Shield master on twitter

[Oofta]

Well, at any rate as a player you have a nice simple solution then... just ask your DM that in light of JC's ruling, can you swap out Shield Master for Charger?

And ... again ... the issue for me personally is that it's an AL character. Since he's higher than 4th level he's "locked in".

If I can change my character I have plenty of options. If I wasn't a paladin, charger might be an option, but mounted combat ranks much higher.

 

[smbakeresq]

Well, at any rate as a player you have a nice simple solution then... just ask your DM that in light of JC's ruling, can you swap out Shield Master for Charger?

To me if you DM says I am going by that rule I would just ask for a rebuild using PAM or GWF.

Shield Master also encourage party tactics and cooperation, which the game needs more of not less. Once your monk starts rolling 4 attacks with advantage against a target Mr. Shield Master Paladin(my current PC in Age of Worms campaign) just proned she will stick to you like glue. The Bard and the Wizard just see it coming so they try to divide the enemy until the tag team finishes with walls and fogs and such. Its just fun to work together.

 

[guachi]

I gave up. If someone wants to view a thing as useless, we could spend a year giving them a actual play examples, and it won’t change their mind.

That's not an actual play example. It's a theorycraft example. It's only an actual play example if you had people who used it in their games.

We have multiple people in this very thread who have played Shield Master PCs for extended lengths of time who say that the other features aren't that useful to them and if they had wanted to play that way (knock back and run) they'd have just played a different PC.

How is taking Shield Master to knock one foe back, maybe, and then moving away a better means of accomplishing this then just being a Rogue or Monk in the first place?

 

[Ganders]

Now a bard with Battle Magic must make his weapon attack *after* he casts his spell. Which means sheathing a sword in order to free a hand for spellcasting is a problem. I presume that it's ok to draw a weapon after the spell but before the bonus action, but can imagine other rulings. Anyway, that's all probably intentional.

But much more interesting is a battlemaster's Commander's Strike, since it's the only other thing that triggers on 'take the attack action' like Shield Master does. Apparently the option to use Commander's Strike doesn't exist until after you attack (bonus actions don't always exist, you aren't entitled to one unless something triggers it). But once you've attacked, it may be too late to forgo one of your attacks. Bit of Catch-22 there. Maybe it needs to be reworded to "and forgo one of your attacks, you can" rather than "you can forgo one of your attacks and".

 

[jaelis]

But much more interesting is a battlemaster's Commander's Strike, since it's the only other thing that triggers on 'take the attack action' like Shield Master does. Apparently the option to use Commander's Strike doesn't exist until after you attack (bonus actions don't always exist, you aren't entitled to one unless something triggers it). But once you've attacked, it may be too late to forgo one of your attacks. Bit of Catch-22 there. Maybe it needs to be reworded to "and forgo one of your attacks, you can" rather than "you can forgo one of your attacks and".

Interesting point. The wording is:

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks and use a bonus action to direct one of your companions to strike. When you do so, choose a friendly creature who can see or hear you and expend one superiority die. That creature can immediately use its reaction to make one weapon attack, adding the superiority die to the attack's damage roll.

My reading would be: you forgo an attack, and gain the option to take the bonus action after your attack action is complete. I don't think forgoing your attack is somehow part of the bonus action.

 

[Satyrn]

Do you have fun ruining the rest of the parties chance of success by trying to make less than useful party members? Forcing the other players to play around your PC?

I can see why gnome battlemaster is listed as "fallen."

When I first built him, I pictured him as a Han Solo type - a selfish, roguish smuggler who could pull his weight in a fight. While he was alive, he was easily pulling his own weight despite me making some suboptimal character building choices because

1) my fellow players don't heavily, carefully optimize their characters.
2) It's really hard to make an ineffective 5e character
3) you're wrong about the effect of my choices on the rest of my fellow players

The only reason he died was because after picking up a pair of blasters (wand-guns, really), I pulled a Han Solo and charged headlong into a room full of stormtroopers.

Fun times.

 

[guachi]

Would you agree, though, that the feat is also worth more than several other feats?

(To be clear, I think that every feat should be comparable to an ASI. But IMO many are not, and I can't get too excited about adding one more to that list.)

There are few martial combat feats that are worse than Shield Master. It probably reduces the user's damage as otherwise he could increase his main stat. And single weapon users are already at the bottom of the heap. Its damage reduction probably isn't as useful as just being a dex fighter/ranger/whatever and increasing dexterity.

