Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

Asgorath · Feb 19, 2019

Hriston said:
This hypothetical situation that both [MENTION=6921966]Asgorath[/MENTION] and Jeremy Crawford have brought up as a problem with the interpretation that allows a shield master to bonus action shove first isn't actually a problem. If the only action you take on your turn is to shove a creature, then it most certainly counts as taking the Attack action. Since that's the situation we're talking about, none of the things you bring up in your post about what happens after I've shoved a creature matter because, according to the example given, at that point, I've been incapacitated.

Where's the rule that lets you go back in time and change your bonus action to an action instead? Given the fact that the Shield Master shove has a trigger of taking the Attack action first, how did you even do the bonus action first? The Sage Advice compendium is quite clear that this isn't supported by the rules, and I'm not aware of any rule that lets you retroactively change a bonus action to an action if something happens that prevents you from taking your action.

Hriston said:
He changed his mind about his interpretation. I'm not sure what "massive amount of evidence" you're talking about other than him changing his mind, though. What we disagree about is that you think I'm making an error in interpretation. My view is that both interpretations are valid. I know which one I prefer, however.

Again, we can agree to disagree about what happened here, though I think his explanation of the original tweet (i.e. he replied when he did not have the books in front of him and then promptly forgot about it) is reasonable. Once he realized that the incorrect tweet existed, he's been going out of his way to correct it on many different platforms, including putting a new question about it in the latest Sage Advice compendium and doing a whole segment on Dragon Talk about it. If "following your bliss" means ignoring all of his most recent statements and essentially house-ruling that Shield Master just gives you a bonus action shove, more power to you. I just think it's really hard to argue that it's the intent of the feat at this point in time.

Hriston · Feb 19, 2019

Maxperson said:
You're seeing what you want to see, not what's there. That tweet you just linked was one sentence with commas. It wasn't some super composed tweet as you make it out to be. I could write that up in about 10 seconds while in line somewhere as well. And his finishing move tweet is an expression of intent, whether you believe it or not.

"Super composed"? I made no such claim. It's a tweet, after all. Why would you expect it to be more than one sentence?

I disagree that Crawford's colloquial use of the phrase supposed to be constitutes a statement of designer intent.

Maxperson said:
This is true, but to do so requires taking an attack action. Either to get the attack to convert into the shove, or to get the bonus action from Shield Master. You cannot get the bonus action from Shield Master before you take the attack action. That's not how the rules work.

You don't "get" attacks by taking the Attack action. You take the Attack action by making one or more attacks. See the difference? And we aren't talking about how things work at your table.

Maxperson said:
Do you disagree that longswords deal damage when they hit, too? If you do, change it like you are changing these rules.

I'm not changing any rules. I'm using the same rules in the book that you are. I'm just using a different interpretation of those rules than you are. Does that make you uncomfortable?

Lord Twig · Feb 19, 2019

Arial Black said:
Dash: double the distance you can walk this turn.

Disengage: your movement this turn does not provoke AoAs.

Dodge: if you are attacked at any time from now until the start of your next turn that attack roll has disadvantage.

Attack: you may execute the attacks that you have from now until the end of this turn.

Hide: you become hidden until your Stealth check is beaten, your cover goes away, or you do something to end your hidden condition.

There are two ways to view when an action ends:-

1) 'taking an action' is an instantaneous event, but the effects of that action (movement, not provoking, dodging, executing your attacks, being hidden) have a duration.

2) 'taking an action' is the same thing as the action itself, which means the action itself has a duration, and the action has not ended until that duration expires. Dash, Disengage, Attack start when you 'take the action' and only end when your turn ends. Dodge starts when you take the action and only ends at the start of your next turn. Hide starts when you take the Hide action and only ends when you are discovered, your cover goes away, or if you do something to end it.

If 1) is true, then yes, 'actions are indivisible', but not because there is any such rule but because 'taking an action' is an instantaneous event and you cannot divide 'instantaneous'. However, the effects of that action have a duration, and nothing prevents those effects being divided. This means that your bonus action shove has been generated as soon as you 'took the attack action' and you are now free to use that bonus action whenever you want, even between attacks or before you execute your first attack.

If 2) is true, then the question of whether or not 'actions are indivisible' becomes relevant.

2a) Actions ARE divisible: this means you can cast a bonus action spell while you are in the middle of an action. So you can misty step after you take the Dash action, the Disengage action, the Dodge action, the Attack action, the Hide action, etc. This means that you definitely can take the bonus action shield bash between attacks, and arguably before you execute the first attack.

2b) Actions are NOT divisible: this means that you cannot cast a bonus action spell while you are in the middle of an action. So you could not misty step after you take the Dash action! The Disengage action! The Dodge action! The Attack action! OR the Hide action!

