Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[5ekyu]

Honestly, you're not wrong for my game or for me as a DM. I have no hesitation to take a rule from a different edition or a different game and adapt it to my 5e campaign, or to house rule something to work better for my group. There are other DMs for whom it seems to be a big deal, though, and I think the distinction needs to be preserved. Some DMs, especially new ones who haven't played other editions or other TTRPGs, really seem to feel as though they should cleave to the rules and not go off the reservation, and others (perhaps those involved in the Adventurer's League) are constrained by the terms of their particular game groups.

Another problem I see, and the thing that has kept me active in this "flogging a dead griffin" thread, is the emergence of an attitude that Jeremy's Sage Advice represents the "right way" to interpret the rules and play the game. There is no one right way that works for everyone, and I really think Jeremy's use of the "official" designation will cause more harm than good, creating the sort of confusion we're seeing in the post to which I was responding in the text you quoted.

Edit: Also, it is important to note that the SAC is not at all like "every rule in the PHB," because it doesn't contain any rules at all. It's all rulings, which we've clearly seen are subject to Jeremy changing his mind about.

Re the last bit...

A key thing for me is the not in a vacuum pov.

Sure, rulings by tweet by JEC have changed. So have actual rules by eratta. I sm not sure an SAC element tho has bern changed, but maybe so.

But the key is this... The tweet storms have on a few edge cases swapped around a bit - SM most notably.

But the SAC has not seen that much (if any) flippy floppy stuff. Thats seems to be cuz by the timrle it hits SAC its gone thru more review.

With the January 2019 SAC they changed it from JEC tweets official to only once it makes SAC is it official. Also, most all of the SM garbage was thrown out, no indivisible action, just timing. And the Hew official on official threw all those old tweets under a wagon.

They even have a section describing why have Sage Advice that kinda touches on your pointbof what benefit they think it will serve even in a rulings by gm world.

But, to me, your fervor is a bit far out in your insistance that SAC is so much to be just treated as advice and the thread line you keep skirting around for ruling vs rule etc.

For such narrow distinctions/divisions on status, it seems much stronger an invaldation than that narrow a division warrants.

I find it quite easy to see the SAC as the "finished" official rulings and the tweets by JEC as the wip previews, as they describe it more or less.

 

[Arial Black]

We tend to treat the rulebook as if it were holy writ, handed down from on high. The RAW is what it is, even if the guy who actually wrote those words wishes it were different.

We occasionally doubt what JC has to say via Sage Advice or (especially) Tweet, not merely because we disagree with it and want to ignore what he says if we disagree and leap upon what he says if it backs us up (although this does happen).

We can disagree with his Tweet/SA because when he reveals his reasons for his advice, we can see for himself that he is occasionally factually wrong about a thing!

Not always wrong, but often enough that we learn to analyse his advice to see if it makes sense, rather than just follow it blindly, as we do when discussing RAW.

As an example, the rulebook clearly sets out the difference between 'the damage dice of an attack' and 'the damage dice of the weapon'.

Savage Attacker uses 'the damage dice of the weapon', while critical hits use 'the damage dice of the attack'.

So, it is a simple matter to analyse the Great Weapon fighting style, to see if the re-roll of 1s and 2s applies only the the damage dice of the weapon, or to ALL the damage dice of the attack: simply read GWF and see which it says!

BTW, it says, "when you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack...." So, job done, the re-rolls apply to Smite, Sneak Attack...every damage die for that attack.

JC then Tweets that it only applies to the weapon damage dice.

That seems....strange, JC! Why do you say this, when it contradicts the RAW?

JC says it's because it's too complicated to re-roll lots of dice, and that's the reason.

Is it? Is it though? Is it really enough to make a ruling that is the exact opposite of RAW?

The 'complexity' of the damage roll, without GWF, is that you roll the dice that the attack has, whether that's a single weapon damage die, or 2d6 (greatsword) + 4d8 radiant (Smite) + 2d6 fire (Flame Tongue).

