What is the Inspiring Leader feat in D&D 5e?
Inspiring Leader is a feat designed to grant allies temporary HP. With the Inspiring Leader feat, you can spend 10 minutes speaking to your companions and inspiring them to fight. During your speech, you can choose 6 allies within 30 feet who can hear and understand you; each creature gains temporary hit points (HP) equal to your character’s level + their Charisma modifier. However, creatures affected by Inspiring Leader can’t gain temporary HP from the feat again until after a short or long rest. In 5e, temporary HP are additional hit points that stack on top of your character’s normal HP. Once temporary HP is depleted, it doesn't replenish when you’re healed. Inspiring Leader has a prerequisite: you can only take the feat if your character’s Charisma score is 13 or higher.
How does Inspiring Leader work?
Inspiring Leader buffs the party and takes the pressure off healers. Not many adventuring parties in D&D have more than 6 members, so in most cases, you’ll be able to give the entire group a handy boost to help them stay alive (and active) during combat. Plus, clerics and druids in the party (who normally serve as the main healers) can take other actions in combat because of the extra HP buffer. Inspiring Leader’s temporary HP is particularly great for classes with lower-than-average HP pools, like wizards and sorcerers. It’s also helpful for martial classes when they want to do something risky or aggressive in battle since they’ll have extra HP to fall back on if they take damage. However, just remember that temporary HP is limited in that you can’t stack it with other sources. So, if a character has temporary HP from this feat, you can’t give them more from a spell like Heroism. Also, temporary HP won’t heal hit points a character has already lost—it’ll simply give them an extra pool of hit points to deplete before they start taking real damage again.
Inspiring Leader can be used an unlimited number of times per day. According to the rules, you can make an inspiring speech and use the feat as many times as you like; the limitation is that you can’t inspire the same creatures again until they rest. That means you can either wait for short rests to inspire your allies again or target different allies each time you use the feat. Another big limitation is the fact that it takes 10 minutes to use, meaning you can’t use this feat in battle—and may not even have enough time to use it right before a fight, depending on the circumstances.
The feat’s temporary HP continues to scale up with higher levels. As far as feats go, the level scaling for Inspiring Leader is quite solid. Since the amount of temporary HP you can grant increases with each level you gain (and an improved Charisma modifier), using Inspiring Leader at higher levels allows you to give allies an impressive amount of temporary HP. For example, say your character’s Charisma (CHA) modifier is a +5 (meaning their CHA ability score is 20). That means you’ll be able to give allies +10 temporary HP at level 5 (5 + 5), +15 at level 10 (10 + 5), +20 at level 15 (15 + 5), and an impressive +25 at level 20 (20 + 5). Comparatively, the Heroism spell grants +6 temporary HP maximum, no matter what level you cast it at.
How to Use Inspiring Leader
Time your speeches to use them before important battles. Sometimes a battle will sneak up on you, and you’ll end up fighting without any time to prepare. However, if you know a big battle is coming beforehand, consider taking 10 minutes to use Inspiring Leader before proceeding. That way, you can walk into a difficult encounter with a little extra protection! This is especially key if there are smaller scraps and encounters before the big one; try saving Inspiring Leader for the bigger fight if you know it’s coming (unless you take short rests between battles).
Make sure injured allies benefit from your speech. Party members who are already hurt probably need a little temporary HP more than those who haven’t taken any damage yet since they’ll be more vulnerable (and easy to knock unconscious) in a future battle. So, if you have to choose who to inspire from several allies, pick the ones that have taken damage already first. It’s also important to stay within range of every ally you want to inspire, too. Inspiring Leader’s range is 30 feet, so position yourself within 30 feet of each ally.
Combine Inspiring Leader with other spells that grant temporary HP. While it’s true that you can’t stack temporary HP, it never hurts to have other sources of it when your Inspiring Leader HP runs low—or if there are too many allies to buff with the feat alone. If you want to be responsible for the party’s temporary HP, add spells like Heroism, False Life, and Protection from Evil and Good to your repertoire. If you don’t have access to all of those spells naturally, you can also take the Magic Initiate feat to get a bonus spell (and choose any 1st-level spell you want).
How to Make an Inspiring Leader Speech
Speak to the party’s strengths, motivations, and past victories. Sure, you could just tell the DM that you’re using Inspiring Leader—but part of the feat’s charm is the fact that you can actually make an epic speech! Try speaking passionately and dramatically, using vivid words that really paint a picture in everyone’s mind. And, if you’re not sure what to say, you could: Remind the party why they’re motivated to fight the battles ahead. What are they working toward? Why is it so important for them to triumph? What’s the best possible outcome if they succeed? What’s at stake if they fail? Bring up past heroics to assure the party they can triumph again. What battle or adventure is a huge point of pride for the characters? What is their biggest achievement, and how did it prepare them for the battle ahead? Call out each party member’s greatest strength. What’s their key function in the party? What do they do best—and how can they use that strength to win the next fight?
Is Inspiring Leader a good feat?
Inspiring Leader can be useful for particular character builds. While some feats are universally helpful regardless of class or build, others (like Inspiring Leader) are more niche. Inspiring Leader is extremely effective when used wisely, but really only noteworthy to characters with a high Charisma score. For those characters, it’s an excellent source of temporary HP and a helpful buff before battles!
Which classes can benefit from Inspiring Leader?
Any class with a high-Charisma build can use Inspiring Leader. Since a character’s Charisma score and modifier affects the amount of temporary HP granted by Inspiring Leader, only high-CHA characters will likely want to use this feat. If you decide to play a character and class that normally require high CHA, then Inspiring Leader might be for you! Bard: As artists, poets, and CHA-based magic-users who wield the power of song, bards are one of the two classes most likely to use Inspiring Leader. Paladin: Like bards, paladins are CHA-based spellcasters—and since paladins are often knightly and valiant, Inspiring Leader can add some fun flavor to a paladin build. Sorcerer: Sorcerers typically need high Charisma, so a sorcerer PC could certainly use this feat. Warlock: Like sorcerers, warlocks typically need high Charisma and thus could use Inspiring Leader. Rogue: Although they aren’t spellcasters, rogues make decent party faces, which means it’s not a bad idea to give them a decent CHA score (and the Inspiring Leader feat to boost their below-average HP).
Classes that don’t invest in Charisma shouldn’t use Inspiring Leader. Artificers, barbarians, clerics, druids, fighters, monks, rangers, and wizards normally don’t prioritize Charisma, so Inspiring Leader probably isn’t a good feat for them. Of course, you can always choose how to build your character, regardless of the optimal build for a class. So, if you want to make a high-CHA character with the Inspiring Leader feat—even if they’re a fighter or wizard—that’s absolutely your choice!
Similar Feats
Feats like Chef and Healer can also heal party members. Chef is a feat allowing you to cook special food during short rests that grant creatures using their hit dice an extra 1d8 hit points. Healer lets creatures regain 1 HP when you stabilize them with a healer’s kit, or use a healer’s kit to restore 1d6 + 4 HP, plus additional HP equal to the creature's maximum number of hit dice. Basically, Chef grants creatures a little extra healing during short rests, while Healer can give you an alternative to healing spells if you’re low on spell slots.
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