A silly question about Evasion

[Arrowhawk]

"You must have room to move" is no more ambiguous than "you have no room to move."

Viewing the entirety of the page on 293, I have to disagree with you on that one. In the former, one can interpret it saying you must have enough room to move. This is reinforced by the book suggesting that crawling (which implies you have room to move) through a 2 1/2 foot space is not enough room to move.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

"room to move" is open to interpretation. What if you are halfling or dwarf in the same area that is too small for a human?

A halfling is a great example here. Small creatures would most likely have the necessary room to use Evasion. Dwarves aren't small though, and supposedly they'd even have a harder time squeezing through certain places than humans do because of their bulk. For ease of gameplay though it's probably best to treat all same-sized creatures the same, although those with Powerful Build might have issues.

Having enough room to evade reminds me of a show called Fullmetal Alchemist. In one scene the main protagonist, Ed, is running from a boulder trap Indiana Jones style. He manages to evade it by squeezing into the corner between the floor and the wall. In his case he was small enough to do that where most other medium creatures would not have been able to.

That case is probably represented best in D&D by a circumstance bonus. Still, it brings up part of the issue at hand, which is possible lack of room and/or mobility (not the feat Dandu. ) A character not only requires the ability to move from a certain area, but also into another one.

In short, it's pretty much a judgment call for the DM on whether the character(s) have enough room to use Evasion or other abilities that require enough room to move. The fact that it's mostly a DM's call is given further credit due to the "room to move" rules being in the DMG and not the PHB.

 

[Stalker0]

If you are looking for a RAW answer, the answer is very clear.

Shields do not affect evasion at all, proficiency is irrelevant.

 

[Vegepygmy]

You guess wrong. Your "reasoning" was unreasonable, and thus arbitrary.

As I said, you don't know what the word means.

Apparently, you don't know what the word "means" means.

 

[Dandu]

That depends on what your definition of the word "is" is.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

We must then ponder the definition of the word "word."

Anyone else suddenly think "word" just sounds weird?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I fail to see how there's any serious debate occurring here.

The plain answer is that Evasion works just fine, regardless of the size or number of shields you happen to be wearing or carrying.

If you're interested in providing a house rule answer, you should call it out as such. And if you're interested in receiving a house rule answer, then, in the end, it'll boil down to "Do what you want."