Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[Arial Black]

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?

Epithet posted the reply that I would have, so I'll ask you:- do you flat-out obey Sage Advice?

Because if you do then you have both obeyed his advice that you can shield bash before your first attack AND obeyed the advice that you cannot! But only one of these opposing interpretations is actually true, so we know that Sage Advice can be false. Slavishly, uncritically obeying is not the way forward.

On the other hand, if you do critically scrutinise the advice, how can you criticise me for doing the same?

 

[Maxperson]

Applying game mechanics to the player's states character actions is not even remotely the same as "playing the character." It's the same as the player saying "I look for a way to open the gate," and you replying "Make an investigation check."

You aren't just applying mechanics. You are deciding for him what his PC is doing. You are making the decision to use his one bonus action for the turn or not, and that's wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

When the player begins the turn with "I close to melee with the hobgoblin and try to shove him to the ground with my shield, then attack him when he's down," it is up to you to determine whether the shove is part of the Attack Action or, since the Attack Action has been taken at that point, whether it was the Shield Master bonus action and the PC has his extra attack left to strike the hobgoblin a second time. "If" has a value of "true," and "when" is "on your turn."

No it isn't up to me. I don't have the right to force him to use his one bonus action for the turn. That's his decision to make.

 

[Arial Black]

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.

Not proven, and here's why:-

You can reach out your hand, touch the coin, pick it up, move the coin in your hand to your pocket, then walk away hoping to sell it later.

If I catch you sometime between lifting the coin and putting it in your pocket, I have caught you during the act of taking it.

There is a present tense of 'taking the coin' here.

 

[Maxperson]

Not proven, and here's why:-

You can reach out your hand, touch the coin, pick it up, move the coin in your hand to your pocket, then walk away hoping to sell it later.

The bolded does not involve taking at all. At the point I picked it up, it was taken.

If I catch you sometime between lifting the coin and putting it in your pocket, I have caught you during the act of taking it.

No you haven't. You caught me after I took it and before I sold it. You don't have to get away with the theft to have taken something. I took it and you took it back.

 

[Arial Black]

The question was, "please can you cite where it gives you permission to move during the Dash, Dodge, and/or the Disengage actions".

I'll only post one, since that's all I need.

"When you take the Dash action, you gain extra movement for the current turn. The increase equals your speed, after applying any modifiers. With a speed of 30 feet, for example, you can move up to 60 feet on your turn if you dash."

You've failed to provide a rule that gives you permission to move during that action. The rule says you can move more. It does not give you permission to divide that action up or to divide that move up.

Since there is no rule that makes actions instantaneous, we have to look at the wording to see how long the action lasts. Dash says that the action gives you extra movement during the turn, so by far the most reasonable explanation is that the Dash action lasts until you decide that you are done moving. That's the common understanding of what action means. While you are acting, you are in action.

I agree!

So where is the permission that lets you divide this action?

Remember, the assertion is that the ONLY reason that you CAN move DURING the Attack action is because Moving Between Attacks gives you permission, and without that written permission you could NOT move between attacks! Neither that section nor Dash itself gives permission to move during the Dash action, so where is this permission?

 

[Arial Black]

The bolded does not involve taking at all.

Agreed, and I never said it was.

I caught you after you picked it up and before you put it in your pocket. You are still taking it.

At the point I picked it up, it was taken.

You are still taking it. I've caught you during, not after.

No you haven't. You caught me after I took it and before I sold it. You don't have to get away with the theft to have taken something. I took it and you took it back.

Show how it would be possible for a person could take a coin in zero time. Then, and only then, could it not be interrupted.

 

[jgsugden]

We're, what, 17 more posts from a final resolution? This is so exciting to see an argument like this that will finally get enough posts to get that magical resolution.

 

[Maxperson]

Agreed, and I never said it was.

I caught you after you picked it up and before you put it in your pocket. You are still taking it.

You didn't. You caught me after I took it. All it takes to take something is to pick it up.

You are still taking it. I've caught you during, not after.

There is no "during." Before I pick it up, I am not even in the process of taking yet. I've only touched it. After I pick it up, it has been taken.

Show how it would be possible for a person could take a coin in zero time. Then, and only then, could it not be interrupted.

It's not a matter of zero time. It's a matter of before it's picked up it hasn't been taken. After it was picked up it has been taken. There is no middle step at all to allowing "taking."

 

[Asgorath]

Epithet posted the reply that I would have, so I'll ask you:- do you flat-out obey Sage Advice?

Because if you do then you have both obeyed his advice that you can shield bash before your first attack AND obeyed the advice that you cannot! But only one of these opposing interpretations is actually true, so we know that Sage Advice can be false. Slavishly, uncritically obeying is not the way forward.

On the other hand, if you do critically scrutinise the advice, how can you criticise me for doing the same?

I'm not talking about Twitter, I'm talking about the Sage Advice Compendium:

https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf

Up until the most recent version, the Compendium has never said anything about Shield Master. The most recent version added a new section on the Shield Master feat, to specifically clearly up the confusion about the timing of the bonus action it grants. According to the Compendium, Jeremy's tweets no longer count as official rulings, though they may be a preview for future official rulings in the Compendium.

As I've explained, once I saw the 2015 tweet I played the feat as allowing the bonus action at any time (i.e. before the Attack action). In 2018, when he corrected that ruling, I stopped doing that, because his explanation made more sense than his 2015 tweet. Once it was added to the Sage Advice Compendium as an official ruling of how it's supposed to be played, there's no more room for questioning how the words are supposed to be interpreted -- the Compendium contains an official ruling that the bonus action shove must come after the Attack action. At that point, I can decide I don't like the rule and change it for my table, but continuing to argue what the rule actually means seems kind of silly at this point. After all, isn't that the whole point of an official ruling about a particular rules question?

So, yes, I do take the tweets with a grain of salt, but I'm not talking about tweets here. I'm specifically asking about the Sage Advice Compendium (you know, the thing that started this thread). There might be cases where I decide to play a particular rule differently at my table, but that's a conscious choice on my part and not me trying to extract a different meaning from the words in a given rule while ignoring what the Compendium says on the matter. Tweaking the rules for my table is part of the job of being a DM, but that's very different to taking the position that because the Shield Master feat doesn't contain the word "then" after the comma that there is no trigger and thus you can take the bonus action whenever you like, despite the Sage Advice Compendium very clearly saying that this is not what the feat allows.