Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

DND_Reborn · Mar 4, 2019

Arial Black said:
PHB p147:-

"In many cases, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon."

Meaning, first, it is not an actual weapon, and second, in many cases an improvised weapon is not similar to an actual weapon.

Weapon = weapon.

Improvised weapon = not weapon, used as if it were a weapon.

'Weapon' is an object designed to be a weapon. The improvised weapon rules provide a way to use objects in combat that are not weapons, and ways to use things that are weapons in a way they were not designed, like hitting someone upside the head with a crossbow.

Things are what they are, even if you use them in inappropriate ways. You can get a piggy-back from a friend, but that doesn't allow him to benefit from the rules for mounts.

The spell magic weapon says, "You touch a nonmagical weapon." Can I cast it on a magical weapon? After all, I could use a magical weapon as if it were not magical? No, no more than you can cast the spell on a painting or a viking longship. The fact that the rules provide a way to adjudicate a PC hitting someone over the head with a painting (or a longship) does not make either a valid target for the spell.

Hold person says, "Choose a humanoid you can see..." Can you cast it on a vampire? After all, they conform to the natural language meaning of 'humanoid': two arms, two legs, one head, one body? No, because the term 'humanoid' is a game term with a specific meaning, and that meaning excludes creatures that are not (game term) humanoids, like undead.

And 'weapon' is also a game term, meaning 'an object designed to be a weapon'. Weapons are simple or martial, melee or ranged. The term does not mean, "anything you pick up and hit people with". If it did, there would be no section on 'improvised weapons', it would just be 'weapons' and include objects like paintings and toasters and....every object in the world!

Bolding points doesn't make them more meaningful, it only seems like you're arguing now.

And as I said before:

dnd4vr said:
Either way, since it is a matter of interpretation, there is no use debating it since we are both, in fact, correct in our own way.

This will never be a "I'm right, you're wrong" argument, but please, continue if you must...

5ekyu · Mar 4, 2019

Arial Black said:
PHB p147:-

"In many cases, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon."

Meaning, first, it is not an actual weapon, and second, in many cases an improvised weapon is not similar to an actual weapon.

Weapon = weapon.

Improvised weapon = not weapon, used as if it were a weapon.

'Weapon' is an object designed to be a weapon. The improvised weapon rules provide a way to use objects in combat that are not weapons, and ways to use things that are weapons in a way they were not designed, like hitting someone upside the head with a crossbow.

Things are what they are, even if you use them in inappropriate ways. You can get a piggy-back from a friend, but that doesn't allow him to benefit from the rules for mounts.

The spell magic weapon says, "You touch a nonmagical weapon." Can I cast it on a magical weapon? After all, I could use a magical weapon as if it were not magical? No, no more than you can cast the spell on a painting or a viking longship. The fact that the rules provide a way to adjudicate a PC hitting someone over the head with a painting (or a longship) does not make either a valid target for the spell.

Hold person says, "Choose a humanoid you can see..." Can you cast it on a vampire? After all, they conform to the natural language meaning of 'humanoid': two arms, two legs, one head, one body? No, because the term 'humanoid' is a game term with a specific meaning, and that meaning excludes creatures that are not (game term) humanoids, like undead.

And 'weapon' is also a game term, meaning 'an object designed to be a weapon'. Weapons are simple or martial, melee or ranged. The term does not mean, "anything you pick up and hit people with". If it did, there would be no section on 'improvised weapons', it would just be 'weapons' and include objects like paintings and toasters and....every object in the world!

Ok, I will call at least a foul here.

Specifically on your (mis) quote of the rule which cuts short the **actual** quote, gives bogus punctuation and isolates it from its context which alters its meaning.

Your (mis)quote was this:
"In many cases, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon."

Putting that as a period ended single sentence makes it look like what you ascribe, but if taken as it actually is its meaning is clear in context.

The statement is talking about how to assign values of damage and damage type etc to the improvised weapon and tie-in proficiencies. Here is the exact quote - unedited.

"Often, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon and can be treated as such. For example, a table leg is akin to a club. At the DM's option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus."

The paragraph that follows covers the other case, which helps show you the context again, and shows that even that case can apply to weapons themselves.

"An object that bears no resemblance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage (the DM assigns a damage type appropriate to the object). If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, or throws a melee weapon that does not have the thrown property, it also deals 1d4 damage. An improvised thrown weapon has a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet."

So, sure, you can edit a cute to cut it short and hide its context to build your rulings on, thats your call. But to me that effort just spotlights the degree of confidence you seem to have in that decision.

But hey, its GM call.

Hriston · Mar 4, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
You're right about "if X, Y" not implying causality, but wrong about timing. There's a very strong timing involved. But, first, we have to show why the statement isn't just "if X, Y" in the case of Shield Master, but "If and only if X, Y."

