Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[5ekyu]

So, who's winning?

*muching on popcorn*

Not the Panthers. Sigh.

 

[Maxperson]

Sigh, Advice given and advice rejected. Have fun arguing about the meaning of timing. I won't join you down that pointless rabbit hole.

Beats a pointlessly narrow definition of timing that ignores portions of the game.

 

[Hriston]

No. When you shoved you took a bonus action that was granted by the attack action, which if you get knocked out before you take it, you never took. You do not actually take the attack action until you attempt to make that first attack. I say attempt, because Sanctuary can stop the attack without stopping the Attack Action.

Shoving a creature is an attack, so even if you get knocked out after that, you still took the Attack action.

 

[FrogReaver]

Beats a pointlessly narrow definition of timing that ignores portions of the game.

I'm curious. What portions of the game do you think I'm ignoring?

 

[Maxperson]

Shoving a creature is an attack, so even if you get knocked out after that, you still took the Attack action.

Making an attack does not equal an attack action. You seem to be confused about attacks. You can get attacks from many sources outside of the Attack action. None of those sources count as you taking the Attack action. In fact, let's examine your statement for a moment. If you are allowed to take the shove as your bonus action BEFORE you take the Attack action, and if that shove counts AS the Attack action, then you are not allowed to take the Attack action a second time later unless you Action Surge. That means that taking the shove as a bonus action BEFORE the Attack action, you now can no longer use your weapon to attack. So sure, if you were to come into my game and ask me to let you gimp yourself that badly, I'd probably let you. I'd explain it to you before hand to make sure you understood how badly you were gimping yourself, but if you still wanted to go for it...

What you could do, though, is take the Attack action and use your attack to shove, THEN you can get the bonus action from Shield Master and shove a second time.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm curious. What portions of the game do you think I'm ignoring?

The portions of the game that involve timing that is broader than your excessively narrow scope. Timing doesn't have to be as exacting as you claim in order for it to be timing. It can be, but it isn't required. By focusing on that excessively narrow definition, you are ignoring those other portions of the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

The portions of the game that involve timing that is broader than your excessively narrow scope...

Obviously, but not so obviously is what portions those would be?

 

[Asgorath]

My final thoughts on the matter:

I do think it's interesting that they've changed the wording about official rulings in the Sage Advice Compendium.

Old:

Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. One exception: the game’s lead rules developer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter), can make official rulings and does so in this document and on Twitter.

A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play.

New:

Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium by the game’s lead rules designer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter). The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. Jeremy Crawford’s tweets are often a preview of rulings that will appear here.

A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.

Based on the most recent Sage Advice video, it sounds like they're trying to avoid another situation where JEC replies to a tweet and makes an incorrect ruling that stands for many years (i.e. he only replies to rules questions when he has the books in front of him). Having said that, I still think there's a ton of value in his tweets as they give the exact same amount of insight into RAI as before. It's obviously a shame that he dug a large hole for himself with the original incorrect Shield Master tweet, but I really think it's hard to deny what the intent of the rule is at this point, or the timing of bonus actions in general. Even if his tweets no longer count as official rulings, I'm still going to be following his Twitter feed and checking sageadvice.eu when questions do come up at our table, because for me it's still valuable to know what the lead rules designer meant by a particular rule. If "following your bliss" means ignoring what JEC says he meant by a particular rule or sentence in the PHB so that you can do more damage in combat, then so be it.

Perhaps the main thing I like about the 5E rules is the fact they are generally simple and streamlined, with the goal of keeping the game flowing. I don't think there's ever been a case where a simple Occam's razor test hasn't worked for our tables. Any time I come across some language I'm not entirely sure about the meaning of and start thinking in depth about words like "take" and whether it means past, present or future, I generally find that I've gone off into the weeds and am missing the bigger picture. Quite frankly, I found that I started enjoying the game a lot more once I stopped treating it like a mathematical optimization problem and more as a shared storytelling experience.

 

[epithet]

Making an attack does not equal an attack action. You seem to be confused about attacks. ...

You know he's not confused, you're just being snide. His point, which is valid in my opinion, is that being a DM ideally involves taking what a player wants his character to do and resolving it using the rules, not setting out arbitrary limitations and conjuring extra timing constraints. If a shield master character shoves first, then takes all the attacks granted by an attack action, then both the attack action and the bonus action from Shield Master were used. If one or more of those attacks is frustrated before it is taken, then it was just the attack action. Hriston's point, if I may speak for him, seems to be that as a human being running a tabletop RPG (and not as a computer,) we are perfectly capable of looking at the character's entire turn instead of constraining ourselves to consider each action, attack, flourish, or 5 feet of movement individually, in isolation, with rigid attention to what must come first.