It also means that a rogue who uses Cunning Action to Dash or Disengage as a bonus action before he uses his action for anything, now cannot take his actual action for anything at all! Actions are indivisible, so because his Dash or Disengage started when he took that bonus action and will not end until the end of his turn, his turn is already over before he can use his action for anything!

Also, since some posters are fond of asserting that you can only move between attacks is because there is a clause which says you can, and without such a clause then you could not, this means that you cannot move during any action except the Attack action! If 2b) is true AND that assertion is true, then after you take the Dash, Disengage or Dodge actions, you are not allowed to move!

I contend that 2b) is absurd. There is no reason at all to suppose that you cannot take a bonus action after you Dash, Disengage, Hide or Dodge, and there is no excuse for treating the Attack action differently without a written rule which says so; if you do, that is the fallacy of Special Pleading.

It is also absurd to imagine you cannot move after you take the Dash or Disengage actions! They would become meaningless! This shows that the clause which says you can move between attacks is not a rules exception, it just reminds us that the ability to divide your move is not restricted by multiple attacks, important for players of previous editions who would assume the opposite.

If 2b) is absurd, this leaves either 2a), which certainly allows a bonus action between attacks and arguably allows it before the first attack, and 1) which certainly allows the bonus action between attacks or before your first attack.

Easy!

I think option 1 is the way to go. Actions are indivisible and instantaneous, but can have lasting durations. They also can be interrupted, of course, by reactions. So you can't do things in the middle of casting a spell or right in the middle of doing a dodge action. Before or after the dodge, sure, but not in the middle.

The attack action is an exception of course. You can move between the attacks of the action. So I would rule that while you can't use a bonus action in the middle of making an attack, because actions are instantaneous, you could use bonus actions while moving in between those attacks (even if you move 0'). There is no rule saying exactly this, but that would (and will) be my ruling at the table. Essentially the movement allowance between attacks is interrupting the instantaneous action, just like a reaction would, then once the movement ends the attack action continues. Just like if your spell were interrupted by a counterspell that failed to counter your spell.

Speaking of counterspell, this ruling prevents the situation of a warlock casting eldritch blast with multiple blasts who, after the first blast, then misty steps into view of a caster with counterspell. The caster should be able to counterspell the eldritch blast, but then it should counter the whole spell, not just the remaining blasts.

Anyway, I am not going to say that this way of running things is the only way to do it by the RAW. But it is not a house rule either. This is just my interpretation of the RAW based on the natural English used and what makes sense to me. Rulings over rules.

Hriston · Feb 19, 2019

Asgorath said:
Where's the rule that lets you go back in time and change your bonus action to an action instead?

Are you asking me this question as a player or as a character? As a player, it was always my intention to use my bonus action to shove. Since I was prevented from doing that, however, it counts as my full action. As a character, my intention is to shove a creature. Whether that uses my action or my bonus action doesn't have any relevance to me.

Asgorath said:
Given the fact that the Shield Master shove has a trigger of taking the Attack action first, how did you even do the bonus action first?

The trigger isn't taking the Attack action first. It's taking the Attack action on your turn. I can do the bonus action shove first because I am taking the Attack action on my current turn.

Asgorath said:
The Sage Advice compendium is quite clear that this isn't supported by the rules, and I'm not aware of any rule that lets you retroactively change a bonus action to an action if something happens that prevents you from taking your action.

There's nothing retroactive about it. All that happens in the fiction is that my character shoves a creature. That event is resolved at the table with a contest. Whether or not it uses my action or bonus action has no rules relevance at this point. If after that I'm able to take my full Attack action, then I've qualified for the shove to have used my bonus action. If not, then it counts as my action.

Asgorath said:
Again, we can agree to disagree about what happened here, though I think his explanation of the original tweet (i.e. he replied when he did not have the books in front of him and then promptly forgot about it) is reasonable. Once he realized that the incorrect tweet existed, he's been going out of his way to correct it on many different platforms, including putting a new question about it in the latest Sage Advice compendium and doing a whole segment on Dragon Talk about it. If "following your bliss" means ignoring all of his most recent statements and essentially house-ruling that Shield Master just gives you a bonus action shove, more power to you. I just think it's really hard to argue that it's the intent of the feat at this point in time.

There is no "intent of the feat at this point in time". There is only "intent of the feat when it was written". That's what RAI means. The RAI doesn't change. All that has changed here is Crawford's (official) interpretation of the RAW. And it isn't a house-rule to use a different interpretation.

Asgorath · Feb 19, 2019

Hriston said:
Are you asking me this question as a player or as a character? As a player, it was always my intention to use my bonus action to shove. Since I was prevented from doing that, however, it counts as my full action. As a character, my intention is to shove a creature. Whether that uses my action or my bonus action doesn't have any relevance to me.

