Is Inspiring Leader always better than tough and +2 con ASI

[Mastikator]

Compared to the two other alternatives: +2 to con or the tough feat.

+2 to con gives bonus to maximum health = your level, and bonus to short rest healing = your level, and +1 to con saving throws
Total 2x level per long rest
Prerequisite that you don't already have 20 con

Tough feat gives bonus to health = 2x your level, better for soaking lots of damage in a single combat, otherwise worse than +2 con
Total 2x level per long rest
No prerequsite

Inspiring leader, gives temporary hit points = your level + charisma modifier to up to 6 targets, can be done again after short rest
Prerequisite 13 charisma (naturally good on bards, warlocks, paladins, sorcerers)

Assuming NO short rests, tough feat gives the most to yourself. Inspiring leader gives more if there are 2 or more party members and no other reliable ways of getting temporary hitpoints before combat

Assuming ONE short rest, +2 con is better than tough feat. Inspiring leader now gives 2 x your level + charisma modifier to yourself and party members, so already most hitpoints

Assuming TWO short rests, +2 con is likely to see full use. Inspiring leader however now gives 3 x your level + charisma modifier to yourself and party members.

Assuming 4 players and 2 short rests Inspiring Leader feat now gives 3 x 4 your level + charisma modifier. At level 4 with 13 charisma that is (3 * 4) * (4 + 1) = 60 extra hit points in total, or 15 per character.
At higher levels and bigger parties it gets more crazy. At level 8 with 16 charisma and 6 party members it would be (6 * 3) * (8 + 3) = 198, or 33 per character.

This all assumes that every member takes SOME damage every combat.

I've only tested it in play once but based on how little HP every PC ended up with after battles I recon the inspiring leader feat prevented characters from dying at least 3 times over the course of 2 days. (2 long rest, 4 short rests in total).

The only scenarios I can see where taking inspiring leader being a mistake is because everybody already have better sources of temporary hitpoints OR because someone else already took it.

[Dork_Forge]

Compared to the two other alternatives: +2 to con or the tough feat.

+2 to con gives bonus to maximum health = your level, and bonus to short rest healing = your level, and +1 to con saving throws

In practice this isn't really true unless you're burning all of your hit die in a day (which not only means that you must be taking a lot of damage, but that you won't be doing that on the subsequent day).

Tough feat gives bonus to health = 2x your level, better for soaking lots of damage in a single combat, otherwise worse than +2 con
Total 2x level per long rest
No prerequsite

Should really be mentioned that both benefit from a healing rich party.

Other than that, Inspiring Leader is a fantastic feat that is really up there in terms of overall potency. Usual disclaimer of Temp hp is not hp for the purposes of any game effects that mention it.

Otherwise yeah, it really depends on the party, probably not really wanted in a game with an Artillerist fond of the protector turret, a Glamour Bard, or a Twilight Cleric.

[Amnestic]

Sidenote that +2 con also boosts your con saves, especially nice for casters and concentration but also applies to things like poisoned, blindness, stuns - there's some real nasty conditions tied to constitution, so a save boost is nice.

Whether that makes it "better" than inspiring leader or not will probably depend a lot on what sorta enemies you're fighting.

[Eldariel]

Having an Inspiring Leader in the party or some other source of partywide temporary HP is generally optimal. My second LMoP group had a Vuman (Lore) Bard with Inspiring Leader starting from level 1 and everyone had Con north of 14. That group almost went down twice both times in extremely dangerous encounters (which the party made tactical mistakes to get into) but the amount of durability going around saved them. However, there are lots of powerful sources of temporary HP in the game which make Inspiring Leader less useful. For example:
- If you have a Twilight Cleric, there's huge overlap and it's probably not really worth it considering how frequently Twilight Sanctuary can be used
- If you have a Shepherd Druid, there's some overlap and while it's worth considering, it's not nearly automatic especially since Bear Spirit generally gives more (though there's some opportunity for stacking them)
- If you have a Glamour Bard, there's significant overlap though Inspiring Leader will give the party more for the first encounter.
- If you have someone with Inspiring Leader, the feat obviously stacks pretty poorly unless everyone reliably loses their temporary HP over encounters and you reliably have multiple encounters per short rest.