The way GWF works is to add a single step: re-roll any die that came up 1 or 2. This one single added step remains one single added step whether the damage dice for the attack is a single die or 10 dice! It is simply not the case that more damage dice re-rolled makes the process more 'complicated'; certainly not enough to impact RAW.

So we can analyse the reasoning JC himself gives for whatever Tweet, and decide for ourselves how credible it is.

To the present topic, JC tweets, "If the existence of X is the condition for the existence of Y, X comes before Y."

X comes before Y? Are you sure, JC?

Because Wikipedia says, "statements of causality require the antecedent to precede or coincide with the consequent in time".

JC is wrong. He made his judgement based on an error, erroneously believing that the antecedent ('taking that Attack action') must precede the consequent (taking the bonus action it 'caused'). He ignore the fact that the two are allowed to coincide.

JC is even more wrong. He assumes, wrongly, that conditional statements ARE statements of causality. What does Wikipedia say? "Conditional statements are NOT statements of causality", and, "conditional statements do NOT require this temporal order". The conditional, RAW, was never 'after you finish taking the Attack action', or even 'after you start taking the Attack action'. The condition is, "If you take the Attack action on your turn". There is no required temporal order. The only requirement is to meet the condition, and this condition is satisfied by taking the Attack action on the same turn as you take the bonus action shield shove.

Since JC is simply wrong about causality. His rulings on it are fruits of a poisoned tree. That's why it has so little credibility! Not because it agrees or disagrees with our own opinion, but because we can see where he's wrong, and that the mistake caused the erroneous ruling.

 

[Asgorath]

...

JC is wrong. He made his judgement based on an error, erroneously believing that the antecedent ('taking that Attack action') must precede the consequent (taking the bonus action it 'caused'). He ignore the fact that the two are allowed to coincide.

JC is even more wrong. He assumes, wrongly, that conditional statements ARE statements of causality. What does Wikipedia say? "Conditional statements are NOT statements of causality", and, "conditional statements do NOT require this temporal order". The conditional, RAW, was never 'after you finish taking the Attack action', or even 'after you start taking the Attack action'. The condition is, "If you take the Attack action on your turn". There is no required temporal order. The only requirement is to meet the condition, and this condition is satisfied by taking the Attack action on the same turn as you take the bonus action shield shove.

Since JC is simply wrong about causality. His rulings on it are fruits of a poisoned tree. That's why it has so little credibility! Not because it agrees or disagrees with our own opinion, but because we can see where he's wrong, and that the mistake caused the erroneous ruling.

Or, you know, he's in charge of a rules system that has, you know, its own rules. It's a turn based game with reactions, which means each turn has to be played one step at a time. You can keep quoting Wikipedia all you like, but that doesn't change the fact that in the 5E rule system, conditions are a timing requirement because a reaction might prevent you from completing your turn. In a rules system for a game, you start with nothing and then add rules to allow you to do things. Sure, they could've used very formal logical language and statements like "if and only if you take the Attack action on your turn, after that action is fully resolved and until the end of your turn you can do Y" but the book would be bordering on unreadable. It certainly wouldn't cater to a more casual or newer player.

Let's imagine that Extra Attack doesn't exist. Let's imagine the Attack action means making an attack. Let's imagine that the Shield Master bonus action has the condition of taking the attack action. Let's imagine that reactions are a thing. It's quite logical that with these constraints, you have to actually make an attack before you can use the Shield Master bonus action, because if you do the bonus action first and someone uses a reaction to end your turn, you never make an attack on your turn. If you never took the Attack action on your turn, then why were you allowed to use the bonus action? Turns out that's exactly what JEC is saying, i.e. within the constraints of the 5E system these conditions do enforce a timing requirement or else the game can be left in an inconsistent state.

 

[Hriston]

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995069135905161216

"In 2017, I changed the ruling on bonus action timing because the old ruling was illogical. The original ruling failed to account for the fact that X relying on Y is a form of timing. The new ruling corrects that oversight."

