D&D 5E (2014) Bad Sage Advice?

[DEFCON 1]

As far as the holding the shield thing is concerned... he's basically saying holding a magic shield in your hands is no different than putting a Ring of Protection on your finger. You're getting a bonus to your AC through whatever goofy-ass magical force field surrounds you when you have one of those defensive objects on your person.

Honestly, I can kinda understand it when looked at in that way. If a little ring of metal on one of your fingers can protect you from attacks for some reason... there's no reason why holding a big disc of metal couldn't do the same thing.

 

[NotAYakk]

The thing is, his ruling is wrong by both RAW and mechanically dumb.

We have a paragraph that says using the properties of a magical item requires having it equipped in the usual way. The usual way to equip a shield is donning it. So if you don't have it donned, it don't do its properties.

You have to treat the "having it held" wording in the shield magic description as a more specific override of the general "you have to have a shield donned" for JC's ruling to make sense. And casually mentioning a subset of a requirement (donning requires holding) had better not count as a "more specific" rule, because that is madness.

Examples of that madness would be a sentence like this: "You can make OAs against enemies within 5' of you who attack an ally" -- obviously removes the requirement to expend a reaction, right? It fails to mention expending a reaction, and says you can do it, so now you can in this specific instance do an OA without expending a reaction!

 

[DND_Reborn]

he's basically saying holding a magic shield in your hands is no different than putting a Ring of Protection on your finger.

I don't think he is though...

Using your example, it would be akin to holding the ring in your hand and not having it "on your finger" (which is how it is meant to be worn/used--not to mention requiring attunement!). You are using the ring as intended, but the shield you are not, in fact under the ring it states you must be wearing it to gain the benefit.

And as others have stated from other sections on magic items, for you to benefit from an item it must be used as intended.

 

[Stalker0]

The weirdness of the shield ruling aside, I don't think its actually broken.

Rings of Protections give AC and don't need to be donned, and you could always get a more powerful version of them. If your allowing legendary items into the game, then player stats are going to start pushing the limits....that's the point of magic items of that caliber.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As far as the holding the shield thing is concerned... he's basically saying holding a magic shield in your hands is no different than putting a Ring of Protection on your finger. You're getting a bonus to your AC through whatever goofy-ass magical force field surrounds you when you have one of those defensive objects on your person.

Honestly, I can kinda understand it when looked at in that way. If a little ring of metal on one of your fingers can protect you from attacks for some reason... there's no reason why holding a big disc of metal couldn't do the same thing.

Sure, though the ruling doesn’t have to make sense on any level other than it being what the rules actually say.

You have to treat the "having it held" wording in the shield magic description as a more specific override of the general "you have to have a shield donned" for JC's ruling to make sense.

Well, good thing that is literally how the rules work, then. The specific item description overrides the general rules on magic items.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Anyone else have a SA ruling they just can't get on board with?

80% of them I find unnecessary but obviously correct (I call these the "read the book back to me" questions). 10% of them are useful for the design insight or clarity. 10% of them I ignore.

• The one that made me decide to stop reflexively trusting Sage Advice was the rule that Crossbow Expert lets you shoot a hand crossbow an extra time if that's the only weapon you've got. However, it doesn't work if you have two hand crossbows in hand. I think they've rephrased the answer since it was first written, but this is the one I remember being so incredulous about that I chose to discard it.
• The "unarmed strike isn't a weapon" ruling. Made more irritating with the "natural weapons are weapons" ruling. Never have I seen a game that claims to champion simplicity choose to favor something so cumbersome and needlessly complex when there is no exploit to the rule being corrected.
• The Shield Master "it says if you do X then you can do Y so means that X must occur before Y" ruling. Especially because the Eldritch Knight’s War Magic ruling specifically says you won't break anything if you ignore this timing ruling.

I used to try to modify my perception of the rules to match the rulings made by the design team. Now I am much more willing to set aside rulings that strike me as needlessly fiddly, too literal, or needlessly restrictive of a mechanic when the ruling isn't actually addressing a balance or gameplay problem. Crawford's rules philosophy is quite a bit different than mine is now. If I don't see how something is game breaking or exploitative and if it's not so vague that it's confusing, then I don't want to hear WotC's opinion on it at all.

 

[Oofta]

The one that made me decide to stop reflexively trusting Sage Advice was the rule that Crossbow Expert lets you shoot a hand crossbow an extra time if that's the only weapon you've got. However, it doesn't work if you have two hand crossbows in hand. I think they've rephrased the answer since it was first written, but this is the one I remember being so incredulous about that I chose to discard it.

Not that I disagree with your post, but this particular change (if I understand you) was errata not sage advice. The added the text "you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon" to the PHB loading property.

Which is funny. I think it's just a completely obvious rule - how could you pull ammunition if you don't have a free hand? Just goes to show that one person's idiotic rule or ruling is another's "well duh, do we really need that spelled out?"

 

[Mistwell]

Bad Sage Advice: Adding sage to your breakfast cereal will make it taste better.

 

[NotAYakk]

The weirdness of the shield ruling aside, I don't think its actually broken.

Rings of Protections give AC and don't need to be donned, and you could always get a more powerful version of them. If your allowing legendary items into the game, then player stats are going to start pushing the limits....that's the point of magic items of that caliber.

RoP is attunement. +3 shields are not.

Different ballgame.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Rings of Protections give AC and don't need to be donned, and you could always get a more powerful version of them. If your allowing legendary items into the game, then player stats are going to start pushing the limits....that's the point of magic items of that caliber.

Rings of Protection do have to be worn, not simply carried, in order to gain their benefit. And you can't get more powerful version of them (in 5E) as they are only +1.

Legendary items? The Robe of the Archemagi? Well... sure, I could achieve the same concept with Mage Armor and only have an AC 2 points lower--big whoop.