How does the Lucky 5e feat interact with advantage and disadvantage?

The Lucky feat 5e represents extraordinary luck that can assist you when you need it most. That is true; however, many d20s are in the mix. For example, when you have benefit or disadvantage on your attack roll, you could devote a luck point, roll up a third d20, and then decide which of the three dice to utilize. You still have an advantage or disadvantage because the feat does not state it disturbs it, but you get to select the die. The upshot of this fact is that a rogue, for instance, who has a drawback on an attack roll, couldn’t use Sneak Attack even when the rogue employs the Lucky feat to pick the die.

The 5e Lucky feat is a great example of an exception to a rule of thumb. The general rule in this situation is the one that tells us how benefits and disadvantages function. The specific rule is the Luck 5e feat. And we all know that a specific rule trumps a general rule should they conflict with one another.

If a DM wants advantage and disadvantage to play their typical roles even when the Lucky feat is used, here’s a means to do this:

Roll two d20s to get advantage/disadvantage.

Roll a third d20 to get Lucky.
Remove one of the three championships.
Use the greater (for advantage) or reduced (for disadvantage) of the two dice which stay.

It will still preclude using things determined by not needing drawback, such as Sneak Attack 5e, which Jeremy Crawford reminds us of in this tweet. You can also choose to roll the next die after you have seen the effect of the roll.

Lucky Feat 5e

You’ve got inexplicable luck that appears to kick in at just the right moment.

You have three luck points. Whenever you make an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may spend one luck point to roll up an additional d20. You may use this ability after the original roll but before the result is revealed. You might even invest one luck point when an attack roll is made against you. Roll a d20, and choose whether the attacker’s roll uses their d20 roster or even yours.

If multiple creatures utilize a luck point on precisely the same role, they cancel out, resulting in no extra dice. You recover expended luck points once you complete a long rest. Source: Player’s Handbook

Spell Details

You’ve got inexplicable luck that appears to kick in at just the right moment. You’ve got three luck points. Suppose you make an attack roll, an ability test, or a saving throw. Then you can spend one luck point to roll up an extra d20. You can choose to invest one of your luck points after roll the die until the outcome is determined. You choose which of the d20s is used for your attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. You can even spend one luck point when an attack roll is made against you. Roll a d20, then choose whether the assault uses the attacker’s roll or yours.

If more than one creature spends a luck point to influence the outcome of a roster, the points cancel each other out; no extra dice have been rolled. You recover your expended luck points when you complete a long break.

Is Lucky 5e feat overpowered in D&D?

For newbies, at first glance, maybe it does not appear too overpowered. After all, there are plenty of good feats, and your other choice is to include two to a key ability score which will get you a lot of additional pluses as you move.

But consider this. Inspiration (p. 125, PH), which gives a PC edge on a key role during an adventure. It is supposed to represent that magical stroke of luck heroes undergo during crucial moments. That chance of the brave will help ensure when they jump out of a burning building. It is with the true-born baby king in their arms, they do not splat onto the ground. Still, they neatly roll with the autumn, cradling the babe within their arms. As it is only really made to repay that adventure-hinging moment, not always influence play, just one inspiration” point” can be “stored” in a time. All-in-all it works perfectly as a game mechanic. It’s a powerful reward for extraordinary deeds to be used at a key juncture in your party’s story. And then in walks Lucky feat and ruins everything.

How to select the Lucky 5e feat?

To pick Lucky feat will be to be granted unearned inspiration three times a day essentially and goes against what the game designers intended for inspiration itself. It’s several times more powerful than three times inspiration since, unlike with inspiration, which you need to declare you are using before you rollup, together with Lucky, you can wait until the die is cast to decide if you’re going to force a reroll. That makes it worth more like 5 or 6 inspiration” points” a day, as you get to use it only when you’re sure you want it.

To select Lucky feat is to be granted unearned inspiration three times every day and goes against everything the game designers intended for inspiration itself.

