No, it isn’t. The issue is that I expressed a dissenting interpretation, and there are some who, for whatever reason, won’t admit the possibility of multiple valid interpretations.
There's 2 issues now.
1. The initial discussion about your interpretation being invalid. You see if an interpretation is valid I'm perfectly happy with multiple valid interpretation. Please don't mistaken believing a particular interpretation is invalid as a belief that there is only ever a single valid interpretation.
2. The point you made just a few posts back where you argued that due to rules being non-restrictive and you being able to abdicate your particular way meant you were playing by the rules. In short that issue is as I stated "The issue is using the idea of DM abdication as proof that you are doing something by the rules."
I brought up the idea that the rules belong to the DM in my conversation with @
Asgorath not to prove in any way that the rules mean what I say they do, but rather to refute the idea that the purpose of the rules is to limit the scope of player action declarations. It’s the player’s job to describe what their character does, and it’s the DM’s job to resolve the character’s actions, using the rules as appropriate. I think that, given their response (which I plan to address in a separate post), we’re largely in agreement about this, and that the exchange is mostly due to a misconstrual on my part.
"Purpose" is such an odd word. The purpose of rules is to give us structures by which we can play the game. Players definitely can describe whatever they want their character to do and the DM definitely does resolve the characters actions, using the rules as appropriate. That said while the purpose of rules isn't to limit the scope of a players declaration, rules can definitely limit the mechanical resolution of such actions. As my previous example. A level 4 Fighter player may declare he attacks the ogre 4 times with his greatsword. The rules restrict the mechanical resolution of that declaration to a single attack and damage roll on this particular turn (barring the extra attack feature).
Now you as a DM are welcome to ignore that mechanical restriction placed upon the PC by the rules. It's your right to abdicate however you want. It's just that some abjucations follow the rules as they are written and some do not. There's no shame in admitting that, but most importantly in a rules discussion it does need to be admitted when you are doing one and when you are doing the other.
So I don't believe I'm misconstruing your statements. I flat out disagree with your portrayal of non-restrictive rules. I flat out disagree with the logical consequences that these beliefs incur. You see, the consequence of agreeing that rules never restrict actions is to admit that you can abdicate however you want and still be playing by the rules. I vehemently reject any premise that is going to lead down that kind of path.
I also think your purpose of using this abjucation and non-restrictive rules stance was to argue that your position is valid. As noted above, I reject your premises for this argument. So to me. the only way for your position to be valid is if it's a valid interpretation of the rules text. How about we get back to talking about that?
Yes, as I assume you would also. Where I think our disagreement lies is I don't think that whether you take the Attack action on your turn can be checked until either you take the Attack action, you take another action (if you only have one to take), or your turn ends. Once the condition has been met, however, that qualifies you to use your bonus action to shove a creature at any time during the same turn.
So you believe the condition for the bonus action shove hasn't been met until you have taken the attack action on your turn. That's a good start. At least we agree there.
So you also believe you can't check whether you took the attack action on your turn until 1 of 3 things happen
1) you take the attack action
2) you take another action
3) your turn ends
I agree here as well. You even go on to say that ONCE the condition has been met that qualifies you to use the bonus action shove any time during the same turn. I agree there as well. What I don't get is how you are saying "ONCE the condition has been met" and then insist on being able to "time travel" back to a point before you actually met the condition and then claim that because you actually met the condition in the pre time travel timeline that you now have also met the condition in the post time traveled timeline even though you've still not met the condition in this post time travel timeline yet. How does your interpretation not essentially boil down to something like this?
