D&D 5E The Lucky feat and Disadvantage

[Quartz]

How do you work the Lucky feat when the player is rolling with Disadvantage? Do you roll both normal and disadvantage dice then roll the Lucky die? Or do you roll the first die, then the Lucky die, and then the disadvantage die?

 

[kbrakke]

Based on "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 can choose to spend one of your luck points after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined." you have two options.
First you can declare lucky as you roll it, roll 3d20, then pick any 2 of that to be your disadvantage roll. Second you could roll with disadvantage, then choose to spend a luck point, roll an extra d20 and then pick any two of those to be the disadvantage roll.

 

[Astrosicebear]

I ruled at my table that the lucky roll cancels the disadvantage. Since Lucky is essentially granting advantage, we know that advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out.

So the player spends a lucky point and rolls 1 d20.

 

[Quartz]

Neither response really squares with being able to choose to roll after you've seen the first roll, does it? And Luck is a bit more than Advantage or Disadvantage - it's a forced Advantage or Disadvantage, overriding other conditions. It is a feat, after all.

Anyway, I think I've missed the obvious: you roll the first die, choose to be Lucky or not, then roll the second die and choose to be Lucky or not. Potentially using two points of Luck.

 

[kbrakke]

Neither response really squares with being able to choose to roll after you've seen the first roll, does it? And Luck is a bit more than Advantage or Disadvantage - it's a forced Advantage or Disadvantage, overriding other conditions. It is a feat, after all.

Anyway, I think I've missed the obvious: you roll the first die, choose to be Lucky or not, then roll the second die and choose to be Lucky or not. Potentially using two points of Luck.

I would argue that you don't get to see each roll on two grounds. First Lucky says "Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw" which is not whenever you roll a die. This means that you don't use lucky on a per die basis, it's a per check basis. Second advantage and disadvantage say "When that happens, you roll a second d20 when you make the roll".
These together would tell me that the check with disadvantage is made by rolling 2d20, not 1d20 then 1d20, it's together. That combined with lucky being usable per check before or after the roll results in my interpretation.

I do like the simplicity of Astrocisebear's response, jut remember that lucky is explicitly not advantage because that would combine with rogue sneak attacks and then also not work with advantage.

Naturally as the dm if you want to do it another way that makes more sense to you, please do. This is just what the book says regarding advantage, disadvantage, and lucky.