I was right about Shield Master

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

Gradine said:
Poetry is, by its very nature, open to interpretation. Legislation is a whole other can of worms; needless to say that the ability to apply creative judicial interpretation of law (in the United States, anyway) that runs contrary to the intent of the legislation when the legislators are there to explain their intent because that intent runs contrary to the judge's own political leanings is pretty damn huge problem but as long as both sides of the aisle love it when their side of the courts do it I'm not sure it's one that'll be resolved any time soon.

If you have to ask someone what they meant by their words - if the meaning is not self-evident in the written word - then it's not what was written, is it?

Jeremy Crawford no doubt has his own opinion. It may even be what he had in mind when he wrote the rule, although that seems doubtful given that he himself has fluctated in interpretation: it seems far more likely that this is a sign of him not being sure what exactly he wrote rather than a sign of him forgetting, and then remembering again, what he had in mind. But even if we are getting his original intention, that is not in what he wrote. If it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

epithet said:
Of course it is. Just as taking the dash action is separate from moving. Taking the attack action gives you one or more weapon attacks (or shoves, or grapples) that you can take or not depending on the circumstances.

I think you are running together conceptually/semantically distinct and metaphysically distinct.

The example I gave upthread is brushing one's teeth: bruthing your teeth is a distinct concept/phrase from moving your toothbrush. But any occurence of an event that is brushing your truth is constituted, in part, by an event of moving your toothbrush.

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

Ansel Darach said:
The confusion probably stemmed from the PHB itself.

Shield master. "If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield."

Two weapon fighting. "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative."

Examples of two separate instances where a bonus action can be used after taking the attack action wherein the Players Handbook itself makes a distinction between the attack action requiring an attack before a bonus action is used (two weapon fighting) and one where that specific wording is missing (shieldmaster) therefore when people read an exception based ruleset the specific rule beats the general rule of needing an attack first in order to use the bonus action and shieldmaster lacks that specific rule.

But that seems to be because there is no way to make wielding a light weapon a necessary component of TWF without that extra wording you've pointed to. Because that extra wording is performing that function, it cannot be uncontroversially inferred that it's performing a further function of the sort you suggest.

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

Ristamar said:
A Reaction trigger requires an observable condition. "Start of turn" is not an observable condition, though a Reaction could potentially be triggered with similar timing due to the manner in which it is worded, or a lenient DM may not give a damn and simply allow it.

How does this have any bearing on a rule about the use of a bonus action? A bonus action is not a reaction.

Ristamar said:
The bonus action granted via Shield Master, due to its specific wording with Attack Action, is affected by the clarification or else it could operate like a Reaction with "specified otherwise" timing (re: bonus actions and reactions that have triggers -- "No general rule allows you to insert a bonus action between attacks in a single action. You can interrupt a multiple-attack action with a bonus action/reaction only if the trigger of the bonus action/reaction is an attack, rather than the action.")

It's really that simple.

Not only is it not simple, to me it's not even coherent! You are stating a (purported) principle that pertains to bonus actions and reactions. That doesn't show that bonus actions are reactions.

Given that the principle uses a notion that is not part of the definition and explanation of a bonus action - trigger - I don't really know where to start with it. But you are the only one here who thinks that a bonus action can be a reaction. For no reason that I can follow.

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

Gradine said:
This is all fair, and I wouldn't dispute any of it. The argument unfortunately wasn't that Crawford interpreted it in a different way; the argument seems to be that Crawford's interpretation is, by RAW, wrong. The problem with that argument is that Crawford's interpretations of the rules being wrong are, by virtue of his position, technically impossible.

It's not "technically impossible" for the drafter of a rule to be wrong about its interpretation. In fact its really rather common - in law, but in other contexts also.

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

Mistwell said:
What would have worked best is if they eliminated the use of a bonus action for the shove entirely. Just have it say,

"Once per turn on your turn if you hit a creature that is no more than one size larger than you with a melee attack, you do damage as normal, and as part of that same successful attack you can make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you can either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you."

That way you still have your bonus action, and there are no timing questions.

That's what I take it to mean (subject to the suggestion from [MENTION=6796566]epithet[/MENTION] and [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] that's come out upthread): taking the attack action means taking an attack, but doesn't require finishing taking all those attacks.

epithet · Oct 18, 2018

pemerton said:
I think you are running together conceptually/semantically distinct and metaphysically distinct.

The example I gave upthread is brushing one's teeth: bruthing your teeth is a distinct concept/phrase from moving your toothbrush. But any occurence of an event that is brushing your truth is constituted, in part, by an event of moving your toothbrush.

Brushing your teeth is a real-world activity, and not really analogous to the nit-picking of game mechanics.

Here are a couple of examples which, I think, serve to illustrate the distinction between the Attack Action and an attack.

Your PC declares the Attack Action, either explicitly or by saying "I'll take a couple of swings at the orc standing in front of me." As it happens, there is an enemy spellcaster who has readied a spell, specifically hold person, for a trigger of "hostile action." When your PC takes the attack action, the trigger condition is met and the spell is cast. You fail the save, and your PC is held and unable to make the attack on the orc. You've taken the attack action, but made no attacks.

