Shield master on twitter

[Tony Vargas]

Sounds like it's a change he made a year ago and realized today that he hadn't changed an old tweet on shield master that was contradictory. And while it's annoying, I'd rather if he realizes he made a mistake that he go ahead and let us know. ....

So he's not tweeting errata, he's errata'ing a tweet?







...I am so out of the loop, these days...

 

[Jester David]

This changes everything! Now DMs will have to decide whether or not to use Sage Advice rulings when running their own games.

This has always been the case.
Sage Advice has always been the designer’s advice and personal rulings.

 

[lkj]

So he's not tweeting errata, he's errata'ing a tweet?







...I am so out of the loop, these days...

Yeah. It's not errata. It's just a rules interpretation that he's changing.

'No Player's Handbooks were harmed in the composing of this tweet'

AD

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

 

[jgsugden]

He made a bad call in 2015. He fixed it in 2017, but we didn not notice. He reminded us in 2018.

The rule now makes sense gives the text... so what is the problem? That he originally made a mistake?

Yes, I know some people have been making use of the so called cheese for several years. It was always annoyin when I saw it. I'm not sad that it will be diminished... but if your table doesn't want it to go away, it should not at your table. Work it out with your DM.

 

[TwoSix]

The particular problem with the ruling is that it doesn't make any sense that you can't shield bash and then attack, or attack with an off-hand and then the main hand.

Personally, I'm leaning towards just house ruling that if you have an ability that costs a bonus action, you can just do it. There's no particular action type required to trigger it. If you have Shield Master, you can just shove as a bonus action. If you're wielding a light weapon in the off hand, you can make a bonus action attack with it.

 

[Hriston]

I prefer the pre-2017 ruling where the timing of a bonus action was kept flexible, which seems to have been the intent of this rule: "You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action’s timing is specified". I don't buy the supposed logic of "when you X, you can Y" being interpreted as a hard specification of the timing of Y as coming after X. To me, when in this context just means "roughly at the same time".

 

[Jester David]

The particular problem with the ruling is that it doesn't make any sense that you can't shield bash and then attack, or attack with an off-hand and then the main hand.

It's a quirk of the phrasing but is hardly the most glaring example of weird logic that arises from the rules.

Personally, I'm leaning towards just house ruling that if you have an ability that costs a bonus action, you can just do it. There's no particular action type required to trigger it. If you have Shield Master, you can just shove as a bonus action. If you're wielding a light weapon in the off hand, you can make a bonus action attack with it.

But, if it's just a bonus action, can't you then attack with the off-hand weapon or shove with a shield and choose an action other than Attack? Such as Dodge. Or Ready?

 

[Patrick McGill]

It makes sense as far as game logic as written. X if Y, Y needs to be before X can be. If you have the Extra attack feature your attack action is two attacks. Honestly if this had ever arisen as a question at my table that's how I would have ruled it.

From a role playing angle though the whole thing makes no sense at all. Why is there a condition on bashing with your shield? It makes even less sense that the condition is attacking. When you attack someone they normally go defensive. Trying to knock someone down with your shield after already swinging at them is like the worst moment to try to do that, at least it seems that way to me. If it has to have a trigger, it would make more sense as a reaction to getting missed with an attack.

 

[cbwjm]

The best thing about his clarification/correction/whatever, is how much some people are freaking out about it. I've been browsing a thread on reddit, looking at some of the tweets, and man are some people are going crazy over the change.