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I don't see shove + dodge as being overpowered. Dash + shove makes a nice combo that makes perfect sense, and shove + withdraw does as well. I've seen enough dodge + spirit weapon to know that while it is effective, it isn't overpowered. I think this combo would be on par with that.

Your point is excellent. There is no utility that I can see to tying the shove to the Attack action in any way. Shield Master shove (knockdown) + booming blade should be possible, and Shield Master shove (knock back) + ranged spell attack without penalty should also be possible. The more I think...

I agree with you, to a point. In this instance, however, I think the mechanics as suggested by Jeremy Crawford go a bit farther than "unintuitive." In the case of hitting a tree, it is all well and good to abstract AC as resistance to meaningful damage, but then Crawford asserts that the "tree"...

I'm not sure where you're getting that notion. Mearles said it stacks with a shield, which tells you right there that pro DMs will read the rule in different ways. I doubt seriously that very many people would have reached the conclusion that someone with barkskin couldn't benefit from cover. I...

Sure, but when you feel like you have to, there might be a problem.

Mr. Crawford's sage advice on the barkskin spell is one of the clearest indications, to me, of the stark raving madness of trying to foist your DM's responsibility for making rulings off on a distant, removed arbiter. Jeremy's primary objective is not to make sure that things work at your table...

While it is, I think, a general truism that you can't apply common sense physics to D&D combat, I think in this case it bears pointing out that your common sense is nonsensical in the context of 5e melee combat. One scenario that (I think) everyone will agree is possible--both the "JC was right...

Shield is a little different by design, since it consumes a resource (spell slot) for the casting and it is a reaction natively, without being readied. The spell was very carefully designed to not waste the spell slot in a situation where an attack would miss the caster anyway.

D&D 5e is only "rules light" in comparison to Pathfinder, and perhaps 4e.

"Taking the attack action" is Attacking. It absolutely correlates with "some event in the fiction." In the case of a dog, Attacking is coming at you with teeth bared, snarling. Making an attack is trying to bite you with a d20 roll. I referred to the opportunity attack as a part of illustrating...

The resolution plays out very differently. "Hostile action" covers any display of hostility, including drawing your sword and preparing to strike (behavior that may be inferred in the "Attack" action when taken in combat.) The readied spell is one which can interrupt the attacker, so casting it...

To clarify, if a player character were to ready a spell and declare a trigger of "hostile action," and an NPC were to draw a weapon and prepare to attack a party member, you would rule that the spell could not be triggered until the attack role was made? Interesting indeed. I believe the players...

Brushing your teeth is a real-world activity, and not really analogous to the nit-picking of game mechanics. Here are a couple of examples which, I think, serve to illustrate the distinction between the Attack Action and an attack. Your PC declares the Attack Action, either explicitly or by...

They make those, you know. Just sayin'.

You are, in the case of the "self-driving" car, still in control of, and completely responsible for, the operation of the vehicle. That might not apply to an autonomous taxi, but it certainly does to a Tesla. There are no composite actions, sorry. The fact that you can do some number of things...

You are using a real-world example to counter a game mechanics argument, which isn't valid. That said... yes, it is separate. If you, for example, have a Tesla that can steer, brake, and throttle itself, you can "drive" your Tesla without actually performing those functions. You could say...

It's really not. My "declaration with an immediate effect" leaves a character, having taken the attack action, with several weapon attacks he can make, one of which must be a shield bash. Your "process of taking action" would require the character to first make the attack granted by the attack...

This statement is at odds, however, with the fact that Crawford said in 2017 that he had been wrong in 2015. It is therefore the case that at one point or another, Crawford was wrong. Either he was wrong in 2015, or he was wrong in 2017. His position might make it technically impossible, but...

Taking the attack action, or the dodge action, or the dash action... those aren't processes with beginnings and ends, man. Those are things which have immediate effects, and then they're done. If you take the dash action, you get extra movement. Boom. You have the movement, use it or lose it...

In this case, the guy that professionally wrote the rules went on to professionally interpret them one way, then professionally change his mind a couple of years later and professionally re-interpret the rule a different way. I think that is definitive and incontrovertible proof that RAW, if...