D&D 5E About Bonus action attacks and shove.

[Ovinomancer]

According to Crawford, you can take the bonus action before or after the triggering action, though you must take the action and can't change your mind.

Heh. First thing that popped into my mind is reveal's macro. You know the one. /inside joke

Huh, well, I'd not have arrived at that particular unobvious conclusion myself, as then/if statements aren't something that occurs to me to consider. I rather liked the limitation on shield master that you couldn't manufacture your own advantage every round, but you could use it to control the line and assist your team. Especially given how easy it is to stack athletics for a fighter and how most critters don't have a good chance to stop it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

while i agree that shield master ofc also offers defensive benefits, we must all admit that the main purpose of the feat is the shove part; and that benefit specifically is used mostly for offensive reasons. Making it effectively a mosly offensive feat.
moreover while the dex bonus and "evasion" effect are nice, the +1 AC the dual wielder feat gives, arguably prevents more dmg over a campaign or lifetime of a character since it applies to the great majority of dmg suffering situations.

while the dual wielder feat, that probably was designed as an offensive feat with a little defensive benefit to compensate, becomes effectively a good defensive feat with a shield as an improvised weapon.

so while you are wielding a sword and board you have two feats as options.
dual wielder that gives you +1 AC and a bonus attack with an improvised weapon. with your regular attack(s) you can do whatever you want.
shield master gives you the dex saving throw benefits (IMO inferior to +1AC, but debatable) but lets you shove as a bonus action, freeing your regular attack(s)

so it comes up to +1AC vs dex saving throw benefits or advantage on attacks vs an improvised weapon attack

If we're going with Crawford on being about to swap timing on bonus actions and triggers, shouldn't we also go with him on not being able to use improvised weapons and dual wielder, as improvised weapons aren't actually weapons (according to Crawford)?

EDIT: I disagree with both of these rulings from Crawford, so I don't pay them much attention in my games. You can dual wield a shield if you want, but you have to make an attack action to get your bonus action triggered on taking an attack action.

 

[MYV]

If we're going with Crawford on being about to swap timing on bonus actions and triggers, shouldn't we also go with him on not being able to use improvised weapons and dual wielder, as improvised weapons aren't actually weapons (according to Crawford)?

EDIT: I disagree with both of these rulings from Crawford, so I don't pay them much attention in my games. You can dual wield a shield if you want, but you have to make an attack action to get your bonus action triggered on taking an attack action.

I've never seen the ruling from crawford about improvised weapons not being able to be dual wielded.
can you provide a link or something? because of course it would completely change all the considerations here.

 

[Andor]

For extra fun, consider: With the dual wielding feat, a shield can be used as a non-light off hand weapon to make an attack. And therefore should count as a weapon in the off hand granting an extra +1 to AC.

Admittedly it's a DM call, although if you're going to allow any improvised weapon to count for the shield bonus I think the shield should count as well. In world it amounts to training to use the shield hand more actively, using punch blocking.

You know, 5e may be the best edition for sword and board.

 

[MYV]

For extra fun, consider: With the dual wielding feat, a shield can be used as a non-light off hand weapon to make an attack. And therefore should count as a weapon in the off hand granting an extra +1 to AC.

Admittedly it's a DM call, although if you're going to allow any improvised weapon to count for the shield bonus I think the shield should count as well. In world it amounts to training to use the shield hand more actively, using punch blocking.

You know, 5e may be the best edition for sword and board.

I guess i've not explained myself very well; i'm implying that ofc you can use the shield in the off hand and get both the shield +2AC and the dual wielder +1AC bonus for a total +3AC

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I asked this some weeks ago and the common consent was that because TWF requires an attack with a light melee weapon and shove doesn't use a light melee weapon, you can't use TWF with it.

 

[MYV]

I asked this some weeks ago and the common consent was that because TWF requires an attack with a light melee weapon and shove doesn't use a light melee weapon, you can't use TWF with it.

mmhh so either you need to have the extra attack feature or the dueal wielder feat since it removes the limitation of light weapons

 

[Rya.Reisender]

No, it still doesn't work, because shove doesn't use ANY weapon. It's a melee attack, but not a melee weapon attack.

 

[MYV]

No, it still doesn't work, because shove doesn't use ANY weapon. It's a melee attack, but not a melee weapon attack.

so you need the extra attack feature... not so hard to get for a sword and board character

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Yeah either Extra Attack or Shield Master.

Well, you can always Shove without any feat, just not Attack+Shove in one turn.