Good Hope Question from a baby bard

[Dilbon]

Glitterdust is a nice spells for several reasons:
- blind targets will miss more often and, thus, hurt less your party;
- all hits against blind targets are sneak-attacks (provided that foes are not immune to sneak-attacks): rogues rejoice;
- it affects undead.

- it allows you to see through darkness in Rainbow in the Dark

[Aashrym]

I don't know why people take it. It doesn't stack. I'd rather have both cure serious wounds and remove curse than a spell that is inferior to and doesn't stack with GH + songs.

Good hope isn't inferior to greater heroism. Greater heroism provides a bonus to saves, temp hp, immunity to fear, a bonus to skill checks, and a bonus to hit on a single target. Good hope provide a bonus to saves, a bonus to hit, a bonus to damage, a bonus to skill check, a bonus to ability checks, counter crushing despair, and affects multiple targets.

Good hope provides a damage bonus, an ability check bonus, counters crushing despair where greater heroism does not. Greater heroism provides a larger to hit bonus, larger save bonus, larger skill point bonus, temp hp, and immunity to fear where good hope does not.

Since inspire courage overshadows both on to hit and damage bonus they can be left out of the benefits for the comparison for the most part. Once a bard has inspire heroics the save bonus is covered by a song too.

That leaves the advantages of greater heroism at fear immunity, temp hp, and bonus to skills. The bonus to skills is only 2 points over good hope. This also leaves the advantages of good hope over greater heroism as a bonus to ability checks, countering crushing despair, and multiple targets for a lower SP cost.

I don't see the temp hp or ability checks as a high priority for either. GH is only needed if the party needs the immunity to fear or someone needs the +2 bonus to skill checks because it much more efficient to run off good hope for the party due to the SP cost of using GH on individual targets. I do find myself casting good hope to counter crushing despair at times as well. I personally think it's crazy not to take and keep good hope.

Remove curse can be done with wands, scrolls, and potions; and by other classes. It's not worth a spell slot.

Cure serious wounds is something I dropped while I continue to use mass cure light and mass cure moderate, or cure critical. Or a heal scroll. I care cure serious and cure critical wands to top up. That's just not worth a spell slot either.

[Aashrym]

Thanks for the swift replies.

May I ask a couple follow up questions?

Since Inspire greatness is a competance bonus, that along with courage should be kept up AT ALL times, correct?

When do you see your self buffing Greater Heroism? Will I be expected to buff all party members, or should I just should I just hit myself with it?

Players already have and +2 competence bonus from items, and if the people hitting are hitting on a 2 anyway it becomes pointless in both scenarios. I do it if I don't have a +2 competence to hit my bard or if I want the temp hp to burn thru.

Greater heroism provides immunity to fear and +2 skill / save bonus over good hope. I don't recommend casting greater heroism unless someone asks for it or if the party expects to need the fear immunity. The SP cost for multiple greater heroism castings isn't really worth it unless needed.

[Aashrym]

One other minor clarification: GH is the common abbreviation for Greater Heroism, so don't confuse that with Good Hope. I commonly give out Good Hope on my high level bard, GH when I know it is needed, and then situationally after that. And part one of the Shroud is not one of those situations. If someone can't tell me why they need GH, they usually don't get it. Too many people ask for it with no idea what it actually does.

What he said.

[learst]

EDIT - sorry for all of the typos. I am typing on my inaccurate iPad and editing a long post is impossible due to lack of scrolling.

Just picked it up this level. I tend to be a player that most definitely listens to conventional wisdom, nevertheless, I like to know why before I take something.

Additionally, I do not know what upper level content has in store for me, so good advice makes me more prepared later. Thank you all.

I am a WoW vet but am just blown away by the sheer amount of character customization in this game. It makes WoW seem completely and totally childlike in comparison. I LOVE the fact that you can completely mess up a build in this game, thus you have well and poorly build characters in end game, and flavor galore. In WoW there is very little room for this....three trees and one quick resepc away from making a build "perfect."

Just to keep my questions going, I have cure mod wounds right now just for soloing but will replace it later. I am eyeing glitter dust again due to various threads and research. What I cannot find is where is it useful? Is it the CC or stealth reveal that is valuable. Also, if it uses a charisma DC check, should I bypass it (warchanter, pumping str) due to it being ineffective in my build (the only meta I currently have is extend....I pan on getting empower healing later)?

Thanks again all.

Like RustyCan mentioned, Glitterdust is a good spell since it can blind multiple targets, INCLUDING undead. Compare this with another level 2 bard spell (Blindness) which only affects 1 target. So you can use Glitterdust on those encounters with undead if you're feeling quite useless there (e.g. not hitting hard enough, your enchantment spells can't work etc, and your Fascinate song doesn't work on them). The only downside that it takes a while to cast, so you will need some practise to time it better.

For me, I tend to cast it on the door or at huge mobs. At higher levels though, I don't use it as often anymore due to its slow casting time, but I still keep it around.

[Freeman]

One other clarification: Although the Good Hope description mentions a bonus to ability checks, it doesn't actually have that affect in game. I think the only thing that could be considered an ability check is the roll against being tripped anyway, so there hasn't been much interest in adding that bonus. Now if it could apply to rune/lever/door stat requirements, then it would be a much more interesting addition.