Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[Arial Black]

Here's the thing. Harvard wouldn't make a mistake like that and say, "IF you take the Law course at Harvard, you may take a room in the Law dormitory." What Harvard(other colleges) would say is, "IF you enrolled in a Law course at Harvard, you may take a room in the Law dormitory." Enrollment is the trigger, not taking. You are not by any stretch of the imagination "taking" the class until it begins. And you certainly didn't take the class before it ended. Prior to the class beginning you were "going to take it," during the class you were, "taking it," and after the class you have "taken it" or "did you take it? Yes."

No.

I should expand that a bit: sure, 'going to take' indicates a future intention, 'taking a course' indicates the present tense of you are currently within the time period of the start and end of the course, and 'taken the course' indicates that the course has finished.

My 'no' is simply that none of those are the words used by the feat! I'm sure we wish the feat was so clearly written!

The feat uses the word 'take'. "If you take".

To be the past tense, the phrase would be, "If you have taken".

"It rains" = "it is raining", not "it will rain".

"You take" = "you are taking", not "you will have taken".

"If you take", is conditional on a future action. It =/= "if you have taken".

 

[Arial Black]

My ruling is not that you CAN divide them. Nor is my reading of RAW. My reading of RAW is that they contain specific exceptions that divide them. The Attack action also has a specific exception that divides it. Movement. RAW provides the exceptions and nothing else by RAW can divide them. I disagree with RAW, so my ruling will allow divisions that are reasonable.

I'm pretty sure that we are both talking about the 5e PHB, so please can you cite where it gives you permission to move during the Dash, Dodge, and/or the Disengage actions?

Y'know, the same way as we can cite the rule which says you can take your bonus action whenever you want on your turn.

 

[Arial Black]

The second option would be phrased here as "While you take the Law course, you may take a room."

So, "While you take the Attack action, you may shield shove as a bonus action"? Allowing the shove between attacks.

Also, you don't have to wait until after your first Law lecture has finished to move into the dorm! You are expected to move in before the first lecture of that course even begins.

 

[Maxperson]

If the bonus action had to happen after the trigger, then there would be no point in waiting until the end the end of the turn to check because you would already know before then.

This is wrong. At the end of the turn you check, if you didn't attack, you don't get a bonus action and the turn is over. At any time prior to the turn being over, up to and including the end of the turn, you can take your action and prolong the turn. If you do, and it's an Attack action, you will trigger the bonus action from Shield Master.

 

[Maxperson]

No, you don't. If I understand your position correctly, you believe it qualifies you to use your bonus action only in the part of your turn that comes after the condition has been met. I take the rule on bonus actions seriously when it says, "You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action’s timing is specified," and I don't accept the argument that the Shield Master shove's timing is specified..

Every last bonus action caused by a trigger has timing built in. That timing is the trigger. That's how language commonly works, so that's how it works in 5e. Only bonus actions that have no trigger can be used at any time.

 

[Arial Black]

So when the lead rules designer says that "if X, then Y" has special meaning within the rules of the game, and that Shield Master is an example of such a trigger, he's just wrong? Or is it because the PHB wording of Shield Master doesn't specifically contain the word "then" that he's wrong? Or that when he's been telling everyone on many different platforms that the intent of the feat is the shove happens after the Attack action, and that the feat's bonus action is intended to be a finishing move, he's just wrong? Do you just flat-out ignore the entire Sage Advice compendium, or just the question about Shield Master?

With the best will in the world, it must be admitted that JC has, at different times, held opposing views on this. Therefore, he is demonstrably wrong at least once!

Which is why we get our understanding of the rules from...the rules. From RAW.

The RAW wording allows the multiple attacks of the Attack action and the shield shove from the bonus action because of the rules that are written:-

* the rules say you can do each of these things on your turn

* a written rules says you can take your bonus action whenever you want on your turn

* no rule says you cannot

* the Shield Master feat's only specified timing is that both things must happen on your turn

We have written rules that say we can, and no written rules which say we can't.

