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If you are making an attack and you roll a natural 1 on the die, you immediately know this is a failure. But the Lucky feat (PHB, p. 167) says:

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 choose which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.

Since an attack roll of a natural 1 is an automatic miss and is immediately known (or determined), does this allow or prohibit the use of the Lucky feat to reroll the attack?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Per the [critical-fail] tag info: "Critical failures are results of actions which not only fail to meet their goal, but also hamper the doer of the action or their allies." A nat. 1 on an attack in 5e is just an automatic miss, not a "crit fail". \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Dec 6, 2018 at 20:27

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Yes, you can reroll a 1 (or a 20)

Rolling a 1 or a 20 on an attack roll technically means the result is going to miss or hit. However, that does not necessarily mean the outcome is decided. There are abilities out there (like Lucky itself!) that can modify rolls and so there are even rare cases where your 1 or 20 might get modified after the roll but before "the outcome is determined". So until the attack's full outcome is determined you are allowed to use Lucky to reroll it.

Jeremy Crawford confirms this is the case for a natural 20 which should be the exact same case as a natural 1 for an attack roll:

Even a 20 isn't immune to the Lucky feat.

It is worth noting that for ability checks and saving throws 1s and 20s have no special meaning and thus would work with Lucky without any ambiguity. If you are playing with the variant where ability checks and saving throws can critically succeed or fail, then they would follow the above ruling in the same way as attack rolls do by default.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Also something to consider: your opponent may have the lucky feat. They may plan to burn it on a nat 20 you roll. knowing that, it may be in your best interest to throw in a luck point as well in order to cancel out your opponent's use of it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Mundane
    Dec 6, 2018 at 19:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMundane The feat specifically applies to your rolls only. \$\endgroup\$
    – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-
    Dec 6, 2018 at 20:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ @chrylis Well Consider the scenario. You make an attack roll against an opponent and roll a natural 20. Both of you have the luck feat. they can utilize the "You can also spend one luck point when an attack roll is made against you" to make your roll no longer a natural 20. Then when you spend luck to cancel out their use of luck on your own attack, you effectively create the catch clause --> "If more than one creature spends a luck point to influence the outcome of a roll, the points cancel each other out; no additional dice are rolled." So you can in fact guarantee your nat20 stays a nat20 \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Mundane
    Dec 6, 2018 at 21:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @chrylis It also applies to to attack rolls made against the lucky one. Per the PHB, "You can also spend one luck point when an attack roll is made against you." \$\endgroup\$
    – Longspeak
    Dec 7, 2018 at 0:11

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