But the rules provide a framework for your character to act in combat. If you want to shove first, then the rules say you have to take the Attack action and use one of your attacks to shove, because you don't have a bonus action from the Shield Master feat yet. So, if you have 2 attacks from Extra Attack, you could use the first to shove, and then have advantage on your second attack. If you have the Shield Master feat, you now have a bonus action which can be used to shove someone else as well.

Hriston said:
The trigger isn't taking the Attack action first. It's taking the Attack action on your turn. I can do the bonus action shove first because I am taking the Attack action on my current turn.

This is incorrect.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/994993596989300736

"Clarification about bonus actions: if a feature says you can do X as a bonus action if you do Y, you must do Y before you can do X. For Shield Master, that means the bonus action must come after the Attack action. You decide when it happens afterward that turn."

https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf

"The Shield Master feat lets you shove someone as a bonus action if you take the Attack action. Can you take that bonus action before the Attack action?

No. The bonus action provided by the Shield Master feat has a precondition: that you take the Attack action on your turn. Intending to take that action isn’t sufficient; you must actually take it before you can take the bonus action. During your turn, you do get to decide when to take the bonus action after you’ve taken the Attack action.

This sort of if-then setup appears in many of the game’s rules. The “if” must be satisfied before the “then” comes into play."

Hriston said:
There's nothing retroactive about it. All that happens in the fiction is that my character shoves a creature. That event is resolved at the table with a contest. Whether or not it uses my action or bonus action has no rules relevance at this point. If after that I'm able to take my full Attack action, then I've qualified for the shove to have used my bonus action. If not, then it counts as my action.

Again, there is no action declaration phase in 5E where you can say "I intend to take the Attack action in the future" which would unlock the bonus action. The rules provide the framework that the player and DM translate what your character wants to do into the underlying mechanics of the game. On your turn, you have movement and an action. You can use an attack from the Attack action to shove a creature, and then if you still have attacks from Extra Attack left, you could attack the now-prone target with advantage. If you have the Shield Master feat, you could also do an extra shove after all of that has been resolved.

Hriston said:
There is no "intent of the feat at this point in time". There is only "intent of the feat when it was written". That's what RAI means. The RAI doesn't change. All that has changed here is Crawford's (official) interpretation of the RAW. And it isn't a house-rule to use a different interpretation.

I think it's a real stretch to argue that the intent of the feat back in 2014 when the PHB was released was that you could shove before attacking. I don't know of anyone who was playing it that way before JEC made his infamous and incorrect tweet in 2015. In the years following that tweet, many people (myself included) looked at that tweet and changed the way we played the feat at our tables. It never really made sense to me, but I figured if JEC said it, then that's how it was supposed to be played. He has since corrected this, and in the process, actually explained the intent of the bonus action shove (i.e. it's designed to be a finishing move to help your melee allies out).

Based on all the information we have today, I think it's hard to argue the RAI is the exact opposite of what he's now saying the intent of the feat is.

FrogReaver · Feb 20, 2019

Hriston said:
The trigger isn't taking the Attack action first. It's taking the Attack action on your turn. I can do the bonus action shove first because I am taking the Attack action on my current turn.

I'm very curious what you think the word "trigger" means...

If the trigger is taking the attack action on your turn and you haven't yet taken the attack action on your turn then how has anything been triggered?

Maxperson · Feb 20, 2019

Arial Black said:
Dash: double the distance you can walk this turn.

Disengage: your movement this turn does not provoke AoAs.

Dodge: if you are attacked at any time from now until the start of your next turn that attack roll has disadvantage.

Attack: you may execute the attacks that you have from now until the end of this turn.

Hide: you become hidden until your Stealth check is beaten, your cover goes away, or you do something to end your hidden condition.

There are two ways to view when an action ends:-

1) 'taking an action' is an instantaneous event, but the effects of that action (movement, not provoking, dodging, executing your attacks, being hidden) have a duration.

2) 'taking an action' is the same thing as the action itself, which means the action itself has a duration, and the action has not ended until that duration expires. Dash, Disengage, Attack start when you 'take the action' and only end when your turn ends. Dodge starts when you take the action and only ends at the start of your next turn. Hide starts when you take the Hide action and only ends when you are discovered, your cover goes away, or if you do something to end it.

If 1) is true, then yes, 'actions are indivisible', but not because there is any such rule but because 'taking an action' is an instantaneous event and you cannot divide 'instantaneous'. However, the effects of that action have a duration, and nothing prevents those effects being divided. This means that your bonus action shove has been generated as soon as you 'took the attack action' and you are now free to use that bonus action whenever you want, even between attacks or before you execute your first attack.