In short, yes, it's a great feat but no, it doesn't make Tough (or +2 Con) redundant. +2 Con and Con-boosting in general is noteworthy in that it improves your saves and especially casters are well-advised to reach the point where they automake DC10 checks so they don't need to roll for basic Concentration. Also Constitution is the most common saving throw so obviously there's a lot of value to every point of Con-saving buffs you get.

Tough is mostly a high level feat when you have your basic needs covered and there's already temporary HP going around: it actually gives you a substantial amount of extra HP and can amount to a goodly bundle of survivability if you have good survivability multipliers (AC, resistances, etc.). In short, different purposes for all 3.

[LudicSavant]

Compared to the two other alternatives: +2 to con or the tough feat.

+2 to con gives bonus to maximum health = your level, and bonus to short rest healing = your level, and +1 to con saving throws
Total 2x level per long rest
Prerequisite that you don't already have 20 con

Tough feat gives bonus to health = 2x your level, better for soaking lots of damage in a single combat, otherwise worse than +2 con
Total 2x level per long rest
No prerequsite

Inspiring leader, gives temporary hit points = your level + charisma modifier to up to 6 targets, can be done again after short rest
Prerequisite 13 charisma (naturally good on bards, warlocks, paladins, sorcerers)

Assuming NO short rests, tough feat gives the most to yourself. Inspiring leader gives more if there are 2 or more party members and no other reliable ways of getting temporary hitpoints before combat

Assuming ONE short rest, +2 con is better than tough feat. Inspiring leader now gives 2 x your level + charisma modifier to yourself and party members, so already most hitpoints

Assuming TWO short rests, +2 con is likely to see full use. Inspiring leader however now gives 3 x your level + charisma modifier to yourself and party members.

Assuming 4 players and 2 short rests Inspiring Leader feat now gives 3 x 4 your level + charisma modifier. At level 4 with 13 charisma that is (3 * 4) * (4 + 1) = 60 extra hit points in total, or 15 per character.
At higher levels and bigger parties it gets more crazy. At level 8 with 16 charisma and 6 party members it would be (6 * 3) * (8 + 3) = 198, or 33 per character.

This all assumes that every member takes SOME damage every combat.

I've only tested it in play once but based on how little HP every PC ended up with after battles I recon the inspiring leader feat prevented characters from dying at least 3 times over the course of 2 days. (2 long rest, 4 short rests in total).

The only scenarios I can see where taking inspiring leader being a mistake is because everybody already have better sources of temporary hitpoints OR because someone else already took it.

Inspiring Leader is usually better, but
- It won't stack with other Temp HP abilities, including itself (so if someone else has Inspiring Leader, you might not want two)
- It doesn't offer as much personal burst resistance, which you may care about more if you have few encounters per day and/or abundant between-encounter healing.
- It doesn't scale abilities that scale with Con.
- It requires 13 Cha.

Having an Inspiring Leader in the party or some other source of partywide temporary HP is generally optimal. My second LMoP group had a Vuman (Lore) Bard with Inspiring Leader starting from level 1 and everyone had Con north of 14. That group almost went down twice both times in extremely dangerous encounters (which the party made tactical mistakes to get into) but the amount of durability going around saved them. However, there are lots of powerful sources of temporary HP in the game which make Inspiring Leader less useful. For example:
- If you have a Twilight Cleric, there's huge overlap and it's probably not really worth it considering how frequently Twilight Sanctuary can be used
- If you have a Shepherd Druid, there's some overlap and while it's worth considering, it's not nearly automatic especially since Bear Spirit generally gives more (though there's some opportunity for stacking them)
- If you have a Glamour Bard, there's significant overlap though Inspiring Leader will give the party more for the first encounter.
- If you have someone with Inspiring Leader, the feat obviously stacks pretty poorly unless everyone reliably loses their temporary HP over encounters and you reliably have multiple encounters per short rest.


In short, yes, it's a great feat but no, it doesn't make Tough (or +2 Con) redundant. +2 Con and Con-boosting in general is noteworthy in that it improves your saves and especially casters are well-advised to reach the point where they automake DC10 checks so they don't need to roll for basic Concentration. Also Constitution is the most common saving throw so obviously there's a lot of value to every point of Con-saving buffs you get.