Isn't this saying exactly what you're asking for, which is that he forgot the intent of the rules (that conditions are timing) when he made his original tweet?

I would say that’s a highly biased reading of the tweet. You’re saying that “X relying on Y is a form of timing” is the intent, so that when he says the old ruling had failed to account for that, then he’s saying it failed to account for the intent. You’re reading your own bias back into the tweet.

An unbiased reading would suggest this tweet isn’t about intent at all. He doesn’t say he suddenly realized his ruling had failed to account for the intent. That isn’t the reason he gives for changing his ruling. The reason he gives for changing his old ruling, the ruling that following the intent had led him to make, is that it was illogical. That’s the reason he gives. He abandoned intent for logic, and the funny thing is that when pressed by another Twitter user for what the logic was that told him that a conditional statement implies a sequence of events, he said it was the internal logic of D&D.

So no, that isn’t going to convince me that the design intent wasn’t what he said it was.

 

[Asgorath]

I would say that’s a highly biased reading of the tweet. You’re saying that “X relying on Y is a form of timing” is the intent, so that when he says the old ruling had failed to account for that, then he’s saying it failed to account for the intent. You’re reading your own bias back into the tweet.

An unbiased reading would suggest this tweet isn’t about intent at all. He doesn’t say he suddenly realized his ruling had failed to account for the intent. That isn’t the reason he gives for changing his ruling. The reason he gives for changing his old ruling, the ruling that following the intent had led him to make, is that it was illogical. That’s the reason he gives. He abandoned intent for logic, and the funny thing is that when pressed by another Twitter user for what the logic was that told him that a conditional statement implies a sequence of events, he said it was the internal logic of D&D.

So no, that isn’t going to convince me that the design intent wasn’t what he said it was.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/557816721810403329

"As with most bonus actions, you choose the timing, so the Shield Master shove can come before or after the Attack action"

So you're claiming that this is a statement of the original intent, and not a mistaken ruling made without referencing the actual text of the PHB? And that it's impossible for JEC to have forgotten about aspects of the rules and saw someone asking about bonus actions and so answered with the general rule for bonus actions which is "You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn" without really thinking about the finer details?

I guess I just don't really follow how this particular tweet does show the design intent, while none of the dozens or hundreds of other tweets he's made about Shield Master do. This doesn't read like a statement of intent, in particular one where there's a clear distinction between RAW and RAI, it just reads like all his other rulings.

Here are some other instances from the SAC that specifically talk about intent:

Can a Circle of the Moon druid speak the languages it knows while in the form of an elemental?

Yes, since the elementals listed in Elemental Wild Shape can speak. A literal interpretation (RAW) of Wild Shape could reasonably lead you to think that transformed druids can speak only languages that appear in an elemental’s stat block, but the intent (RAI) is that druids retain their knowledge, including of languages, when they transform and can speak the languages they know if an adopted form can speak.

Does the Tough feat have an effect for a druid while in beast form?

The intent is no. The Tough feat affects a druid’s hit points, which are replaced by the beast’s hit points while using Wild Shape.

Can you explain why you think the 2015 tweet on Shield Master is the one true source of intent?

 

[epithet]

...
For such narrow distinctions/divisions on status, it seems much stronger an invaldation than that narrow a division warrants.

I find it quite easy to see the SAC as the "finished" official rulings and the tweets by JEC as the wip previews, as they describe it more or less.

The distinction is significant: the rules are fact, rulings are opinion. Among games following the "rules as written," the rules are the same, while the rulings are different.

The Sage Advice has evolved in format over the life of the 5th Edition. At first, Jeremy, Mike, and sometimes (if I remember correctly) Chris would answer questions about how to interpret the rules when someone asked, most often on Twitter. Then, Jeremy began to write articles for the D&D web site that were compilations of the advice he had given and the questions he had answered on Twitter. These were called "Sage Advice" like the old series of articles from Dragon magazine. Around this time, a website sprang up that indexed the questions and answers, mostly from Twitter, from Mike, Jeremy, and Chris. This website also called these responses "sage advice."

