Shield Master POLL: Rules as Fun!

I've realized in another thread (we all know which one LOL!) that sometimes some of us (guilty ) spend too much time focusing on the Rules as Written and Rules as Intended/Implied at the neglect of the Rules as FUN! I am curious as to how your table is using the Shield Master feat and that is my purpose here, not to debate the rule. After all, that horse has been beaten beyond recognition (where did I leave my club...?).


So, this is a poll to vote how you play the Shield Master feat (or at least how you would like it to be used) at your own table! If you have a system I didn't include, please share it and thanks for voting!

It's never come up for us.

I picked the way I would be inclined to rule if it did.

After first strike, you can shove as bonus.

I voted after the first attack you can use the Shield Master bonus action.

Maxperson said:

I voted after the first attack you can use the Shield Master bonus action.

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Same here, once you've made the first attack nothing can prevent you from taking the Attack action. Extra Attacks can come later if you have them, which makes the feat slightly more powerful at higher levels.

As the DM... fun for whom? I don't like my monsters always being steamrolled by the fighter who knocks them down, attacks twice with advantage, and then lets half the party do the same.
I need my fun too. I want to take my turn in combat.

So, yeah, rule of fun is the same as rules as written: bonus action after the competition of the trigger. In this case, the trigger is pretty clearly "the attack action". But, if I'm feeling generous and nice to the players because they're not arguing and whining, I might rule it can take place between attacks if you have Extra Attack.

Bonus actions and movement can be used at any time during a player's turn. If a particular bonus action has a prerequisite for use (say, when you make an attack)... so long as the prerequisite happens during the turn I don't care when it happens during the turn.

My reasoning for all of this is simple-- whether its Shield Master or Stealth or whatever-- its usually all arguments whose only results are about whether a PC gets to have Advantage on their attack. But guess what? There are already a dozen or so different ways to get advantage on an attack in the game, so why waste all this time and energy over these couple of specific instances?

Can you Stealth or not Stealth? What's RAW? Whats RAI? What's RAF? Who cares! All this discussion and argument whose end result is that someone attacks with their bow and has advantage on the attack... the same exact result as if a caster had thrown up a Faerie Fire or a Guiding Bolt. And yet one produces fifty-five different threads with hundreds of argumentative responses... while the other just happens and no one cares.

In a game with feats, you are sword 'n board PC (and thus already have cut yourself from the really good Great Weapon and Polearm ones). The one feat you CAN take allows you to occasionally get advantage on attacks if you succeed on shoving people down. How is that result so terrible that its been worth all this caterwauling for months about rules interpretation being right or wrong? For my money, it isn't at all. And it actually helps inspire some players to actually want to play a sword 'n board warrior, which is in no way a bad thing in my opinion.

I really hope this does not turn into another rules debate thread. Please post your reasoning for voting as you do, but I hope people will not use this as a place to challenge your reasoning. That wasn't my intent, and of course it is not my forum, but I will hope you'll respect that.

Jester David said:

As the DM... fun for whom? I don't like my monsters always being steamrolled by the fighter who knocks them down, attacks twice with advantage, and then lets half the party do the same.
I need my fun too. I want to take my turn in combat.

So, yeah, rule of fun is the same as rules as written: bonus action after the competition of the trigger. In this case, the trigger is pretty clearly "the attack action". But, if I'm feeling generous and nice to the players because they're not arguing and whining, I might rule it can take place between attacks if you have Extra Attack.

Click to expand...

My rule of thumb is pretty simple: if the players want to push the boundaries with things like this, then I just give the same feat to the monsters. Oh, you want to shove first and attack with advantage? Cool, my monsters get to do that as well. I like to add class features to monsters to make them more interesting and powerful, and feats are a simple and easy way to do that.

I'm aware of how the rule is written, but I'm okay with the shove happening any time during the turn, as long as an attack is intended. If somehow the attack is prevented, then retroactively if the attack was prevented, we usually say the shove was the action for that turn. For some people it's easier to just remember "I get a free shove once a turn" and use it than memorize the specific situations in which it's usable. While I personally very much enjoy system mastery over a complex ruleset, that's not everybody's jam, and I'm willing to be accommodating.

Similar to how I see a lot of tables using Inspiration as an after-the-fact-reroll mechanic instead of a spend-first-for-advantage mechanic the way it's written. But that's a topic for a different thread.