Tough is mostly a high level feat when you have your basic needs covered and there's already temporary HP going around: it actually gives you a substantial amount of extra HP and can amount to a goodly bundle of survivability if you have good survivability multipliers (AC, resistances, etc.). In short, different purposes for all 3.

Agreed.

[strangebloke]

What I like about Inspiring Leader is that its plenty strong while being flavorful, fun, and not overly centralizing. If nobody has it or some other feature that makes it irrelevant, its good to take, but no necessary.

[Tanarii]

If all you care about is max HPs, then Tough followed by +2 Con are both better than Inspiring Leader, because they increase it every fight assuming sufficient healing, not every other fight.

If you care about total daily resources, agreed, the order of is Inspiring Leader > +2 Con > Tough.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

This falls under the category of something my smartest player often says: that many of the things that benefit the group in 5e are far better than those that just benefit the character. As a team game if players keep this in mind they can have a party that far surpasses one that doesn't.
Our last 2 groups have had a player with IL in the 1st and a Shepherd Druid in the 2nd, and just the bonus hp are worth close to a level I'd say. Even if you only have a group of 4, calculations probably include at least 1 familiar, 1 Paladin steed (in our group anyway), and at least 1 NPC at any given time. So minimally I'd be multiplying those bonus hp by 7.

[Contrast]

If we're asking is it always better there are some niche situations that bear mentioning like Barbarians getting bonus AC from Con (assuming they're not just wearing armour) or Rune Knights improving their DCs.

I've also asked a DM if I could drop Inspiring Leader on a glamour bard because I was already dishing out so much THP that a lot of it was getting wasted.

[Osuniev]

Well obviously CON is also useful for CON checks (extremely rare) and CON save (extremely common).

[Droppeddead]

To answer the original question? No, Inpiring leader is not always better than tough and/or +2 con ASI. There are many situations where one is better than the other and it all comes down to preference and what is best in your games. IL is good but if you already get temp HP from some other source, on of those sources is wasted. Or what if the person with IL isn't around to inspire? Or what if you need to make a Con save? Or what if you die before you get a chance to use your Con bonus on a short rest?

Of course there is the aspect of "optimizing the team is better than optimizing the individual characters" and from that perspective yes, IL is good for a team if the team includes someone with good charisma. It's probably wasted if the barbarian takes it, though. They will want Con for better saves, AC and HP. Spellcasters might prefer con as well due to concentration checks. A Rogue might not care about saves as much but need the HP, for them the Tough feat is better. And so on.

[Willie the Duck]

In the almost-never-would-happen scenario where the party as a whole was given a bonus ASI to spend, and the choice was one of these three feats (presumably on the biggest damage sponge, excepting Inspiring Leader), having a cha13+ character get Inspiring Leader would indeed be my first pick in most cases (excepting that there seem to be an ever-growing number of avenues to regular temporary HP, making the number of exceptions based on party makeup be on the upswing as of late).

However, in the would-really-happen scenario of me playing a character and have to make an individual ASI decision, said decision is much more complex.

1. Do I have a 13 cha (and if I'm at character creation, what opportunity cost am I foregoing to get both said 13 cha and an ASI I can safely devote to this?)
2. Has anyone else in the party already taken Inspiring Leader?
3. Has anyone else in the party have other temp hp sources (for me or for them)?
4. Does anyone else in the party ever really hit 0 hp (or alter their behavior to prevent doing so)?
5. How many battles do we regularly get in a single day?
6. How many Con saves do I regularly make?
7. How often do I use up my Hit Dice?
8. When I do hit 0, would the difference in level x 2 (from toughness) and level + cha mod (from I.L.) ever make the difference?

In the end, for me, only #1-3 are very likely, but they all undoubtedly do go into the decision.

[Jakinbandw]

I think one of my favorite characters to play is VHuman with Starting Peace Cleric 1, and then going Eloquence (or lore) Bard for the rest of the game. Since this build wants maxed charisma anyway, grabbing Inspiring Leader at first level for an extra 4HP when you are most likely to drop due to a good damage roll is really nice for the entire party, and it hangs around pretty well.

(As a note, take 9 hours rests. 8 hours, then use Inspiring leader, then take a short rest so that you can bring it up against when you have 10 minutes of downtime for a mini rest.)