The next step was for the WotC staff to decide that no one but Jeremy would answer rules questions, because the webpage showed that conflicting answers were being given. Everyone else would refer people who asked questions to Jeremy.

As time went on, Jeremy began to compile the articles themselves into a pdf that he would update every time he published a new Sage Advice article. This was the genesis of the Sage Advice Compendium. While it originally was just a compilation of answers Jeremy had given, his recent reversals on certain previous rulings created the problem of answers from Jeremy that conflicted with one another. Jeremy's solution was to declare that the answers in the Sage Advice Compendium pdf were the "official" rulings, meaning that they superseded any advice from a tweet or from a previous Sage Advice article on the D&D website. Presumably it is also intended to mean that if he tweets any conflicting answers in the future, they won't be "official" until the pdf is updated.

It seems as though Jeremy might not have thought this through, though, because what he's done (as shown here in this thread) by describing the advice in his pdf as "official" is to cause some people to confuse his suggested rulings with actual updates to the rules, which they are not. As I've pointed out before, updates to rules are only made via errata, not in the Sage Advice articles or the Compendium pdf.

It seems remarkable to me that people who argue so vigorously about the meaning of the words "if" and "with" (and get deep into the semantic weeds arguing that a conditional must also be a timing requirement because "if" should be read to include "and only if") would be quite dismissive of the difference between rules and rulings, and would blur the line between changes to the rules via errata and suggested interpretations of the rules. I would have thought that anyone who argues that a character can only do what a rule expressly and specifically says the character can do would also apply that "what it says on the tin" standard to the Sage Advice Compendium, which has the word "advice" in the bloody title of the thing. "Advice" is literally what it says "on the tin."

 

[5ekyu]

The distinction is significant: the rules are fact, rulings are opinion. Among games following the "rules as written," the rules are the same, while the rulings are different.

The Sage Advice has evolved in format over the life of the 5th Edition. At first, Jeremy, Mike, and sometimes (if I remember correctly) Chris would answer questions about how to interpret the rules when someone asked, most often on Twitter. Then, Jeremy began to write articles for the D&D web site that were compilations of the advice he had given and the questions he had answered on Twitter. These were called "Sage Advice" like the old series of articles from Dragon magazine. Around this time, a website sprang up that indexed the questions and answers, mostly from Twitter, from Mike, Jeremy, and Chris. This website also called these responses "sage advice."

The next step was for the WotC staff to decide that no one but Jeremy would answer rules questions, because the webpage showed that conflicting answers were being given. Everyone else would refer people who asked questions to Jeremy.

As time went on, Jeremy began to compile the articles themselves into a pdf that he would update every time he published a new Sage Advice article. This was the genesis of the Sage Advice Compendium. While it originally was just a compilation of answers Jeremy had given, his recent reversals on certain previous rulings created the problem of answers from Jeremy that conflicted with one another. Jeremy's solution was to declare that the answers in the Sage Advice Compendium pdf were the "official" rulings, meaning that they superseded any advice from a tweet or from a previous Sage Advice article on the D&D website. Presumably it is also intended to mean that if he tweets any conflicting answers in the future, they won't be "official" until the pdf is updated.

It seems as though Jeremy might not have thought this through, though, because what he's done (as shown here in this thread) by describing the advice in his pdf as "official" is to cause some people to confuse his suggested rulings with actual updates to the rules, which they are not. As I've pointed out before, updates to rules are only made via errata, not in the Sage Advice articles or the Compendium pdf.

It seems remarkable to me that people who argue so vigorously about the meaning of the words "if" and "with" (and get deep into the semantic weeds arguing that a conditional must also be a timing requirement because "if" should be read to include "and only if") would be quite dismissive of the difference between rules and rulings, and would blur the line between changes to the rules via errata and suggested interpretations of the rules. I would have thought that anyone who argues that a character can only do what a rule expressly and specifically says the character can do would also apply that "what it says on the tin" standard to the Sage Advice Compendium, which has the word "advice" in the bloody title of the thing. "Advice" is literally what it says "on the tin."

