D&D 5E About Bonus action attacks and shove.

[Ovinomancer]

Given the sentence, you can commence the action "bringing the tacos" at the same time as you commence "coming over". There's no exclusivity there. In fact the only part of this that makes the "tacos" action unable to complete before the "come over" action is that "coming over" is an intrinsically necessary part of "bringing the tacos".

If instead the sentence was "when you come over take care of getting tacos", then it would be entirely possible to have tacos delivered prior to coming over. Or after. Or during.

No, you can have tacos, but you can't bring them somewhere until after you've gone there, or possibly simultaneously. You can't bring tacos prior to arriving.

A more elegant paraphrase: "when we play on Wednesday, can you please get pizza?" No one would object if the pizza were there already when play commenced.

In what way is it more elegant? It's not more elegant in reference to the underlying question. You can get pizza anytime you want -- it's not conditional on Wednesday or playing. Asking someone to bring a pizza with them when they come to play on Wednesday, however, isn't any different from above -- you're phrasing isn't more elegant in that case, it's just more ambiguous. If you want it to reflect the rules question, you have to make being able to get a pizza possible if and only if you come to play on Wednesday, in which case your phrasing is certainly not more elegant.

The rule reads as 'when x, then y, otherwise no y'. These strange rephrasings that aren't structured the same way aren't illuminative, they're just distracting. Crawford issued his advice that you shouldn't read it the way it's written, or, more specifically, that you should squint at the wording and be allowed to purchase bonus actions on credit. That's well and good, and a fine ruling, and I don't have much issue with it -- I allow it at my table. However, arguing that because the ruling ignores the logic of the rules means that you should torture logic until it matches the ruling isn't itself logical. Just roll with it and stop trying to find a strange way of using ambiguous language to get to a statement that allows you to pretend that the ruling follows a logical reading of the words. It doesn't, and that's okay.

 

[Noctem]

The TWF rules require certain things in order to make use of them.

First, the initial attack: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand,...."

If your attack meets those requirements then you now have a bonus action, with its own requirements: "...you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon you're holding in the other hand."

Let's break these requirements down.

"When you take the (Attack action) and (attack) with a (light) (melee) (weapon) that you're holding (in one hand)"

In order to generate the bonus action, your initial attack must be an attack granted by taking the Attack action, not any old attack, like an OA or from the Cast a Spell action that gives you an attack.

Next, it must actually be an attack, not something else (like a shove).

Next, the object used to execute the attack must be (light). If you have the Dual Wielder feat you can ignore this pre-req.

Next, the object must be a (melee) weapon. Later in the TWF rules, it says that if either weapon has the 'thrown' property then you may throw the weapon instead of making a melee attack, but this doesn't take away the requirement that the attack must be made with a (melee) weapon, so tough luck for dart throwers.

Next, and most crucially for the shield-bash crowd, the initial attack must be made with a (weapon). It must actually be a (weapon), and a (melee weapon) at that, not any old non-weapon object that you can use to bash someone via the Improvised Weapons rule. Shields are not actual (weapons), even when used as a weapon. This is why Crawford didn't answer the "does the +2 AC from the shield stack with the +1 AC from Dual Wielder" question by saying "no, they don't atack", and instead said "Dual Wielder is for melee weapons, not things like shields".

Lastly, the attack must be made by a melee weapon that is held in only (one hand).

You can certainly use one of your attacks to use your shield as an improvised weapon, but this will not generate that bonus TWF attack.

If you have two attacks, you could use one to make a shield bash and the other to attack with a light melee weapon in one hand, and this second attack would generate the bonus TWF attack.

The bonus TWF attack has its own restrictions. If used, it must be used to (attack)(so no shove) with a (different)(so not the same weapon again, even if you swap hands)(light)(melee)(weapon) in the (other hand)(so you can't drop the sword you used to make the first attack and draw another with the same hand and attack with that).

So even if you had two attacks, shield bashed with one attack then attacked with a sword to generate a bonus TWF attack, you could not use your shield to execute that Bonus attack because it is not a (weapon).

