Rules on Usage & Limits for the Diviners Portents? - Rules & Game Mechanics - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums (2024)

I'm currently running a game where in a prior session, the parties Diviner was surprised by a mimic pretending to be a door, which used the opportunity to successfully strike, damage and grapple him with it's adhesive ability. Later on, the player stated his preference (fairly) that I announce all attacks prior to any rolling due to the fact his portent ability works that way where he determines the roll before it is rolled. But he also stated he should have been able to use his portents in the surprise round, pointing out nothing stated the ability was any kind of action, reaction, etc., and was only limited by sight. This troubles me a bit. Is the only circ*mstance that stops his ability to use a Portent when he is incapacitated?

Edit: One thing that bothers me the most is this idea that I need to declare every single action involving a d20 roll within sight of the player, and only after he states he's not going to use a Portent can I continue. This similarly would hold true for all the players: everyone needs to look to the diviner before they can roll or not! I would rather ban the class than deal with that. Is that something other DMs and their groups accept, along with the slowdown to the game?

Wizard School of Divination

The Portent ability only has three limitations:

1) the target must be a creature the Wizard can see,

2) you can replace a roll only once per turn,

3) the decision must be made before the roll.

So there are a couple of points to be made in answer to your questions:

First: if you're rolling dice without giving the Wizard player an opportunity to use Portent, by RAW, he can't use it all. You're effectively taking away his most iconic class feature as a Diviner. Taking things away from the characters results in frustrated players who don't enjoy your game. A good DM knows this.

Second, this ability doesn't require an action to use; only line of sight to a creature. So no, this would not be stopped by the Incapacitated condition. That prevents him from taking actions and reactions, but he doesn't need either to use Portent. Any condition that Blinds the Wizard or any obstacle, spell, or environmental effect that blocks line of sight would make the use of Portent impossible.

To clarify, I understand the rules so I think the problem I have is that I don't believe they are good rules. In my own personal opinion, the class doesn't work by me and so I am personally not going to be allowing it in my games until something changes (either internally with myself and my personal opinions, or otherwise). This isn't so surprising, I imagine, as DM's have any number of Races, Classes, or Items that just don't work for them and their campaigns, be the reasons due to rules or cosmetics: the warforged are a great example. For me, the warforged are well suited to Eberron and/or a Post Apocalyptic campaign, but for what I consider more regular D&D games? They just don't really fit thematically. Again, personal opinion.

Edit: @JackOfAllTirades - Thanks for the reply and I agree with all your points, I just really do not like the Diviner anymore.

A "decent" compromise is that Portent can be used before the result is known, versus the die is rolled. This is especially good for some mechanics, like the first round of combat. So before anything is know, does something hit or not, at all, if the DM rolls a die, the Diviner can say one of those is a Portent roll instead. However, once a "to hit value", Save DC, AC, or Save bonuses have been determined, the Portent must be used before any roll.

Not sure why you are so opposed to the class, it can change, at max, three things a day/long rest. That's it. Not sure how three "guaranteed" results a day, can make that big of a difference. If you are allowing one and done days, I guess, but not getting in three to four encounters per long rest in an "adventuring day" means there is something amiss really.

BTW, on your Mimic, if you had let the Diviner touch the door (rather than the Mimic attacking first), then Portent would be much less useful. Since the Diviner touches the Mimic, no attack roll made,and the Diviner is automatically grappled. Now the Diviner gets to decide to use their Portent to have the Mimic miss on its attack, or to escape the grapple without having disadvantage. The initiative would happen after the Diviner is already grappled as well.

Sadly a Diviner's Portent ability doesn't always work out the way the Diviner expects it to work. I used it with a roll that I thought was low enough to make the opponent who my Diviner was in melee with miss when he attacked me and I mis-judged his attack bonus so I got smacked. I didn't know what his attack bonus was so I got hurt. The only way it's a guaranteed success or failure is if the roll is a 1 or a 20 or if you know the opponent's AC, saving throw, and/or to-hit bonus.

It almost always works but when it doesn't work it makes the Diviner's life very unpleasant.

There are quite a few abilities that allow PCs to adjust dice rolled by the DM, the Portent just being the most iconic. It can feel frustrating as a DM to have your action canceled out, but remember that you have almost infinite power to do things while your players are limited. I try to celebrate when my players use their iconic abilities to make things more awesome for them. I can always make things harder, but the game feels better when I'm rooting for them.It's also worth remembering that your Diviner only has a few portents (3 at most) and can only use each once.

I find a good compromise is to be ok with backtracking a few seconds. Do your attack as normal, and if someone wants to alter the roll let them even if you've already called out the result. And remember what is good for your players is good for you. Throw a Diviner NPC at them, or someone with the Lucky feat, or a cleric with Warding Flare. Give a monster one of those abilities. I bet once you get the chance to play with those abilities, and your PCs have to deal with the other side, you'll all feel a bit more comfy working together to be fair about using those kind of powers.

Quote from RangerDeadeye >>

One of my current players is a Diviner. First time for me and there was definitely a learning curve to get used to it.

It's come to mostly be the responsibility of the player, though I've adjusted the "before the roll" to be "before the result is announced."

In an early session, I made sure to prompt the player that I was rolling a d20 and asked the other players to do so as well. Haven't done it again since that session as we all learned well enough how the flow should be and how much attention the divider needs to pay during the whole session.

Also, the first few times, I described in detail how the portent worked (ex. you have a vision of a giant white spider impale the NPC behind you, you turn around and tell him to move to the side and as you do, a Giant white spider crashes down where they just were). It makes the player feel epic but doesn't surprise them any less and doesn't take away from the encounter.

So far, he's used them well enough to never disrupt the flow of the game given the adjustment of wording I've ruled. Actually, I've recently reminded him that he can use them during any situation as he tends to not use them outside of combat and I'm pretty light on the combat in my campaigns.

This right here.

Game masters should be encouraging players to do epic stuff with their class features instead of being afraid of them and banning or removing them from the game.

And after reading this thread, I'm going to have a second look at some of the class features I've had problems with in the past.