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

[Ovinomancer]

"When you come over, bring tacos."

You can't bring the tacos until after you come over, though. You couldn't, for instance, bring the tacos and then come over. That you found an example that requires foresight, preparation, and prior work doesn't negate the face that 'when' reads logically as having to occur prior to the completion of the dependant action.

 

[PnPgamer]

I remember reading about this from a different thread.
That you could use the bonus action granted by feats or TWF to shove instead than to attack, since the shove "manouver" can be taken instead of an attack.

while this is not true: PHB pg 195
"Using the Attack action, you can make a special meleeattack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or
push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple
attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces
one of them."

it still opens up an intresting consideration:
the feat Shield Master first benefit "If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can usea bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet
of you with your shield."

becomes quite redundant considering that what it really does is just extend the possibility to shove to the bonus action.
now, if you have a way to take a bonus action (TWF, polearm master, etc..) you can still shove and take the same number of attacks on your turn.
TWF is an intresting mechanic here, since you can consider a shield an improvised weapon and can attack with it with your offhand, provided you have a way to TWF with non-light weapons as per the feat effectively increasing your AC by 1 and still being able to shove and attack.

So, the conclusion here is:
Shield Master and the DUAL wielder Feats are effectively very similar.
what is odd is that, if you go for the Shield master route, you can shove and make more powerfull attacks with you regular attack action, while with the dual wielder feat, you get higher AC but lose dmg output since you'll have to use one of your attack action attacks to shove.
Shield master for offence and dual wielder for defence?

Considerations?
Am i missing something in the rules and all this is not possible?

Thanks in advance

The very same thing you quoted also says it can be used only when you use the attack action, not the bonus ones, unless it specifically says that it grants you such thing ie. Shield master

 

[Sezarious]

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.

Here are the Links. And if you are going purely RAW, Crawford confirms that shields can be used as improvised weapons, but only states that the +1 to AC you gain from dual wielding was not intended to be used with the shield. If you were going purely RAW, then his comment that it wasn't RAI kind of validates the loophole (that is, if you take Crawfords twitter comments as validation, which I do as a DM). Special thanks to mistwell for asking Crawford about the dual wielding +1AC question.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/11/17/shield-attack/

Crawford:
-Using a shield to make an improvised attack doesn't deprive you of the AC bonus.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/tag/feat/page/2/


15 Apr
Mark Cronan @YetiMoose
@JeremyECrawford A shield as an improvised weapon with the Dual Wielding feat: Does the feat's +1 AC stack with the shield +2 AC that round?

Jeremy Crawford @JeremyECrawford
@YetiMoose Dual Wielder is meant to work (RAI) with a melee weapon or an equivalent, not something like a shield.
5:37 AM - 16 Apr 2015
Retweets 11 favorite

@JeremyECrawford Um, you're the one who previously Tweeted that a shield can be used as an Improvised Weapon! How's that not a melee weapon?
9:43 AM - 16 Apr 2015
Retweets favorites

Mark Cronan @YetiMoose
@JeremyECrawford To clarify, around Feb 15 Q: "Must I doff a shield to use it as an improvised weapon? A: "Nope. It's shield-bash time!"

Jeremy Crawford @JeremyECrawford
@YetiMoose Yes, a shield, like many things, can be used as an improvised weapon. This has no bearing on the design intent of Dual Wielder.

 

[Sezarious]

I think the reason Crawford was careful in his wording was because he didn't want to risk semi-officially watering down improvised weapon combat. If he wanted to, he would have said without doubts, improvised weapons, including the shield do not gain the +1 AC bonus. Instead he said "This has no bearing on the design intent (RAI) of Dual Wielder".

The reason he couldn't just lock the rule down is because if he did, he would have potentially jeopardised scenarios where a PC was dual wielding chair legs in a prison breakout to get just a little bit of an AC bonus, or in a bar fight when not wearing his or her armor.

 

[MYV]

The very same thing you quoted also says it can be used only when you use the attack action, not the bonus ones, unless it specifically says that it grants you such thing ie. Shield master

yes, if you read more carefully my full post, I'm clearly saying that u can shove with one of the attacks of your attack action and then attack with the bonus action.
the differences betwee dual wielder and shield master come from this assumption.

 

[MYV]

I disagree about shove being mostly offensive. If you can manage to shove someone prone, you also receive the excellent defensive benefit of depriving them of any attacks that turn except one opportunity attack at disadvantage: shove prone, attack a few times, then step back 20' and calmly wait. If he scrambles to his feet that costs 15' of movement, so he can't reach you on his turn, meaning the opportunity attack he got while prone is all he got.