This is simple. You do not have a bonus action until some ability gives you one. In this case, when discussing the bonus action associated with Shield Master, there is only one way to get it, take the Attack action on your turn. If you do not do this, you do not get the bonus action to shove. Therefore, the correct structure, formally, is "if and only if", or IFF. So, the structure is, "IFF you take the attack action on your turn, you..." get the shove.

IFF statement require that X be true for Y to be true. So, timing-wise, if X is not true at a given moment, then Y is not true. Timing does exist. X may or may not cause Y, so no implied causality, but Y only exists when X does.

To move a bit forward, you've already acknowledged that there are points within your turn where it can be considered "before your action" and "after your action." You did this when you offered the Monk Flurry of Blow as an example of a bonus action with timing. When means, you acknowledge there is a point in your turn where you may not have taken your action. Since actions are discrete things (there is no declaration of actions step, there's no smearing of actions in the rules, the rules treat actions discretely, etc.), then there must be possible a state on your turn where "you take the Attack action on your turn" is not true. Therefore, you must first take the Attack action before you get the bonus shove.

Before you've taken your action or end your turn without taking one, though, it may or may not be true that you take the Attack action on your turn. Therefore, you may or may not be able to use a bonus action to shove a creature.

Ovinomancer said:
And, yes, I understand you have a preference to treat actions as smeared and fungible in time, but that doesn't jive with your own offering of flurry of blows. If declaring an attack action is suitable for Shield Master because declaring is the same as taking, then so it must be for Flurry of Blows, only you're left having to explain where "after" your Attack action really occurs. Further to this, the rules clearly state that you may split your move up how you wish before your action and after your action, again showing that there is a before and after state available. Finally, "If you take the Attack action on your turn..." may initially appear English imprecise enough to read as "If you take the Attack action at any time during your turn..." this is counter-indicated by the complete lack of acknowledgement of this very imprecise interpretation. That you can choose to interpret it this way is you adding into the rules the "at any time" reading. You're welcome to it (I just remove the timing from Shield Master rather than redefine the way the rules are intended to work), but it's not RAW. The "at any time" conflicts with other timings in the game. Frex, if a creature has a Readied action to attack back if you attack, when does this resolve?

It resolves right after the perceivable circumstance that triggers it, so if I attempt to shove the creature, it attacks back right after my shove attempt.

Ovinomancer said:
Accordingly, if you declare the Attack action such that it's sufficient for the Shield Master feat bonus action trigger, then is that sufficient for the Readied action trigger? You've declared you will attack on your turn, you've earned the benefits of your feat's conditional bonus action, do you suffer the consequences of the Readied action?

My interpretation of the first bullet of Shield Master doesn't rely on pre-declaring the Attack action.

Asgorath · Mar 4, 2019

Hriston said:
Before you've taken your action or end your turn without taking one, though, it may or may not be true that you take the Attack action on your turn. Therefore, you may or may not be able to use a bonus action to shove a creature.

If I saw this in the rules text of a TTRPG game, I would put the book down and never even consider playing it.

There's a pretty clear precedent for sections of your turn that happen before and after your action, for example the movement rules specifically say:

"You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action. For example, if you have a speed of 30 feet, you can move 10 feet, take your action, and then move 20 feet."

For that first 10-foot section of movement, you clearly haven't taken your action yet. If a reaction happens that interrupts your turn, you might never actually get to take your action, which means you shouldn't be taking a bonus action that is triggered by the action you were planning.

Hriston · Mar 4, 2019

Asgorath said:
This language in the Sage Advice Compendium is quite clear that the phrasing of the condition applies to the entire game, not just Shield Master:

"This sort of if-then setup appears in many of the game’s rules. The “if” must be satisfied before the “then” comes into play."

There’s a lot more to the game than conditional statements, and there’s no reason to think it’s designed around this particular interpretation of them.

Hriston · Mar 4, 2019

Asgorath said:
If I saw this in the rules text of a TTRPG game, I would put the book down and never even consider playing it.

Well, that says something about the type of games you like to play, but I don’t know what bearing it’s supposed to have on this discussion.

Asgorath said:
There's a pretty clear precedent for sections of your turn that happen before and after your action, for example the movement rules specifically say:

"You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action. For example, if you have a speed of 30 feet, you can move 10 feet, take your action, and then move 20 feet."

For that first 10-foot section of movement, you clearly haven't taken your action yet. If a reaction happens that interrupts your turn, you might never actually get to take your action, which means you shouldn't be taking a bonus action that is triggered by the action you were planning.

When have I said there can’t be a part of your turn before you take your action? And if I haven’t taken my action yet, why shouldn’t I shove a creature?

Asgorath · Mar 4, 2019

Hriston said:
Well, that says something about the type of games you like to play, but I don’t know what bearing it’s supposed to have on this discussion.

My point is that basically everything else about the 5E rules screams simplicity and ease of play. This strongly implies (to me) that you shouldn't have to run a Schrodinger's Action thought experiment on every round of combat.

Hriston said:
When have I said there can’t be a part of your turn before you take your action? And if I haven’t taken my action yet, why shouldn’t I shove a creature?

