. This video is just straight up wrong. The value of the inspiration die isn't in the number of times it changes a success into a fail, it's in the actual change in the probability of an enemy failing which for some reason was entirely ignored.
Btw I do want to point out that I usually love your videos, that's why I'm so frustrated at how inaccurate this video is.
Sorcerer Bard time! Action for Mind Sliver, bonus action for Unsettling Words, then hit with that save or suck roll with a (bardic die)+1d4 penalty, if they pass anyways, despite it all; could always use the good ol' "Silvery Barbs!" trick
Oh man now I cant decide if I should ask my DM to swap my subclass from Eloquence to Lore
Same reason that I rarely use bardic inspiration on conversation checks in bg3.
There's a big difference between "You or your party make a Save" and "The BBEG fails one"
Case in point: I once bamboozled a DM into accepting that, if Limited Wish could make me always make a Save, it could make an opponent always fail one.
That's how Asmodeus wound up in a diamond until he repented all his sins.
The amount of time this is useless is not the fulcrum. The the p recent time it turns failure into success is the metric. So it turns roughly 1/3 of your failure into successes. Now if you are fighting a legendary resistance, that operates on a different risk/reward spectrum.
Hey man! The internet has told me Unsettling words along with Lucky and Silvery barbs are straight up broken! So it must be true!
Lucky is mostly "broken" in situations where it's ruled to override disadvantage and Silvery Barbs is higher-risk higher-reward Shield (my only real complaint about that spell is they gave it to Wizard; part of a spell's overall power is a matter of what classes have access to it)
@life-destiny1196 Lucky just does what Elven accuracy does if you have a disadvantage. Otherwise, it's 50/50, same with Silvery babrbs. My players use both, and I've never felt like it broke the game even remotely.
Don't believe the hype. They are good, not broken.
@@chrisg8989 Nah, we're in agreement here. They're good, but not as out of band as people think (I once saw someone assert Silvery Barbs was a fifth-level spell and I was stunned LOL). In particular I always see Lucky as "that filler feat people tell you to take after you cap your important stat and get any other random stuff you need," like Alert.
I'm curious how this stacks up with bane and disadvantage. I'd love to see if it's as useful as I'd assumed when you really have to get a spell off. Also, I love the math
You've convinced me to change up my sorcerer. I used to use quickened spell to throw out Mind Sliver for a -1d4 penalty before a big save or suck spell. Now, I think I'll just use heightened spell and only when absolutely necessary. That also doesn't have a guaranteed chance of changing the result, but disadvantage would be at least a bit more likely to change the outcome than a -1d4. Even stacking both of these (which would cost 5 sorcery points) wouldn't even bump up the chance of changing the outcome more than 50% of the time.
Was gonna say the same thing. Realizing my aberrant mind sorcerer’s mind sliver sucks booty
(heavily edited) as SybilantSquid points out, this works no problem if the cantrip is cast with the main action first
@eXyliad Easy enough to fix. Quicken the spell instead of Mind Sliver.
@@SybilantSquid of course you are rigt uu' I shouldn't post or comment with sleep deprivation
Doesn't Mind Sliver at least also deal damage?
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Actually the best case scenario for a d12 is 32.5% if a crature have 55% or higher chance to make the save. The 31.25% is for 50% chance to make the save.
Either way, highten spell metamagic give disadvantage on a save, so the chance for it to turn a success into a failure is at best 25% (here the maximum is at a success rate of 50%, and any other success rate would make it lower), yet still it count as a usefull metamagic to have. Making an enemy fail a save is pretty valuable.
Also, getting advantage on an attack (or a save) get you at most 25% of turning a miss into a hit, but still getting advantage is certainly usefull even at the cost of resources.
I hated using Save or Suck spells (mostly because they sucked) until I started playing an Eloquence Bard, and now I really lean into the subtle manipulation. To clarify, I typically use Unsettling Words outside of combat. For example, if I really need the Suggestion spell to stick in order to suggest a course of action for the creature to take. Is it always successful? No. Is it more reliable? Yes. Also, since you see the result prior to the saving throw, just burn the low result and try again. If they still succeed, then use Silvery Barbs as a reaction to impose disadvantage.
I also see something like the Suggestion or Hypnotic Pattern spells in combat ending an encounter with a strong foe. (minus Legendary Resistances) If you hit the target with Mind Sliver which stays active to the end of your next round, you can then deduct the d4 + d8 from the Saving Throw with a 5th level Eloquence Bard. Potentially somebody else has Bane active on the target, but then that's starting to be quite a few items to line up in a row. Again, mostly using this outside of combat for Suggestion and Detect Thoughts when I'm not really worried about resources that come back on a short rest. (2nd level pact slots as well.)
Great video. Always fantastic to see differing opinions.
