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If I am a Drunken Master Monk and I have one source each of both advantage and disadvantage, can I still use Drunkard's Luck to remove the disadvantage as per the class feature:

When you make an ability check, attack roll, or a saving throw and have disadvantage on the roll, you can spend 2 ki points to cancel the disadvantage for that roll. (XGtE 34)

and thereby have advantage? or am I not allowed to use Drunkard's Luck because the disadvantage is already cancelled out by the advantage per this rule:

If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20.

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Yes, you can use Drunkard's Luck to gain advantage this way

Specific beats general. In this case, Drunkard's Luck specific cancel the disadvantage first, thus the general rule does not apply because you now have only advantage.

Remember that advantage and disadvantage never stack, so Drunkard's Luck will always cancel disadvantage, no matter how many sources of disadvantage you have. So if you have both advantage and disadvantage, after Drunkard's Luck you will only have advantage.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I would probably change the line "always leaving you with net advantage" to regard only the case where you have advantage too (as you don't always) \$\endgroup\$
    – David Coffron
    Apr 25, 2018 at 2:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ Erm, advantage and disadvantage don’t stack, but they don’t collapse together either. 1 advantage + 2 disadvantage means neither affects the roll, but there are still two sources of disadvantage. That means that cancelling one disadvantage still leaves 1 uncancelled disadvantage for the final roll, to negate the 1 advantage. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Apr 25, 2018 at 6:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SevenSidedDie I agree on "don't collapse together", but Drunken's Luck said "*the disadvantage", which I believe is the "choose the lowest of the two dice" \$\endgroup\$
    – Vylix
    Apr 25, 2018 at 9:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ As it's written, "Cancel the disadvantage for that roll" would require removing ALL sources of disadvantage. So it would still be irrelevant how many sources there could have been causing the disadvantage \$\endgroup\$
    – Luke
    Apr 26, 2018 at 4:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think this is a well reasoned answer, however I believe it doesn't address the qualifier "When you make x roll and have disadvantage on that roll". As we know, having any number of sources of advantage AND disadvantage means you have neither for that roll. So it would not meet the criteria. \$\endgroup\$
    – Luke
    Apr 26, 2018 at 4:36
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No, you can't use Drunkard's Luck to gain advantage this way

My take is:

Since the DM calls the rolls, the negating the advantages and disadvantages happens in the DM's head*. The wording of the feature "when you make X with disadvantage" suggests that this comes at the end of the DM's decision. It also make sense for this to happen at the very end right before the roll because you are spending your precious resource and should have all the information related to the roll.

So how I'm saying this works is:

DM takes all the circumstances into consideration and calls for an X roll -here he says with disadvantage or not-. If DM calls for a roll with disadvantage you can choose to spend your ki points to cancel disadvantage.

*: The advantages and disadvantages all happen at the same time, then the DM calls it and players change the outcome with spells/features when possible. There isn't really an order of getting advantages or disadvantages. They are all either there or not.

But specific beats general?

Specific over general is if rules conflict, these rules don't conflict.

General: you have adv and disadv, they cancel each other out.

Specific: if you have disadv... you don't, fine.

Specific beats general is for when rules overlap, or conflict as i already said, it doesn't work the same for order of things. General happens first, specific alters what it can.

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