Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 7771306" data-attributes="member: 6787503"><p>So many things about this ruling on Shield Master bother me. Allow me to enumerate them. </p><p></p><p>1. It goes against the RAI for bonus actions. You were supposed to be able to “choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action’s timing is specified,” and Shield Master doesn’t specify a timing for the bonus action shove. All it does is require that you take the Attack action on the same turn. Jeremy Crawford’s earlier tweets on Shield Master confirm that this was the intention for the feat, and it’s only since he began emphasizing the RAW in his rulings that he changed his mind about bonus actions. Rather than issue rulings that go against the RAI, he should issue errata for the way bonus actions are written, although I don’t think either is necessary. For an example of a bonus action that does specify timing, look at Flurry of Blows. It says you can use your bonus action “Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn”. If the intent was for Shield Master and TWF to specify timing, they could have been written like Flurry of Blows, but they weren’t, and Jeremy Crawford isn’t claiming they were. Notice, he acknowledges the feat’s lack of timing specificity in his recent ruling when he says, “During your turn, you do get to decide when to take the bonus action after you’ve taken the Attack action.” But the feat doesn’t say, “after”. It doesn’t specify the shove’s timing, so you should be able to do it at any point during your turn you want. </p><p></p><p>2. It confuses causality at the table with causality in the fiction. A fictional character has no awareness that s/he is taking the “Attack action” or a “bonus action”. Those aren’t things in the fiction. They’re things at the table with which only the player is concerned. The fictional character, on the other hand, is concerned with attacking and shoving one or more creatures, perhaps landing blows with a weapon and shoving a creature with a shield. In the fiction, the character doesn’t derive the ability to shove a creature with a shield above his/her normal ability to attack from having satisfied the precondition of a “feat”, but rather because s/he is a Shield Master! What’s special about this character (among other things) is that when fighting, s/he’s good at getting extra shoves in. At the table, the player can activate these extra shoves by taking the Attack action and using them in combination with the character’s other fictional actions, but there’s no compelling reason that the chronological order of events in the fiction needs to follow the order in which rules preconditions are satisfied at the table. Which brings me to...</p><p></p><p>3. The idea that the character needs to be “locked in” to the Attack action before making the bonus action shove doesn’t require the in-fiction chronology to follow the logical order of the feat. The fact that shoving a creature without the feat requires the use of the Attack action takes care of that. You can shove, then if you take the Attack action, the shove is your bonus action. If you don’t, then the shove is your Attack action. You’re taking the Attack action either way, so why force the fictional character to be concerned with satisfying the non-fictional precondition of the feat. It’s just unnecessary.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hriston, post: 7771306, member: 6787503"] So many things about this ruling on Shield Master bother me. Allow me to enumerate them. 1. It goes against the RAI for bonus actions. You were supposed to be able to “choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action’s timing is specified,” and Shield Master doesn’t specify a timing for the bonus action shove. All it does is require that you take the Attack action on the same turn. Jeremy Crawford’s earlier tweets on Shield Master confirm that this was the intention for the feat, and it’s only since he began emphasizing the RAW in his rulings that he changed his mind about bonus actions. Rather than issue rulings that go against the RAI, he should issue errata for the way bonus actions are written, although I don’t think either is necessary. For an example of a bonus action that does specify timing, look at Flurry of Blows. It says you can use your bonus action “Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn”. If the intent was for Shield Master and TWF to specify timing, they could have been written like Flurry of Blows, but they weren’t, and Jeremy Crawford isn’t claiming they were. Notice, he acknowledges the feat’s lack of timing specificity in his recent ruling when he says, “During your turn, you do get to decide when to take the bonus action after you’ve taken the Attack action.” But the feat doesn’t say, “after”. It doesn’t specify the shove’s timing, so you should be able to do it at any point during your turn you want. 2. It confuses causality at the table with causality in the fiction. A fictional character has no awareness that s/he is taking the “Attack action” or a “bonus action”. Those aren’t things in the fiction. They’re things at the table with which only the player is concerned. The fictional character, on the other hand, is concerned with attacking and shoving one or more creatures, perhaps landing blows with a weapon and shoving a creature with a shield. In the fiction, the character doesn’t derive the ability to shove a creature with a shield above his/her normal ability to attack from having satisfied the precondition of a “feat”, but rather because s/he is a Shield Master! What’s special about this character (among other things) is that when fighting, s/he’s good at getting extra shoves in. At the table, the player can activate these extra shoves by taking the Attack action and using them in combination with the character’s other fictional actions, but there’s no compelling reason that the chronological order of events in the fiction needs to follow the order in which rules preconditions are satisfied at the table. Which brings me to... 3. The idea that the character needs to be “locked in” to the Attack action before making the bonus action shove doesn’t require the in-fiction chronology to follow the logical order of the feat. The fact that shoving a creature without the feat requires the use of the Attack action takes care of that. You can shove, then if you take the Attack action, the shove is your bonus action. If you don’t, then the shove is your Attack action. You’re taking the Attack action either way, so why force the fictional character to be concerned with satisfying the non-fictional precondition of the feat. It’s just unnecessary. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated
Top