So sure, if you were to come into my game and ask me to let you gimp yourself that badly, I'd probably let you.

I think one of the clearest indications that this new and revised Shield Master comment from Jeremy Crawford is bad advice is that across the dozens of pages of this thread, it seems that most of the people who defend his new interpretation of the rule do so only in theory, while 'confessing' that they would not adhere to it in their own game. Whether 'allowing' the shove to come between attacks, or whenever the character wants, or declaring by house rule that the attack action itself is unnecessary, there don't seem to be a lot of commenters who are eager to use Jeremy's new Shield Master advice in their own game. And why would they? At no point during the years when Jeremy's advice (whether because he was drunk in line at the grocer's or not) was to "take your bonus shove whenever you want it" did the Shield Master feat dominate the game. I think most of us need a much better reason to tell a player he can't string his attacks together the way he wants to on his turn than "Well, see, Jeremy changed his mind, so... sorry."

Ultimately, the rules are best when they are at their most flexible. There is no way for a set of rules to contemplate every situation in every game, and the magic of tabletop RPGs is that they don't have to. The DM can apply the rules to resolve the acts and efforts of the player characters without having to look at the Actions in Combat section like an instruction manual from Ikea. If, at the end of a shield master's turn, the Attack Action has been taken and a bonus action shove was taken, the conditional described in the feat has been satisfied regardless of the sequence of attacks. The ability to reconcile complex behavior during a combat turn into movement, action, bonus action, and flourish is part of what makes a live D&D game better than playing Baldur's Gate on your PC.

 

[5ekyu]

You know he's not confused, you're just being snide. His point, which is valid in my opinion, is that being a DM ideally involves taking what a player wants his character to do and resolving it using the rules, not setting out arbitrary limitations and conjuring extra timing constraints. If a shield master character shoves first, then takes all the attacks granted by an attack action, then both the attack action and the bonus action from Shield Master were used. If one or more of those attacks is frustrated before it is taken, then it was just the attack action. Hriston's point, if I may speak for him, seems to be that as a human being running a tabletop RPG (and not as a computer,) we are perfectly capable of looking at the character's entire turn instead of constraining ourselves to consider each action, attack, flourish, or 5 feet of movement individually, in isolation, with rigid attention to what must come first.


I think one of the clearest indications that this new and revised Shield Master comment from Jeremy Crawford is bad advice is that across the dozens of pages of this thread, it seems that most of the people who defend his new interpretation of the rule do so only in theory, while 'confessing' that they would not adhere to it in their own game. Whether 'allowing' the shove to come between attacks, or whenever the character wants, or declaring by house rule that the attack action itself is unnecessary, there don't seem to be a lot of commenters who are eager to use Jeremy's new Shield Master advice in their own game. And why would they? At no point during the years when Jeremy's advice (whether because he was drunk in line at the grocer's or not) was to "take your bonus shove whenever you want it" did the Shield Master feat dominate the game. I think most of us need a much better reason to tell a player he can't string his attacks together the way he wants to on his turn than "Well, see, Jeremy changed his mind, so... sorry."

Ultimately, the rules are best when they are at their most flexible. There is no way for a set of rules to contemplate every situation in every game, and the magic of tabletop RPGs is that they don't have to. The DM can apply the rules to resolve the acts and efforts of the player characters without having to look at the Actions in Combat section like an instruction manual from Ikea. If, at the end of a shield master's turn, the Attack Action has been taken and a bonus action shove was taken, the conditional described in the feat has been satisfied regardless of the sequence of attacks. The ability to reconcile complex behavior during a combat turn into movement, action, bonus action, and flourish is part of what makes a live D&D game better than playing Baldur's Gate on your PC.

Point of oddity (non-space variety)

At no point did shield master dominate my game under the previous pre-action shield master tweet cuz I ignored that one too. Its always been make st least one attack (of your attack action) then you can bash (or other attack action based feature) at my table.

I guess we have been radicals the whole time. Doing our own thing and ignoring the man, flaunting our independence.

"And if the man rules again, we will flaunt him a third time!" <<<--- typed in a faux french fry accent.

So, perhaps lumping all of us into that pool of validation inferred is not necessarily convincing.

As for the see the results then decide what the action type was, since that creates the possibility of bonus act bash, retro to attsck sction bash, then add-in bonus action something else - not a route I would be anxious to try.

I pre-action shield master shove fred who stays up
Now due to whatever the approved change action type triggers are, that becomes an attack action shove and now
I second wind myself as a bonus action.