But in SA they have the power to explain a different intent to the rule and express how in future printings the intent will be reflected. JC didn't do that. He stuck with a strict interpretation of (what I feel) is a ridiculous wording for magical shields. So, that means the design intent of magical shields IS to allow it as he indicates, which myself and others find silly.
You are entitled to disagree with WotC as to the purpose and implementation of anything that they do, whether that is Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, or indeed the D&D game itself.
I think this is the entire problem. Crawford's first idea for answering the question is, "I'm going to read the book back to you." Then if he thinks that answers the question, he stops. The last thing I want for D&D, a game where there is explicitly a referee at the table to make decisions and alter the game, is a strict constructionist reading of the rules.
I'm not really interested in another pair of eyes reading the book when I take the step of asking WotC or Crawford a D&D question. I'm pretty good at reading comprehension (when I take the time to do it). What I want to hear is, "What did you mean when you wrote this?" or "What was the intended interaction here? Was this interaction identified even?" That's much more informative because it tells me what parts of the text can be ignored.
If you're after intention behind a specific rule, some of the developers
will give it: just not in Sage Advice which is the official interpretation of the rules as they are written. IIRC they have outright said that they have houserules that do not follow strict interpretation of the rules in their games.
However, if the insults and belittling caused by people disagreeing with what Sage Advice should be sounds like a gossip circle of entitled Karens outraged when the manager supported their employee, can you imagine what it would be like if Sage Advice
wasn't strictly based on RAW?
Every time JC gave a non-raw interpretation of a situation, you would have people screaming at insults at him. (Or more likely throwing those same personal attacks and disparagements through a medium in which he would not find out about them.) "But the
rules say
this! You're not going by the rules that you wrote! You're stupid and don't deserve to write for D&D!" . . . and so on.
Sage advice sticking to RAW is, I think, very much the safer option. Even when that interpretation is not what the developer would suggest that you actually houserule.
Crawford knows those of us who can decide what to do don't need Sage Advice. He also knows that there are a ton of people who don't want to know that there's a man behind the curtain who, truthfully, wants you to think for yourself and join the former group. But those people don't want that. They want an answer they can quote, chapter and verse. Maybe that's all he's doing.
The people who need the chapter and verse get the chapter and verse. The people who don't get a springboard for houseruling.
Do I think the spell is too good? Personally? Absolutely not. In fact, I found it quite ok before the SA.
But to have gimped the spell in such a way must mean that it was wayyyyyyy too good. At least, that's what I imagine they've thought with the SA...
They went with that the spell actually said, rather than with a houserule that would contradict the PHB text.
If they ewanted to do that, they would put it in the errata.