This is absolutely correct on all counts. People need to read this...

 

[Saeviomagy]

No, you can have tacos, but you can't bring them somewhere until after you've gone there, or possibly simultaneously. You can't bring tacos prior to arriving.

Because arriving is an intrinsic part of bringing tacos. "when you come over, brush your teeth" works better. There's no suggestion that you can't brush your teeth before leaving, during the journey or after you arrive. In fact I suspect most people would assume they should brush their teeth before they leave, rather than after they arrive.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Because arriving is an intrinsic part of bringing tacos.

Ywp. You can't bring tacos after you've come over, either. The only time you can 'bring tacos' is the exact moment you 'come over.' I'm glad we've put that to bed as a bad analogy to the bonus attack rule.

"when you come over, brush your teeth" works better. There's no suggestion that you can't brush your teeth before leaving, during the journey or after you arrive. In fact I suspect most people would assume they should brush their teeth before they leave, rather than after they arrive.

How does that work better? There's no restriction on when you can normally brush your teeth, so you're correct that one would assume they can brush their teeth anytime they wanted to provided they had the means to do so and it was appropriate. However, given that construction, one wouldn't normally read it as the person giving their permission to brush teeth in a blanket sense, as that's clearly nonsensical, but that they're saying you would have opportunity to do so 'when you come over' when you would normally not (due to it being slightly odd to think that you'd have your brush and toothpaste with you 'when you come over' normally). All you've done is add some odd permission category to a task one does not normally seek permission for, not made a good analogy to the rules reading in question.

If the rule was so easy to interpret as 'anytime you want to so long as you promise to make an attack action' why does that action need to be in the same round? Could it not have come in the round before? "I took an attack action last round, and when I do that, I get a bonus action attack." Or, even, "It doesn't say I lose it, ever, just that I get one when I take an attack action. I gladly make an attack action next Tuesday for a bonus action today!" (Apologies to Popeye.)

We don't read it that way because it's clearly nonsensical to assume a lack of such restrictions when the normal, non-strained, reading of the rule is that you must make an attack action in order to get the bonus attack. Not that you can promise to make it later on in the same round, but that you must do the attack action first. Spending time wandering through the English language looking for a magically phrased statement that can be ambiguously interpreted to mean that there is no timing involved while staying close enough to the original phrasing as to be relevant seems a colossal waste of time to me. It reads that way, as does the general rule on bonus actions. A designer said 'whoops, heh, well that's not exactly what we intended, we intended it to have more flexibility' is both reasonable and rational and that's enough of a reason to accept the ruling without butchering the mother tongue. English does enough linguistic violence on its own without us needing to help in this particular instance.

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is absolutely correct on all counts. People need to read this...

You mean apart from the fact that it claims that an improvised melee weapon isn't a melee weapon? Or the bit where it assumes that it can read Crawford's mind?

 

[Ristamar]

You could use TWF with an improvised melee weapon if you have Tavern Brawler and the DM rules it matches up with a light melee weapon (or any one-handed melee weapon if you have the Dual Wielder feat).

 

[Noctem]

You mean apart from the fact that it claims that an improvised melee weapon isn't a melee weapon? Or the bit where it assumes that it can read Crawford's mind?

Improvised weapons don't count toward many things in this game. They have specific rules. Just because you're using a shield as an improvised weapon does not grant the shield the keywords to make it compatible with other features in the game (outside of DM fiat). It doesn't grant the keywords: Light, Melee, Weapon. You fall completely and solely within the bounds of the improvised weapon rules. So no, an improvised weapon is not a melee weapon. It is an improvised weapon.

And I'll ignore the quip about reading crawford's mind, the post I quoted from Arial Black made no such claims. He very clearly quoted Crawford as stating that shields can't be used with Dual Wielder because they aren't weapons, even if used as improvised weapons. Again, improvised weapons don't gain the keywords required to function with things like Dual Wielder, TWF, etc..