The result is that any PC using all the Lucky feat dictates their particular success all too frequently, in not just a key juncture, but in just three big moments a day, when usually they would have neglected, perverting the flow of the match in their favor, and often isolating them from having anything terrible happen to their personality. No one likes failing a vital saving throw, strike roll, or ability test. Still, collapse, and the prospect of failure, can also be a good deal of what makes D&D fun — and how you deal with it as a party is likewise frequently what makes the sport memorable and unpredictable. I probably don’t have to tell you either the bigger your opportunity to fail. The more enjoyable success is if something else gets lost when trying to stack the odds.

Overpowered/Broken?

The same stretch of how overpowered/broken up the feat does depend a good bit on how many encounters you are inclined to have at your table a day. My group tends to favor a much more realistic flavor of D&D, meaning only a couple of encounters during your typical day of adventuring. At this point, Lucky borders on ridiculous in its ability to define key moments. However, even if you play hack and slash dungeons with multiple encounters per day, I’d vote to carry Lucky off the table. Besides being overpowered, it doesn’t add any flavour at all — it’s a bland catch-all that makes you more powerful in any field at any moment — and is essentially a cop-out for gamers unable to deal with hardship.

Lucky Feat 5e variants

If you want to stay Lucky but fix it, below are a few suggestions on how best to deal with it.

Option 1. Have the participant roll a d4 minus after a long break to determine just how many luck points they have for the day ahead (ie. It provides them an average of 1.5 luck points daily, instead of 3, and this way, you have to check if they are that lucky!

Option 2. Instead, if you’re a little more generous than I am, then you may have them roll a d3, providing them 1-3 luck points per day and a mean of two.

Option 3. The PC still has three luck points per day, but they have the option rather than forcing a reroll. The dice are rolled (but until the outcome is determined) to utilize a luck point to add 1d4 for their first roll. It follows that three times a day that the PC can turn a narrow failure into some limited success — with a little bit of luck! That better represents what it means to be lucky, in my own opinion, and is probably how the rules should have been composed. It is still a hugely powerful feat, but it can’t turn extreme failure into victory anymore.

Is there a 5e luck stat in D&D?

At any time you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a rescue, you may spend one luck point to roll up an extra d20.

How can Lucky work with disadvantages? A disadvantage roll rolls 2d20 and discards the greater one, leaving the lower. It is after you know what number your single one die has wrapped, you may decide to spend a 5e Luck Point to roster a second 1d20 (this one without the disad) then choose which of those two roles you take.

To put it simply, the term used in the PHB is “Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a rescue, you can spend one 5e luck point to roll an additional d20.” As a result, you get to bring a d20 into the amount wrapped, e.g., when two d20s are used. You roll up to three. “You choose which of these d20s is utilized for your attack roll, ability check, or saving throw” This means that the player can choose which of the three rolls is used to make the final result. All lucky characters have a good story to tell.

But they don’t tell the ones they have been unlucky.
Reroll a save DC 17 with a +2 bonus isn’t an auto-success.
But for a check that matters, there’s already Aid another, inspiration, Guidance.

It only adds another die into the combination, which you can choose to use rather than die from the advantaged or disadvantaged roll. You can then use that die in place of the outcome that would have occurred (high die for benefit, low perish for disadvantage).

Summary of the Lucky 5e feat

Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can spend one luck point to roll an additional d20. You may opt to spend one of your luck points once you roll the die, but until the outcome is determined.

You can even spend one luck point when an attack roll is made against you. Roll a d20, and then choose whether the attack uses the attacker’s roll or yours. Suppose there is more than one monster spends a luck point to affect the outcome of a roll. Then the points cancel each other out; no extra dice have been rolled.

You regain your expended luck 5e points once you complete a long break.

Thus, if you have an advantage, you can opt to use Lucky to add a third die. Let’s call that your “lucky” die. You roll your advantage roll normally, then choose the high roll. You then roll your “lucky” expire and choose whether to replace the original result together with it.

Same with disadvantage. You might roll two d20s, set aside the low returns, then roll an added d20 as your “lucky” die and determine whether to substitute the actual result with it.