Man, now I want to play a Shield Master Valor Bard.

I am missing how are you depriving them from attacks by sending them prone... the just get up with half their movement and attack freely

 

[Sezarious]

No, assuming you each have 30ft movement, basically every time you successfully shove him over and move more than 15ft away from him (20 as Hemlock mentioned), you have moved out of his reach. Remember, you can move before OR after attacking someone, so your enemy gets up at a cost of 15 ft of their movement and then can only move 15ft further.

Hemlock isn't trying to disagree with you, just throw in an additional defensive strategy you did not see. It's the first time I've noticed it myself actually. A great idea!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You can't bring the tacos until after you come over, though.

You mean to say that I can't bring tacos (read: take the bonus action in question), unless I actually plan to follow through with the entire plan which involves coming over (read: commit to, but not necessarily complete, the condition required for taking the bonus action in question).

You couldn't, for instance, bring the tacos and then come over.

If I get the tacos and then come over, I have done exactly that. I could also come over, then leave and return with tacos. That's the exact reason I chose my example; it works just like bonus actions do.

That you found an example that requires foresight, preparation, and prior work doesn't negate the face that 'when' reads logically as having to occur prior to the completion of the dependant action.

The word that actually fits what you are describing, but not also what I am, is "after." When reads logically as being able to occur at the same time, and even being a preparatory step involved in a process.

That's why sentences like "Bring tacos when you come over" or "listen to music when reading the forum" work.

Of course, your confusion is completely understandable given that the English language is extremely imprecise, and a common usage of the word "when" is contextually made into a synonym of "after" by sentences like "call me when you get home."

 

[PnPgamer]

yes, if you read more carefully my full post, I'm clearly saying that u can shove with one of the attacks of your attack action and then attack with the bonus action.
the differences betwee dual wielder and shield master come from this assumption.

Oooh...
Shield master is obviously superior, as it grants more defensive cspabilities, and outshines the dual feat. Not to mention dual wielding requires a sacrifice of fighting style if you want to have your stat bonus applied to damage. I wouldnt touch the dual feat. Besides using shove from action or bonus action doesnt matter as there are no specifical loss of attacks either way.

You are better off with polearm mastery feat which gives more damage output for less.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You mean to say that I can't bring tacos (read: take the bonus action in question), unless I actually plan to follow through with the entire plan which involves coming over (read: commit to, but not necessarily complete, the condition required for taking the bonus action in question).

No, you can't 'bring tacos' until after you've 'come over' on the fact that it's nonsensical to tell someone 'I brought the taco, but I haven't gone over yet'.

If I get the tacos and then come over, I have done exactly that. I could also come over, then leave and return with tacos. That's the exact reason I chose my example; it works just like bonus actions do.

Ah, but you changed something there. You swapped 'bring the tacos' for 'get the tacos'. Those are not synonymous. Getting the tacos is a prerequisite for bringing the over, yes, but it's not the actual action of 'bringing the tacos.' You can't switch those around and still make sense.

The word that actually fits what you are describing, but not also what I am, is "after." When reads logically as being able to occur at the same time, and even being a preparatory step involved in a process.

That's why sentences like "Bring tacos when you come over" or "listen to music when reading the forum" work.

I've already pointed out the issue with 'bring tacos' above, but your second isn't a good example either because it's just a statement about simultaneity. I do X when I do Y. That just says that X occurs somethime during Y. It wouldn't apply if you were doing X prior to doing Y, or after, as it indicates sameness of time. If you changed it to 'When I do X, then Y', Y is conditional on X happening.

That's my point, the words set up a conditional statement, when X then Y, except it's even stronger because it's when X, then and only then Y. Y cannot occur outside of X occurring, and the natural reading of that is that X must occur prior to Y.

Of course, your confusion is completely understandable given that the English language is extremely imprecise, and a common usage of the word "when" is contextually made into a synonym of "after" by sentences like "call me when you get home."

Nope. That's usually a decent go to, because you're correct that English is a hard language when it comes to precision (but if it were extremely imprecise, as you note, then we'd be unable to communicate effective which is not the case). But when X then Y is a logical statement, and there's no confusion as to what that means, it means for Y to occur, X must have already happened. There's little confusion or imprecision about how when is used here.

Again, I feel I should note that the advice given is that it doesn't work the way it reads. My point is that there's no way I would have reached that conclusion, given the natural reading of the words. Continuing to argue with my statement about how I perceive the world with contrived statements attempting to invoke imprecision to show that I would or should have figured out what I said I wouldn't have is somewhat strange to me. I don't get the motivation necessary to argue with someone that clearly stated their thinking as if you can convince them that they are wrong about how they thought. Baffling.