It seems like they wanted a saving throw version of Lore Cutting Words, but missed the mark by making it a Bonus Action instead of a Reaction
I am currently playing an eloquence bard and never have I used the inspiration die for a saving throw that never worked, I understand that the spell might have worked otherwise, or that it might still fail even with the inspiration die, but it provides such ample safety for the moments when you really need it that I never felt like I wasted it, and when you go for a year and a half worth's of campaigning without failing a single must nail spell at a critical moment, it's really hard to see this feature as anything other than super strong.
Honestly, when considering save or suck spells, 17% sounds amazing
This was a great analysis of the feature, and really spells out its statistics more clearly than I’ve ever considered them. That said, in defense of this feature I’d like to point out it may have more use outside of combat than inside of combat. Out of combat, or you consider the feature is worth about 25% of a spell slot at Lv 5, then 25% of a Lv 3 spell slot is pretty good, especially when used out of combat, and especially in games where short rests are a little more readily available. It’s hard to deny you’re right about most players overestimating the usefulness of this feature though.
It is not 25% of a spell slot. In the situation here, your level spell slot works 50% of the time. So +25% chance to land, is 50% of a level 3 spell slot. It also saves you from casting it again if it works (saving you the action) and the effect comes into play earlier (on average).
Like others said, when you take into account lower % chance or magical resistance, the value skyrockets.
Ex: 50% chance with MR (which is a 25% chance to land the spell), getting a +25% is actually doubling the power of the spell, which is equal in this case to giving the creature disadvantage. And that's only a D8. So a value of 1 spell slot (hopefully a big one) per bardic inspiration, which resets on a short rest.
Nice review! At least for me, "unsettling words' can be a clutch manoeuver but only in a few rare niche situations, like when you NEED to make someone fail a saving throw, with a little extra boost of maybe 15-20 percent ... but still i regard the feature as almost a "ribbon feature" and part of a toolkit with "bane" or "silvery barbs" or other options
How to fix this issue.
You get the dice back if it made no difference to the result of the roll or if a legendary action was used.
I don't go into Dnd with numbers. I go in with Unsettling Words. I do like that you can predetermined how much it can take off. Especially when combined with Bane and Mind Sliver to really start stacking negatives. If you could blow through Legendary Resistances, that's what really matters. Imagine having a Legendary Resistance pop off of Bane.
I feel this is an example for how white room math should normally be left in the white room.
The thing i find incredibly powerfull about Unsettling Words is not how often it's usefull, but how strong it is when it works.
Imagine the Champion feature of Improved Critical. Let's say it doesn't only improve your crit range, but every time you crit it stuns the target. Sure, you're only doing so 1 out of 10 attacks, but wouldn't that be incredibly powerfull? In a normal 4 round combat you might not see a single crit. However if you do, the reward is inmense.
I see unsettling words just like a Monks stunning strike. Rarely usefull, but can end an encounter if you manage to land it.
Thank you for your video.
I have some followup questions for you to consider however.
First things first unsettling word may have a 17.5% chance to work properly but I think this is only half of the picture. You shouldn’t only look at a feature working or not, you should rather look at the effects of the feature. As far as I can tell this feature adds 17.5% to your threshold of succeeding with your operation. This is at least a plus 3 to your DC. Yes it is tied to a limited resource, but as far as I know Bardic Inspiration is a resource that recovers on a short rest (after lvl 5). So it isn’t like a high lvl spellslot and more like a 1st lvl spell.
Then there is the question on how this ability scales against magic resistance or pseudodragon poison which gains additional effects when the target fails the save by 5 or more.
Sure the impact against most of the other bard features at this lvl might be of a more indirect matter but it is still powerful and not to be compared against the combat inspiration or mantle of inspiration.
Also the cost of this feature is quite minimal as there are times where you can’t use your bonus action in any other meaningful way and you don’t need to be the cause of the savingthrow either.
And of course this ability isn’t a spam ability as there are other uses for your bardic inspiration.
Anyway have a nice day
AEther
I never played it so I don't know how it feels in play. But I view it from the opposite side.
Let's take the D8 for example. Save or suck has 50% chance to succeed. So you need to spent 2 spell slots on average to get your spell to stick (or burn a legendary resistance). The 22.5% chance improvement of your D8 isn't helping you always, but it gets you 72.5% chance to land, which means you need to cast 1.38 spells on average to land your spell. Which is much much better. You are essentially turning 1.38 bardic inspiration dices (and bonus actions) into 0.62 spell slots (and their action to cast). Which amounts to about 0.4-0.5 spell slots per bardic inspiration dice. With D10 it gets to 0.55 ish. D12 0.65 ish. Not that bad. Because you should not compare your 22.5% with 100%, but your actual chance to succeed your spell invested. So the lower the % chance for your spell to succeed, the more relative value your bardic inspiration has.
