Divination Wizard - Portent - Rules & Game Mechanics - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums (2024)

"Starting at 2nd level when you choose this school, glimpses of the future begin to press in on your awareness. When you finish a long rest, roll two d20s and record the numbers rolled. You can replace any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check made by you or a creature that you can see with one of these foretelling rolls. You must choose to do so before the roll, and you can replace a roll in this way only once per turn."

In a recent combat against a Yuan-Ti Abomination, the Wizard in the party I'm DMing cast Slow on the monster. He also immediately stated he wanted to use one of his Portent rolls for that day to reduce it's save to a 9.

Under the Abomination's statblock, it states that the Abomination has advantage on saves against spells.

So, my question is whether you would interpret the Portent roll taking the place of the entire save. So, either the Portent die takes the place of the entire spell save (ignoring the two advantage rolls), or it replaces one of the saving throws and the monster has a second roll and takes the higher.

Thoughts? It's not really clear to me RAW. In the heat of the moment I adjudged the Portent die to take the place of the entire saving throw, but it bothered me a little that I wasn't clear on which was correct.

The way I understand it: the saving throw is rolled, with advantage, and you get the result. The Wizard exclaims "portent" and uses the pre-rolled 9. The saving throw roll is then 9, to which you add any modifiers as necessary.

My interpretation: The Wizard casts the spell and remembers the portent dream of this event, foreseeing thetarget resisting (the saving throw rolls) so the Wizard focuses the spell a little differently to try and make the spell take affect (the Portent die).

Basically: the Portent die is the one that gets used without regard for what was actually rolled. This means it overrides advantage, disadvantage, Luck feat, Elven Accuracy feat, and similar effects. Should be noted, however, the only thing I think it cannot override is Legendary Resistance, since this basically lets the monster completely ignore the dice entirely.

Hope this helps.

I agree with the other answers (ignores/overrides advantage), but I want to give my interpretation of the ability as it differs slightly from Cyb3rM1nd.

I interpret it: When you use the portent roll, you are recalling your vision of the future where you foresaw the target rolling that value. In other words, your vision was the yuan-ti rolling a 9 even with its advantage, and the vision is coming true.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

The way I understand it: the saving throw is rolled, with advantage, and you get the result. The Wizard exclaims "portent" and uses the pre-rolled 9. The saving throw roll is then 9, to which you add any modifiers as necessary.

This is close, but slightly inaccurate. The wizard has to use their Portent before the dice are rolled the way it's written. That means it can't be used the way the Lucky feat is used where you get to see the result of the die roll first, you have to use Portent instead of rolling the dice.

Quote fromTim>>

It also overrides disadvantage. It’s a very powerful ability.

Until you roll two 11s

Portents also have several uses outside of combat. Effectively, your wizard should wait till they roll a good set of portents and do social interactions on that day. Nothing makes you feel better than rolling a 3 and an 18 just before you decide to use the Persuade skill to get something important. That Bard think's he's good? Nothing beats you on your good days.

One more thing - you are the DM, correct? You can use a Divination wizard also.

But before you put in another Divination Wizard into your game, consider this:

What happens when 2 Divination Wizards both want to use a Portent on the same Roll?

My DM house ruled that they cancel each other out and the roll get's rolled normally. You need to decide yourself how you want to deal with this situation. Some other people wanted to do it 'first real life person to say it wins', others wanted to rule 'lowest initiative wins'.

I'd like to clarify a point about the feature— it overrides advantage and disadvantage, but does not remove them.

For example, if a rogue has disadvantage on an attack roll, a wizard can replace the dice rolls with their protecnt number, but the rogue still has disadvantage(for example, they can't use sneak attack).

Quote from Mog_Dracov >>

Portents also have several uses outside of combat. Effectively, your wizard should wait till they roll a good set of portents and do social interactions on that day. Nothing makes you feel better than rolling a 3 and an 18 just before you decide to use the Persuade skill to get something important. That Bard think's he's good? Nothing beats you on your good days.

A wizard and a bard working together beats both.

In a recent one shot as level 7 characters we were sent to get rid of a young red dragon. That morning the wizard rolled a 20 on his portant. As we approached the bard said that if the Dragon left he would sing songs proclaiming the greatness of the dragon and how he was to be feared beyond that of Tiamat himself. The persuasion rolled was helpped even more by the DMs house rule that inspiration added 5 to the dice roll. 20+7 +5 = 32 on the persuasion roll.

That was only enough to get him interested. We did need some good rolls after that and the use of the other portant.

Portent says "You can replace any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check made by you or a creature that you can see with one of these foretelling rolls."

When you check the rules for attack roll it says "To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers."

To me that means the whole process is the attack roll. I understand it is confusing because it says "roll", so lets look at the two others.

For saving it says "throw". Saving throw is listed as: "To make a saving throw, roll a d20 and add the appropriate ability modifier. For example, you use your Dexterity modifier for a Dexterity saving throw." So the whole action is listed as the "throw".

Going to Ability Check ... the singular d20 is not the check, it is the whole process: "To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier." The whole process is the check. NOT just the 1 d20.

So I would say it replaces the whole attack, save or ability. Otherwise I think it would have to be worded to say "You can replace a single die used for any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check ... etc"

Portent would have been worded better if they had said "attack, save or ability final outcome".

Quote from mahlcoomphitskoraldoe >>

So I would say it replaces the whole attack, save or ability. Otherwise I think it would have to be worded to say "You can replace a single die used for any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check ... etc"

But by only replacing one die roll, you are still allowing a second die to be rolled for advantage/disadvantage.

Yes, and that would make sense, but it's not how it is worded.

"You can replace any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check". I read that as it replaces it in total, not partial. Otherwise it should say partial.

You go to a drive through, order a combo and ask if you can substitute the drink for a chocolate shake. Do you expect them to replace the whole drink, or are you expecting a cup with ice and a shake poured in it?

If you look at it another way (and this is just what I "want" to believe, I know): The character within the game should know the outcome of the situation, not what the real person next to me is gonna roll. It's someplace near metagaming for me and not as fun. That's just my desire talking though.

Advantage and Disadvantage (p. 173). In the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, both instances of “reroll” have been changed to “reroll or replace.”

When you have advantage or disadvantage and something in the game, such as the halfling's Lucky trait, lets you reroll or replace the d20, you can reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one. For example, if a halfling has advantage or disadvantage on an ability check and rolls a 1 and a 13, the halfling could use the Lucky trait to reroll the 1.

You are ignoring this: "You must choose to do so before the roll,".

Quote from DennisR1968 >>

You are ignoring this: "You must choose to do so before the roll,".

And you're ignoring that my misconception was rectified in multiple posts in 2019. Why are you necroing this, replying to me with a "correction" already made earlier (three times)?

Quote from Mog_Dracov>>

But before you put in another Divination Wizard into your game, consider this:

What happens when 2 Divination Wizards both want to use a Portent on the same Roll?

Both results are used and a new alternate timeline is created, one for each version of events.

Ultimately only one of these universes can be sustained indefinitely. So that night,when their divination lets them normally visit future-events, instead theyarrive in a dream arena,where both divination mages will have have to fight their alternate timeline selves to the death, and the winner's timeline gets to remain.

This can be a traumatic moment for some wizards. And, for this reason, thewizarding authority has strict rules about too many divination wizards operating in close proximitywith one another, and thereare strict safety training courses while they're going through apprenticeships to avoid exactly this sort of universe spawning, and ending, cosmic calamity.