You are correct that for 5e Sage Advice has evolved. And it's current official status is that it is the only source for "official rulings".

Sure, you can decide that for your games it works differently, that's fine, some as you can for every rule even RAW.

As for what you find so remarkable, specifically about what others think of how they think, men. As I stated on this a long long time ago, I ran SM as "after the first attack" before the sucky 2015 "any order, even before" tweet, after that tweet, after the 2018(?) " Indivisible action tweet-aster, after the 2019 SAC and after this week's new set of tweets which seem to have finally came round to "ok after one attack" intent.

I was very, very glad they finally chose to separate JEC tweets from SAC status-wise and think that's a very good idea going forward.

 

[Asgorath]

It seems remarkable to me that people who argue so vigorously about the meaning of the words "if" and "with" (and get deep into the semantic weeds arguing that a conditional must also be a timing requirement because "if" should be read to include "and only if") would be quite dismissive of the difference between rules and rulings, and would blur the line between changes to the rules via errata and suggested interpretations of the rules. I would have thought that anyone who argues that a character can only do what a rule expressly and specifically says the character can do would also apply that "what it says on the tin" standard to the Sage Advice Compendium, which has the word "advice" in the bloody title of the thing. "Advice" is literally what it says "on the tin."

I'm with you on everything here. The SAC has an official ruling on how Shield Master works. It's advice, the DM can ignore it. No argument there, I've said many times that I am playing it as attack-shove-attack in my games.

The part that I don't understand is how people are latching onto a previous ruling as the one true gospel of design intent, when the tweet says absolutely nothing about intent. What makes that tweet different from the current ruling in terms of intent? I'm pretty sure you've said that you think this tweet showed the real intent of the words in the PHB, right? Why do some rulings show intent, while others do not? Is it ever possible for JEC to be wrong about the intent, and then correct himself when he discovers the mistake? And if so, what about the Shield Master situation makes it not fall into that category?

To be clear, I'm not trying to convince anyone to change their mind here, I'm just genuinely curious how you've reached your conclusions.

 

[epithet]

I'm with you on everything here. The SAC has an official ruling on how Shield Master works. It's advice, the DM can ignore it. No argument there, I've said many times that I am playing it as attack-shove-attack in my games.

The part that I don't understand is how people are latching onto a previous ruling as the one true gospel of design intent, when the tweet says absolutely nothing about intent. What makes that tweet different from the current ruling in terms of intent? I'm pretty sure you've said that you think this tweet showed the real intent of the words in the PHB, right? Why do some rulings show intent, while others do not? Is it ever possible for JEC to be wrong about the intent, and then correct himself when he discovers the mistake? And if so, what about the Shield Master situation makes it not fall into that category?

To be clear, I'm not trying to convince anyone to change their mind here, I'm just genuinely curious how you've reached your conclusions.

I just think that the first advice on a given rule is probably the one closest to what was intended when the rule was written. In the case of Shield Master, the War Magic feature has similar language and a clear statement of intent that agrees with that first advice, so it certainly seems that that was, at the time, the way the thing was meant to work.

 

[Maxperson]

I think the idea that there's a different mechanical implication between saying, "I try to hit the kobold," and, "I target the kobold," is silly in the extreme. What possible justification in the RAW do you have for saying this?

that RAW has no action declaration phase. That declaring an action has no binding influence on the player who can change it at will. That nothing in the game triggers off of a declaration that has no meaning since there are no mechanical declarations in RAW. On the other hand, targeting is mechanical and involves the attack.

The tweet is about how you can tell if you've completed an action. RAW you have to finish the whole action to complete it. RAI for the Attack action, though, is that one attack completes it. This has implications for Shield Master of course, but does not itself address the RAI for the timing of bonus actions with conditions.

The tweet is in direct response to asking about the Shield Master bonus action. Therefore, every part of that answer pertains to it. Context is your friend. You will do better in discussions when you can recognize context and understand its use.