Now add magical resistance. Your theoretical 50% becomes 25%. With inspiration it goes back up to ~50%. With the same calculations, you get a value of 1.15 spell slots per bardic inspiration.
(Note, at higher level, with a D12, you can get your bardic inspiration to be worth closer to 2 spell slots of your highest level).
Also it isn't just the value in spells, it is also the action economy where you save actions and possibly incapacitate your targets faster.
On paper, it looks AMAZING. If every bardic inspiration is worth between half and 1.5 of you highest spell slots, and you get 5 that come back on a short rest (so you get 5-15 per day if you wanted), it looks great to me. Essentially I view them as a heightened spell that is more available, and can be much more powerful on the hard to land spells. However, we should always consider that the spells we are talking about are probably not always the best. So you gain great value on a average/below average spell, which makes it decent.
This is a similar issue with the Circle of Stars druids Cosmic Omens feature. It’s a reaction to someone “about to make a save”. So RAW you have the same info gap. In practice it’s very hard to always have to pump the breaks to see if the Druid wants to use it so we ended up using it like bardic or cutting words anyway.
Been wondering the same thing lately with playtest war cleric, a vex weapon and a bless spell. Realized just how rarely the bless die actually contributes. Lower stakes and allies still gain benefit but still if they arent making many attack rolls maybe Shield Of Faith IS the better use of 1st level cleric slots.
I feel like the feature would be better if it worked on a reaction when you see a creature succeed a saving throw. Almost like a mini Silvery Barbs.
In this case, would this logic also then apply to spells like Mind Sliver? It may be an at-will cantrip, but I’ve heard people really highly rate it and maybe that isn’t fully worthwhile praise
It also deals damage - less than some other cantrips but it targets a typically weak save. The d4 is a nice little bonus but it's not your sole reason for using the feature
@@d_andrews if I want damage + an effect, give me ray of frost. That slow is much more valuable
I liked mind sliver at low level, but on my last campaign I ended up taking a hexblade dip for medium armor/Shields (get that old EQ bard vibe) and eldritch blast, and felt like I was actually doing some damage
In most cases, the expectations for cantrips are much lowered: at-will abilities you use when you aren’t deploying one of your stronger features or spells.
A d4 has a flat 12.5% chance of changing the outcome of a roll. On the surface that seems bad, but we have to take into account opportunity cost.
If we’re using mind sliver, it’s obviously a situation that doesn’t warrant the use of a full spell. So all we have to compare against are other cantrips. Firebolt is the mainline damage cantrips, so let’s use that.
At level 5 a firebolt does 4 more damage than a mind sliver. On average we’ll want to cast mind sliver when the 12.5% of the next spell’s effect is worth >=4 damage. That would be 32 damage at level 5.
If we’re talking about purely damage spells like fireball, the difference between a success and a failure is 14 points not 32. So we presumably would cast firebolt instead.
If the spell in question is something like hypnotic pattern, I probably rate the difference between succeeding and failing to be around 32 points of damage in value, so mind sliver would be a good choice.
Of course it’s not quite that simple. If you’re close to finishing off an enemy, you might prioritize firebolt. If you’re far from killing the enemy mind sliver is better since you don’t care about chip damage so much as controlling the fight.
But that’s the rule of thumb. Is 12.5% of the next effect better than the extra damage from firebolt.
I'll gladly take a 20%+ increase in accuracy as leverage for one of my higher level slots. realistically you'll only have 2 5th level slots and 1 of any higher most of the time. You can have all of your inspiration [and you party member's short rest resources] back after a catnap.
Nice, that's a revelation. Thanks!
I dunno about this one. If you're basing Unsettling Words on "you get nothing" based on the enemies' saving throw, then the same logic could be applied to the Whisper and Swords bard, since if you miss your attacks, "you get nothing" from those abilities too. Also, Unsettling Words has BRUTAL synergy with Silvery Barbs, because correct me if I'm wrong, but the 1d8 die roll from the spent Inspiration would apply to both rolls (since the enemy is rolling at disadvantage but I could be wrong). Also, landing a critical, encounter ending spell is far more useful than some bonus damage, and is worth the usage of an Action, (the spell) a bonus action, (UW) and a potential reaction (Silvery Barbs). And I say this as a Lore stan. To me, Lore is the best Bard sublass.
Wouldn't this argument be the same for the Precision Attack maneuver on GWM and SS builds?
