I was in a battle where my party and I faced off against a creature that has multiattacks. If I'm using the School of Abjuration's level 6 subclass feature, Projected Ward, which says:

Starting at 6th level, when a creature that you can see within 30 feet of you takes damage, you can use your reaction to cause your Arcane Ward to absorb that damage. If this damage reduces the ward to 0 hit points, the warded creature takes any remaining damage.

I just want to make sure that

• I can project the ward to a creature (within range) after the amount of damage has been declared
• I can choose which attack in the sequence encounters my ward
• If I choose an attack that is not the last one, it stays to protect the creature until my reaction ends

As a question off of the last bullet point, can I at any time recall the ward to me to protect myself, or does it defend both me and the creature for the duration of my reaction?

You can project the ward when the target has received 1 or more damage. It's unlikely the DM goes "OK you take damage." and then just moves on never stating what the value is. So, I don't see many situations where you'll be using the ward without knowing the amount. The DM is free to make it a thing though: to state they take damage and give you the option to use the ward before proceeding to detail the amount. The feature itself doesn't give you the right to know the value - you can't go "if they take X or more damage I'll use my ward but if it's less I won't". That's a metagaming thing you will need to discuss with the DM and it will be a DM-by-DM thing. Personally, I couldn't be arsed, I will just state "you take X of Y damage" and let people react as they want. You'll probably be hard-pressed to find a DM who does it differently. A small amount of metagaming is fine for stuff like this. It's a game, after all.

You can choose when to use the ward. But you only use it for that one instance. (hence "that damage" etc).

For example let's say Monster attacks a PC with a 3-hit multiattack.

Attack 1 hits, damaging PC: you can choose to use ward or not. Let's say you don't.

Attack 2 hits, damaging PC: you chose to use the ward for this and absorb the damage, the PC took none and your ward still has 5 hp.

Attack 3 hits, damaging PC: you can't do anything. You've already used your reaction.

The use of the projected ward doesn't prevent the ward protecting you as it doesn't take any actions or anything for it do so. If an AoE got both you and another PC you could use the reaction to reduce their damage before or after using it to reduce your incoming damage. However, the ward is an all or nothing deal: you don't get to say "protect PC for 5 points, and me for the rest" - if you project it first the ward takes ALL damage aimed at the PC, and would then protect you if it had any HP left after that. If the ward had dropped to 0 HP protecting that PC there'll be no protection for you. So you will need to be careful about who want to protect first.

You don't lump multiple successful attacks into a single damage roll. Arcane Ward only protects against one instance of damage. It doesn't protect them for the entire round.

Thanks for clearing that up. Once it soaks damage my wizard will be protected again by it, right?

Quote from LolChocobo >>

 

Thanks for clearing that up. Once it soaks damage my wizard will be protected again by it, right?

 
As long as it still has HP, yes.

The feature doesn't say you lose access to your ward. I think it's reasonable to say both of you could be protected by it at the same time. Useful for AoE spells and effects, but you also burn through it more quickly.

I agree.  You both have them and it burns through quickly.

Hmm, interesting. Well, just means I'll be spamming more abjuration spells to top off my ward.