-
A couple of rounds later, you make the save and your PC is no longer held. On its turn, the orc moves away from you and provokes an attack of opportunity. You make a melee weapon attack. In this case, you didn't take the attack action (your save was at the end of your turn, so you took no action in combat that round.) The attack was granted by a reaction.

To me, anyway, the distinctions between an attack and The Attack Action extend through the conceptual and semantic into the metaphysical, formal, and existential realms.

FrogReaver · Oct 18, 2018

epithet said:
Brushing your teeth is a real-world activity, and not really analogous to the nit-picking of game mechanics.

Here are a couple of examples which, I think, serve to illustrate the distinction between the Attack Action and an attack.

Your PC declares the Attack Action, either explicitly or by saying "I'll take a couple of swings at the orc standing in front of me." As it happens, there is an enemy spellcaster who has readied a spell, specifically hold person, for a trigger of "hostile action." When your PC takes the attack action, the trigger condition is met and the spell is cast. You fail the save, and your PC is held and unable to make the attack on the orc. You've taken the attack action, but made no attacks.

-

A couple of rounds later, you make the save and your PC is no longer held. On its turn, the orc moves away from you and provokes an attack of opportunity. You make a melee weapon attack. In this case, you didn't take the attack action (your save was at the end of your turn, so you took no action in combat that round.) The attack was granted by a reaction.

To me, anyway, the distinctions between an attack and The Attack Action extend through the conceptual and semantic into the metaphysical, formal, and existential realms.

Interesting.

1. In the games I've played and DM'd the spell would only trigger after the first attack was made. There would be nothing considered to be a hostile action until one character in the game actually performed some hostile action like attacking another.

I'm willing to bet that's how 99% of people play too.

Most games wouldn't have triggers that reference some out of game world activity like a player's declaration of an attack action as a trigger. The trigger would need to reference something happening in the game world. Luckily for us hostile action also has a real world meaning as well that can easily be applied to the game world to resolve the trigger condition.

pemerton · Oct 18, 2018

epithet said:
Brushing your teeth is a real-world activity

Taking the attack action and making an attack are also real-world events. The latter also correlates with some event in the fiction.

epithet said:
Here are a couple of examples which, I think, serve to illustrate the distinction between the Attack Action and an attack.

<snip>

On its turn, the orc moves away from you and provokes an attack of opportunity. You make a melee weapon attack. In this case, you didn't take the attack action (your save was at the end of your turn, so you took no action in combat that round.) The attack was granted by a reaction.

I already gave this example somewhere upthread. It shows that not all instances of making an attack are constituents of taking the attack action. It doesn't show that taking the attack action doesn't include, as a constituent, making an attack.

The analogue in relation to toothbrushes is this: gesturing at you with my toothbrush is a moving of my toothbrush that is not a constituent of an instance of brushing my teeth. That does not at all show, however, that brushing my teeth does not have the moving of my toothbrush as a primary (though obviously not sole) constituent.

epithet said:
Your PC declares the Attack Action, either explicitly or by saying "I'll take a couple of swings at the orc standing in front of me." As it happens, there is an enemy spellcaster who has readied a spell, specifically hold person, for a trigger of "hostile action." When your PC takes the attack action, the trigger condition is met and the spell is cast. You fail the save, and your PC is held and unable to make the attack on the orc. You've taken the attack action, but made no attacks.

The resolution of this would play out no differently were the trigger for the reaction was make an attack. So it doesn't show that taking the attack action does not consist in (among other things) making an attack.

epithet · Oct 18, 2018

FrogReaver said:
Interesting.

1. In the games I've played and DM'd the spell would only trigger after the first attack was made. There would be nothing considered to be a hostile action until one character in the game actually performed some hostile action like attacking another.

I'm willing to bet that's how 99% of people play too.

Most games wouldn't have triggers that reference some out of game world activity like a player's declaration of an attack action as a trigger. The trigger would need to reference something happening in the game world. Luckily for us hostile action also has a real world meaning as well that can easily be applied to the game world to resolve the trigger condition.

To clarify, if a player character were to ready a spell and declare a trigger of "hostile action," and an NPC were to draw a weapon and prepare to attack a party member, you would rule that the spell could not be triggered until the attack role was made? Interesting indeed. I believe the players in my group would use some colorful metaphors to describe your ruling on that issue.

Taking The Attack Action is an action in combat, and it certainly conveys an intention to make ranged or melee attacks. Most of the time, in my experience, it is not declared in "metagame" terms, but is made clear by more "in character" statements like "I'm going to stab the fat one." We all know that that means "I'm taking the attack action with the intention of making a melee attack against the specified enemy." I think we all also know that, except in the case of surprise, you can see a character attack (take the attack action) before the resolution of the strike (rolling an attack.)

Or, maybe you don't. Hell, maybe in your game there can't be a hostile action without a d20 being rolled. Based on my limited experience, though, I sure as hell wouldn't bet much that 99% of people share that aspect of your style.