I'm playing a Divination Wizard in a playthrough with some friends.
Divination is probably one of the most powerful schools for Wizards, and I'm not saying we need to be more powerful or that we are nerfed.
There is, however, some issues with how the Portent Dice work currently.
First of all there's an issue where my friend (a berserker) attacks, he misses, I get the popup reaction asking if I want to swap his miss with one of my portent dice to make the attack result in a hit instead. I spend a portent die, the attack misses anyway, and when I look in the combat log, the attack didn't actually use my die instead of the original one (even though I no longer have that die available, so it is definitely spent). - I know this could very well be a bug, and that it might belong in a different forum, but right now I'm just trying put all my thoughts in the same place and not scatter them all around the forums. (Also, this issue doesn't seem to only encompass portent dice, but also the Channel Divinity: Guided Strike action for War clerics).
Then there's the "issue" that I don't always get a popup. Sometimes an enemy's attacks hits and I don't even get the chance to swap out their roll even though I have a portent die of 4 (or something equally low) available. This could be a range thing (I'm not sure what the range of using a portent die is, since there doesn't seem to be any information about range in the ability), and it could be certain attacks or spells simply don't trigger the reaction (but it happens rarely enough that I haven't been able to specifically point out why it happens). So this is definitely not a top priority, but it is something to keep in mind. If the Portent feature does have an actual range, this information is quite useful to the player.
My main reason for making this post, however, and the reason why I put it in Suggestions and Feedback, concerns the "Prophecies" you get after spending your portent dice and taking a short rest. I'm pretty sure this part is specific to BG3 and not D&D 5 in general, since I don't recall prophecies being a thing in the Player's Handbook.
In any case, I think it's a nice feature, but it doesn't seem polished enough. I don't have a full list of the prophecies, but sometimes you get a "deal 1 point of <subtype> damage" and this can sometimes mean you have to deal 1 point of radiant damage to an enemy. The issue here is that it's so much more difficult for a wizard to deal radiant damage than fire or cold damage, that I simply end up just not being able to complete it in a meaningful way. Another silly prophecy is "use the help" action on an ally. This requires that my ally places themself in a position where I can Help them, either by getting downed or being the target of certain conditions, but the players don't necessarily have any meaningful way of putting an ally in a situation where I can actually use the Help action on them, so it certainly reduces player agency since I, the wizard, have to go out of my way to do something silly (like down my ally just so I can Help them or something like that).
Another prophecy is to "deal a finishing blow". While I do have offensive spells, my party role isn't really the damage dealer. My role is mainly utility/support, and spells like Haste just end up being so much more effective than any damage spell I could waste my Action and spell slot on. So this prophecy is rarely useful, in my opinion. Then there's the "Receive an additional portent die by learning a spell from a scroll or using a scroll to cast a spell". While I don't hate this prophecy, it never actually seems to work for me. I sometimes try to scribe several spells, but the prophecy never actually acknowledges that. I think my favourite prophecy would be "Cast a spell from <X> spell school". Some of them are difficult because the spells schools don't seem to be equally represented in the game, but there's usually one or two useful spells of every school.
I think my main suggestions here would be:
a) Remove the prophecy system and just give the Wizard 2 new portent dice after a short rest. (It's novel, but tedious, so in line of letting the player spend more time playing the game rather than trying to go on a quest to fulfil the prophecies, this could be a solution. Is it a fun solution? No, but it's certainly a solution)
b) Rework the Prophecy system. (Completely re-think the prophecies. Remove the silly ones, add better ones. Especially, in my opinion, add more prophecies that aren't related to combat. I readily admit I'm no game designer, and I don't really have many suggestions for different prophecies at the top of my head.)
At the end of the day, the prophecy system is somewhat clumsy in a tactical turn-based strategy game. And yes, I know Baldur's Gate is technically an "rpg" but none of the prophecies actually involve roleplaying in any meaningful way. To compare it to another D&D 5 feature, which I personally didn't expect would be implemented, the Inspiration system is a way more elegant solution to a very roleplay-centric system (there's no concrete rules about Inspiration in D&D 5 other than the GM can give the players Inspiration if said GM feels like your roleplaying of your character is "true" to the character's personality and role. Some GMs never use inspiration, others use it liberally).
TLDR: Portent dice don't always work. Divination Wizard Prophecy system feels clumsy, annoying and doesn't always work. Suggestion: Fix portent dice so they always work. Rework or remove Prophecy system.
Thank you for your time, and for a great game in general.