It is absolutely circumstantial. It can still be a solid use of inspiration though. I just think of it as a pocket heighten-lite that refreshes on short rests. I might have to crunch the math on what it would look like with advantage/disadvantage on saves. I admit my bias though as bard is my favorite spellcaster this edition... Even over wizards.
oen time I misremembered how cutting words worked, and we applied it to saves as well. I still dont think it came up often, but that could be because i dipped for the shield spell
Interesting. I’ve been convinced since release this was far and away the most powerful feature. I didn’t even clock the sticky inspiration. I guess that’s what I get for white boarding.
just visiting the temple
Would the math be similar for the Heightened Spell Metamagic or better or worse?
I think it's about the same as using Unsettling Words with a d8.
Im currently playing a eloquence bard and it just a bout balancing the unsettling words with the inspiration for example i used it on a monster to cast slow and if i hadn’t done it the spell would have failed and on the next turns i was able to just pump out inspiration
Honestly, I love math and I love TTRPGs. So when the two meet...
The Venn Diagram of math and TTRPGs is two concentric circles.
(Alright, I'm exaggerating for the joke a little, but c'mon :P)
As everyone is pointing out, I think this ability is good as a way to heighten the odds of something happening. For instance, this bard and maybe enchanter/divination wizards are the only classes where I would take dominate person/monster and expect to be able to use it midcombat.
Excellent vid and props to Dave! More exploration of the mathematical impact of features across the adventuring day would be cool…
I feel like you made the maths on this harder than it needed to be. Maybe there's an issue with my method, but I get the same results. I figure each individual number on a d20 roll is 5%, your inspiration dice influences this number by an average of the die roll, starting at 3.5 and ending at 6.5, therefore for every 1 you modify you modify by 5%. This gives the same 17.5% as when you started, although your stipulation of number too big or small still applies.
Either way this is a good thing to point out. I feel like most bard features are designed as reactions or faux reactions and it's important to point out this one is not. Another thing to note that is even worse are the limiters, until the start of your next turn and used on the next saving throw automatically. Depending on the situation and other spells in play an enemy may be able to choose to force a more favourable save that it will likely make regardless, this may especially be the case in the next version since if grappling requires saving throws that will eat this feature before a spell an ally could cast. Even if a spell is used by the bard it could be counterspelled, wasting both the bonus action and bardic inspiration if your team has no saving throws they can inflict.
Don’t need to spend a Bardic Inspiration die to force a failed save vs. math. Good video!
Great video. How does the math change vs an enemy with Magic Resistance/advantage? That makes the save distribution become a bell curve, so UW should have a more dramatic impact, but how much?
I definitely agree that this feature shlould be allowed to be held back until we see the result of the save, that would fix everything!
lol, when I saw the title I thought this was somehow going to say basically auto succeeding on social checks was somehow bad, and I was like "I'm definitely interested in how this will be proven" lol
I could see a case for that in campaigns with relatively few social checks; as an Eloquence Bard you're probably taking expertise in both of those skills, so turning DC17 and below checks into guarantees is great (assuming +3 starting stat and PB=2), but let's apply the same argument from the Unsettling Words video.
If the DC is high enough that your bard can't clear it on a 10, Silver Tongue is doing nothing for you.
If the DC is low enough that your bard can't fail it, Silver Tongue is also doing nothing for you (though arguably the DM could just not call for the check).
If the DC is exactly 17, the best case scenario, you still would have passed 50% of the time.
If the DC is something more like 12, you would already have passed on a 5 or better, which means Silver Tongue only matters the other 20% of the time.
If you have advantage on the check, e.g. from Help action or Charm Person, you also were going to roll 10 or better more than 75% of the time anyway, which makes Silver Tongue even less likely to matter.
If I know going into a campaign that I won't be making a lot of those checks in the first place (say because we played out levels 1 and 2 and not all that many came up, or I just know the DM well and they prefer less social intrigue), there's a good chance that Silver Tongue is only rarely going to help. It's also a problem if you have one of those DMs that makes the rookie mistake where they jack the DCs on checks higher because they feel weird about letting characters auto-succeed on things--which, granted, that's on them and not on the subclass.
However: the peace of mind is super nice, and it FEELS impactful every time you get under a 10 on the die even if it wouldn't have mattered. You can also use it as an excuse to spend your expertise choices elsewhere, getting fewer auto-successes in exchange for still not having those embarrassing low-DC failures (if you expect to run into DC15 checks a lot, this is a reasonable choice). And it's still attached to the same subclass as those really potent BI boosters at 6 and beyond.
I'll be honest, this mathematical analysis makes the feature look better to me than it did before. It should never be the default use of bardic inspiration, but to set up for a really important spell against a really important boss, it can be invaluable. Also I've always viewed both it (and mind sliver, which has a similar affect) as mostly being about setting up your allies spells, rather than your own; the bard has a decent spell list, but chances are you have someone in your party with a better one, and the bard (especially Eloquence) is all about making your allies better at literally everything.