If 2) is true, then the question of whether or not 'actions are indivisible' becomes relevant.

2a) Actions ARE divisible: this means you can cast a bonus action spell while you are in the middle of an action. So you can misty step after you take the Dash action, the Disengage action, the Dodge action, the Attack action, the Hide action, etc. This means that you definitely can take the bonus action shield bash between attacks, and arguably before you execute the first attack.

2b) Actions are NOT divisible: this means that you cannot cast a bonus action spell while you are in the middle of an action. So you could not misty step after you take the Dash action! The Disengage action! The Dodge action! The Attack action! OR the Hide action!

I'm in the camp of #2, except that I don't think that Dash, Disengage and Attack have a duration of your turn. Dash would last until your movement is done, Disengage would be similar, and Attack would end when the last attack granted by the Attack action finishes.

JC has stated that action are discrete and can only be interrupted by specific instances, but then later said that he was only talking about specific instances, and not about general bonus actions, which contradicts the "only" portion of his first statement. I asked for clarity on Twitter, but no response yet.

Personally, since I view actions as taking varied amounts of time, I will allow them to be interrupted by things that make sense. I've seen the argument made that actions like Dodge are instantaneous, but that makes no sense whatsoever. If it were instant, you could literally do a 1 second jig and then stand stock still until your next turn, and every attack made on you while you aren't moving at all would be at disadvantage. That to me is nonsense. Dodge to me MUST continue until the PC's next turn, allowing him to dodge and give disadvantage to attacks that happen during that turn.

Maxperson · Feb 20, 2019

Hriston said:
You don't "get" attacks by taking the Attack action. You take the Attack action by making one or more attacks.

By RAW you do take the attack action to get the attacks.

"With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. See the “Making an Attack” section for the rules that govern attacks. Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature of the fighter, allow you to make more than one attack with this action."

With the action you make an attack, not you make an attack and you get the action. Extra attack allows you to make more than one attack with the action, not making two attacks gives you the action.

See the difference? And we aren't talking about how things work at your table.

I'm not changing any rules. I'm using the same rules in the book that you are. I'm just using a different interpretation of those rules than you are. Does that make you uncomfortable?

I do see the difference. I'm discussing RAW and you are not. And yes, I suppose yours is an "interpretation," in the same way as you could interpret day as night, hot as cold, and wet as dry. Your arguments smack of sophistry designed to allow you to do something that the rules do not allow. Why is it so hard for you to just admit that you are changing the rules and you enjoy playing in a way that is different from RAW?

FrogReaver · Feb 20, 2019

Maxperson said:
I'm in the camp of #2, except that I don't think that Dash, Disengage and Attack have a duration of your turn. Dash would last until your movement is done, Disengage would be similar, and Attack would end when the last attack granted by the Attack action finishes.

JC has stated that action are discrete and can only be interrupted by specific instances, but then later said that he was only talking about specific instances, and not about general bonus actions, which contradicts the "only" portion of his first statement. I asked for clarity on Twitter, but no response yet.

Personally, since I view actions as taking varied amounts of time, I will allow them to be interrupted by things that make sense. I've seen the argument made that actions like Dodge are instantaneous, but that makes no sense whatsoever. If it were instant, you could literally do a 1 second jig and then stand stock still until your next turn, and every attack made on you while you aren't moving at all would be at disadvantage. That to me is nonsense. Dodge to me MUST continue until the PC's next turn, allowing him to dodge and give disadvantage to attacks that happen during that turn.

The issue with disengage particularly is this:

You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action.

So consider the statement: "If you take the disengage action then it must end before you can move and thus you never are able to move while under the effects of the disengage action." We all agree that's absurd (at least I hope we do). Thus, at a minimum we know that the disengage action itself doesn't extend over the full period of time that it's effects occur.

This is a very important point to establish in this discussion. That actions aren't simultaneous with their effects.

Maxperson · Feb 20, 2019

Hriston said:
This hypothetical situation that both [MENTION=6921966]Asgorath[/MENTION] and Jeremy Crawford have brought up as a problem with the interpretation that allows a shield master to bonus action shove first isn't actually a problem. If the only action you take on your turn is to shove a creature, then it most certainly counts as taking the Attack action.

RAW does not allow it to take a Bonus Action as the Attack action. Actions and Bonus Actions are defined and different in the rules. One is not the other and a Bonus Action cannot be converted into an Action short of a house rule. If you use the Bonus Action to shove, you did not take an action if you are knocked out. What you did is cheat and take a Bonus Action that you were not allowed to take because the trigger never happened.

Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

Asgorath

Explorer

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Lord Twig

Adventurer

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Asgorath

Explorer

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

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