I think the only feat I'd take Shield Master over is probably Savage Attacker. With a d8 weapon it increases average damage of one attack by 1.3125. Shield Master is probably more useful than that. But that's about it.

If I wanted to be a defensive fighter I might take something like Mountain Dwarf Fighter, point buy a 17 Strength, point by an odd Dexterity or Wisdom, take Heavy Armor Master at level 4 and get an 18 Strength, and then at level 6 take Resilient Wisdom/Dexterity.

Or I'd take X/Rogue and take the Sentinel feat and use a shield.

Though I suppose you could be a Hunter Ranger and use the Shield push after your Attack action to maneuver a foe so you could use the free extra attack. I wonder how the timing on that would work. And if a foe was already within 5 feet I suppose you could knock it prone and then get your extra attack.

 

[Mistwell]

It was a question as to how far and from that possibly how consistent your feeling on the broader applicability (not just one game but bigger) went when so much of the comments offered we cloaked in as *in my own game* wrappers when convenient and portrayed as broder when not.

It was not about dwarves and your take on what dwarves do this and that, even tho dwarves were a part of it.

A clue to that might have been, to some, my not mentioning dwarf.

But i will give you a like... The technique of trying to spin someones question into a statement by yourself conjuring it as rhethorical is nicely done!!!

Kudos for that one.

Of course you mentioned dwarf. It's in the thing you quoted (which was not *my* take by the way - you were responding to someone else), and the response with the mention of 25', and the entire issue of escaping with the feat.

I think you might have lost your own thread here mate. Did you not realize the argument you were responding to, or are you just trying to distract from talking about the issue (for the third time in a row now I think)?

If it's the later, you might as well talk about it. It's not like this is going away. You made an argument about the "escape" feature of the feat, you've been challenged on it by multiple people now, and changing the topic isn't advancing your position at this point. Unless you're just granting the escape feature isn't as good as you were making it out to be.

 

[5ekyu]

Of course you mentioned dwarf. It's in the thing you quoted (which was not *my* take by the way - you were responding to someone else), and the response with the mention of 25', and the entire issue of escaping with the feat.

I think you might have lost your own thread here mate. Did you not realize the argument you were responding to, or are you just trying to distract from talking about the issue (for the third time in a row now I think)?

If it's the later, you might as well talk about it. It's not like this is going away. You made an argument about the "escape" feature of the feat, you've been challenged on it by multiple people now, and changing the topic isn't advancing your position at this point. Unless you're just granting the escape feature isn't as good as you were making it out to be.

Hilarious.

Again, i did not advocate for the 25'dwarf back off thing. So, maybe if you want someone ro defend however "good" you perceive they were making it out to be, you should speak to them.

I did at one point directly bring up the shove down, back off (allowing the disadvantaged OA) noting there the half move up prevents them closing to strike again (normal movenent assumptions) and that still works with 25'dwarf move so... Again not really dwarf centered.

So, if you need ro conjure staunch advocates of the shove back maneuver power to spar with after conjuring how many dwarves can dance on the head of the pin into that mix, you need to look elsewhere.

 

[Oofta]

I did at one point directly bring up the shove down, back off (allowing the disadvantaged OA) noting there the half move up prevents them closing to strike again (normal movenent assumptions) and that still works with 25'dwarf move so... Again not really dwarf centered.

Yet you could never explain why the tactic would ever work, dwarf or no.

In most games, this would just be a pointless tactic that means that the opponent would simply attack someone else, frequently someone with fewer HP and lower AC.

Just as a refresher, here's my logic

In order for the shove and run tactic to work pretty much all of the following conditions have be met:
A) The rest of your party is ranged, and is more than the enemy's movement speed away after the shove.
B) The PC must move as fast or faster than the enemy. So too bad dwarves, hope you aren't fighting a monster that has better than your base move.
C) This can be the only enemy threatening you. No other enemies adjacent when you flee.
D) The enemy either came to you or it's not the first round so you still have your full movement.
E) There's someplace to shove the enemy so they are farther away.
F) You are in the open with no obstruction to movement and everyone can use their movement every round to get away without provoking themselves.
G) The monster can't have ranged attacks

Admittedly you're saying knock prone and provoke an opportunity attack is a good idea (I disagree) instead of shoving so B may not apply, but the rest of the options still do.

Maybe you play a game of "tag your it" where the enemy is forced to go after the person that attacked last, but I'm assuming most people don't.