Okay, let’s talk about this Inspirational Leader feat in 5e. Been playing D&D for ages, seen a lot of builds, tried a lot of things. This feat popped up when I was rolling a new character, I think it was my Bard, maybe a Paladin? Can’t recall exactly which one first, but I remember looking through the feat list.
Saw Inspirational Leader. Read the description. You give a speech for 10 minutes, and folks get temporary hit points. My first thought was, “Ten minutes? That’s a long time in-game.” Seemed a bit clunky, maybe not worth a whole Ability Score Improvement slot, you know?
But I was playing a high Charisma character. It felt thematic. The character was supposed to be, well, inspiring. So, I figured, what the heck, let’s give it a proper try. Took it at level 4.
Trying It Out
First few sessions, I actually kept forgetting I had it. You get caught up in the action, the exploration. Then we’d be planning to storm a bandit camp or delve into some ruins, and someone would say, “Okay, let’s take a short rest first.” And I’d think, “Ah! The speech!”
So, the process was like this:
- Find the Time: Usually during a short rest, or sometimes right before we knew we were kicking down a door. Had to make sure we had 10 minutes free where we wouldn’t get jumped.
- Give the Speech: I didn’t always do a full, dramatic monologue (though sometimes I did, for fun). Often it was just me saying, “Okay, Bard gathers everyone, gives them some stirring words about courage and teamwork for about 10 minutes.” The DM was cool with that.
- Calculate the HP: Then I’d tell everyone, “Alright, you all get temporary HP equal to my level plus my Charisma modifier.” We’d jot that down. Early on, it wasn’t huge, maybe 6 or 7 temp HP.
- Remember It: The trickiest part for the other players was remembering they had these temp HP when they took damage!
How It Actually Went
Honestly? It turned out way better than I first thought. Those little bits of temporary HP made a real difference over time. They soak up chip damage, sometimes prevent someone from going down entirely. It’s especially good for the squishier party members, like wizards or sorcerers.
It wasn’t flashy. Nobody shouts “Wow!” when you give the speech. It’s not like landing a massive crit or dropping a fireball. It’s subtle. But it adds resilience. We definitely noticed fewer knockouts once I started using it consistently.
The 10-minute rule wasn’t as bad as I feared. Most adventuring days have natural pauses where you can fit it in – before setting off, during a planned rest, while barricading a door for the night. You just have to be proactive.
It also really fit the character concept. Made me feel like I was contributing support in a non-magical way (even if the character was magical). It encouraged roleplaying those moments of camaraderie before danger struck.
So, yeah. Inspirational Leader. It doesn’t look like much on paper, maybe. But in practice? Solid feat. Really pulls its weight, especially if you’ve got the Charisma for it and remember to actually use the darn thing. Good, reliable buffing without using spell slots. I’d definitely take it again on the right character.