You can shove a creature with your action, because you don't have a bonus action shove from Shield Master until you actually take the Attack action. That is, before your action you don't have this bonus action. After the action, you do.

Ovinomancer · Mar 5, 2019

Hriston said:
Before you've taken your action or end your turn without taking one, though, it may or may not be true that you take the Attack action on your turn. Therefore, you may or may not be able to use a bonus action to shove a creature.

True, but only after your turn is over is it true. For instance, at the start of your turn, you have not taken the attack action on your turn. If you move first, you still have not taken the attack action on your turn. If you then take the attack action, you've now taken the attack action on your turn and earned the bonus action. You're skipping to the end of the turn and making the assumption that an attack action was taken, and then jumping back to the beginning.

IFF X, Y isn't future looking, it's a conditional statement that says if X is true, then Y is true. What you're doing is looking ahead and assuming X and then allowing Y. IFF X, Y does not entail looking towards the future. You can only check the validity of conditional statements in the present and past. If anything, a conditional statement is a model of what we assume the future to be, but you have to get there to check. You're making an assumption, which is no part of the conditional.

Even if you read the Shield Master feat as "If you take the attack action at any time during your turn, you..." the above applies, because it's still a conditional that X must be true before Y. What you want is a statement that says, "If you plan to take the attack action on your turn, you get a bonus action and are now required to take the attack action during your turn."

It resolves right after the perceivable circumstance that triggers it, so if I attempt to shove the creature, it attacks back right after my shove attempt.

Yup.

My interpretation of the first bullet of Shield Master doesn't rely on pre-declaring the Attack action.

Good, so declarations of actions isn't part of this and we're only evaluating the conditional. Which means my above is on point.

Hriston · Mar 5, 2019

Asgorath said:
My point is that basically everything else about the 5E rules screams simplicity and ease of play. This strongly implies (to me) that you shouldn't have to run a Schrodinger's Action thought experiment on every round of combat.

My interpretation doesn’t require me to do that at all. All I have to do is resolve the shove attempt. There’s no immediate need to assign a bonus action or one of the attacks of your Attack action to the shove. Doing so is actually more complex because you still have to resolve the attempt to shove. You’re adding an extra step with no benefit of which I’m aware.

Asgorath said:
You can shove a creature with your action, because you don't have a bonus action shove from Shield Master until you actually take the Attack action. That is, before your action you don't have this bonus action. After the action, you do.

This is precisely what I dislike about this ruling. It takes a character’s fictional action (shoving a creature) and gives it a designation within the action-economy that itself corresponds to absolutely nothing in the fiction, but which has a fictional consequence. What reason in the fiction is there that if a shield master with Extra Attack shoves a creature first, s/he can only make one weapon attack on his/her turn, but if s/he makes his/her weapon attacks before shoving, s/he can make two? Sure, I can come up with reasons, but I don't think I should have to. What narrative is this serving? Without a causal process in the fiction that makes sense of this, it just seems like a literalistic attempt to deprive the character of the intended benefit of his/her feat, which is the ability to shove a creature as a bonus action.

Hriston · Mar 5, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
True, but only after your turn is over is it true. For instance, at the start of your turn, you have not taken the attack action on your turn. If you move first, you still have not taken the attack action on your turn. If you then take the attack action, you've now taken the attack action on your turn and earned the bonus action.

The condition is not "you have taken the Attack action on your turn". It's "you take the Attack action on your turn," and at the start of your turn, before you've done anything, it may be true that "you take the Attack action on your turn"!

Ovinomancer said:
You're skipping to the end of the turn and making the assumption that an attack action was taken, and then jumping back to the beginning.

No, you're skipping to the end and making the assumption the Attack action won't be taken. I'm deferring that determination until it's either taken or it isn't.

Ovinomancer said:
IFF X, Y isn't future looking, it's a conditional statement that says if X is true, then Y is true. What you're doing is looking ahead and assuming X and then allowing Y. IFF X, Y does not entail looking towards the future. You can only check the validity of conditional statements in the present and past. If anything, a conditional statement is a model of what we assume the future to be, but you have to get there to check.

Right, I'm not making the assumption that you can't use a bonus action to shove. I'm waiting to check until I get there.

Ovinomancer said:
You're making an assumption, which is no part of the conditional.

Even if you read the Shield Master feat as "If you take the attack action at any time during your turn, you..." the above applies, because it's still a conditional that X must be true before Y. What you want is a statement that says, "If you plan to take the attack action on your turn, you get a bonus action and are now required to take the attack action during your turn."

Yup.

Good, so declarations of actions isn't part of this and we're only evaluating the conditional. Which means my above is on point.

It is except for all your assumptions that I'm evaluating whether "you take the Attack action on your turn" is true beforehand, based on an action-declaration.

Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

DND_Reborn

The High Aldwin

5ekyu

Hero

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Asgorath

Explorer

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Asgorath

Explorer

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth

Similar Threads

Related Articles