 

[epithet]

Every last bonus action caused by a trigger has timing built in. That timing is the trigger. That's how language commonly works, so that's how it works in 5e. Only bonus actions that have no trigger can be used at any time.

Sure. In the case of the Shield Master feat, the timing is "on your turn."

 

[Asgorath]

With the best will in the world, it must be admitted that JC has, at different times, held opposing views on this. Therefore, he is demonstrably wrong at least once!

Which is why we get our understanding of the rules from...the rules. From RAW.

The RAW wording allows the multiple attacks of the Attack action and the shield shove from the bonus action because of the rules that are written:-

* the rules say you can do each of these things on your turn

* a written rules says you can take your bonus action whenever you want on your turn

* no rule says you cannot

* the Shield Master feat's only specified timing is that both things must happen on your turn

We have written rules that say we can, and no written rules which say we can't.

I'll repeat my question for the 4th time: Do you just flat-out ignore the entire Sage Advice compendium, or just the question about Shield Master?

 

[Maxperson]

And again, there is no requirement in the wording of SM that you must take the Attack action and only then get the bonus action shield shove.

Yes there is. Since there is no ability to declare an action to come, there is no possible interpretation of take that involves going before the action is being taken. You can squint sideways and interpret it to happen after the first attack. I'll grant you that much, but until that first attack happens, you are not "taking," have not "taken" and are not in any part of "take."

The only written timing requirement is that the Attack action and bonus action shield shove take place on your turn.

This just isn't true. A trigger cannot happen before it actually, you know, happens.

My 'no' is simply that none of those are the words used by the feat! I'm sure we wish the feat was so clearly written!

The feat uses the word 'take'. "If you take".

To be the past tense, the phrase would be, "If you have taken".

"It rains" = "it is raining", not "it will rain".

"You take" = "you are taking", not "you will have taken".

"If you take", is conditional on a future action. It =/= "if you have taken".

The bolded is simply false and I can prove it. If I take a quarter off of a shelf, the action is not being performed at all before I grab the quarter, and is over and done as soon as I pick it up. At no point is there a present tense situation where take = taking. When I grab it, I didn't yet take it as it's still on the shelf. As soon as it lifts off of the counter, I did take it and the action is immediately past tense.

Now, if there is a stack of quarters and I want to take the stack of quarters and I pick one up, at no time did I take the stack. I am taking the stack, so there is a present tense to be had, but "take" is not it.

 

[epithet]

So when the lead rules designer says that "if X, then Y" has special meaning within the rules of the game, and that Shield Master is an example of such a trigger, he's just wrong? Or is it because the PHB wording of Shield Master doesn't specifically contain the word "then" that he's wrong? Or that when he's been telling everyone on many different platforms that the intent of the feat is the shove happens after the Attack action, and that the feat's bonus action is intended to be a finishing move, he's just wrong? Do you just flat-out ignore the entire Sage Advice compendium, or just the question about Shield Master?

That last question is a great one. I don't ignore the Sage Advice compendium, nor do I disregard the tweets from Crawford, Mearls, & Co. (despite my general opinion that if something is worth saying, it is worth saying somewhere other than "social media." Get off my lawn.) I find Sage Advice to be interesting and informative, and I often find it persuasive. What I don't ever do is consider it authoritative, much less binding. Sage Advice is a suggestion, an offering of advice, meant to help a dungeon master like me to make rulings for my game. It is absolutely not designed to replace my rulings with an official interpretation of a rule--Jeremy isn't mastering my dungeons for me.

Regardless of where you stand on the matter of shove timing, the Shield Master issue has highlighted the fact that Jeremy Crawford is not infallible. It is up to each of us to decide how much weight, if any, to give to his advice (whether from tweets or "official rulings") and then make up our own minds about what the rules require or permit in our games.