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Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated
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<blockquote data-quote="Asgorath" data-source="post: 7772780" data-attributes="member: 6921966"><p>We're saying the same thing. The player describes what they want to do, the DM then translates that to game mechanics using the rules.</p><p></p><p>Player: "I want to run over to that monster, slam it in the face with my shield, and then attack it with my sword".</p><p></p><p>DM: "Great, you can use one of your attacks to shove it prone, and then make the second attack with advantage if you succeeded."</p><p></p><p>Player: "Why can't I attack it twice? I have the Shield Master feat."</p><p></p><p>DM: "You have to attack first before you get the bonus action to shove from that feat."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, we can agree to disagree here, but as Jeremy Crawford has explained at length, the standard phrasing of "if X, then Y" in the wording of bonus actions like Shield Master or Two-Weapon Fighting is the game's definition of timing restrictions for those bonus actions. He has also clarified that for this type of bonus action, the "X" part has to happen before the "Y" part. Perhaps they could've spent more time explaining this in greater detail in the PHB, but when the lead rules designer comes out and says "this is what we mean by these words in the PHB" then that's what the rules are, in my opinion.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Given the fact that the "if X, then Y" timing requirement is a trigger, and that X has to happen before Y, you have to actually take the Attack action before you can get a bonus action to shove someone from the Shield Master feat. The Sage Advice compendium is pretty clear about this. You can't skirt the rules by saying "well I declare that I'm going to take the Attack action on my turn" to get the bonus action first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As I've said, I played the feat using the incorrect 2015 tweet for a long time. I think the difference here is that I'm willing to accept the new information from the lead rules designer of the game about how the feat is actually supposed to work, while you are not. Again, as JEC has explained in detail on many different platforms, the feat is not designed to just grant near-permanent advantage. If it was, then they would've just said "you have advantage on all weapon attacks while wearing a shield" or something similar.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>When the lead rules designer says "this is what we intended" by a particular rule, yeah, I'm going to take that as a statement of intent as to how they expected the rules to work.</p><p></p><p>"RAI. Some of you are especially interested in knowing the intent behind a rule. That’s where RAI comes in: “rules as intended.” This approach is all about what the designers meant when they wrote something. In a perfect world, RAW and RAI align perfectly, but sometimes the words on the page don’t succeed at communicating the designers’ intent. Or perhaps the words succeed with one group of players but not with another.</p><p>When I write about the RAI interpretation of a rule, I’ll be pulling back the curtain and letting you know what the D&D team meant when we wrote a certain rule."</p><p></p><p>You can obviously just ignore that and play some mental gymnastics to extract a meaning from the words that isn't designed to be there, I'm just pointing out that the Sage Advice compendium is quite clear that this is not the way the feat is supposed to work.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Asgorath, post: 7772780, member: 6921966"] We're saying the same thing. The player describes what they want to do, the DM then translates that to game mechanics using the rules. Player: "I want to run over to that monster, slam it in the face with my shield, and then attack it with my sword". DM: "Great, you can use one of your attacks to shove it prone, and then make the second attack with advantage if you succeeded." Player: "Why can't I attack it twice? I have the Shield Master feat." DM: "You have to attack first before you get the bonus action to shove from that feat." Again, we can agree to disagree here, but as Jeremy Crawford has explained at length, the standard phrasing of "if X, then Y" in the wording of bonus actions like Shield Master or Two-Weapon Fighting is the game's definition of timing restrictions for those bonus actions. He has also clarified that for this type of bonus action, the "X" part has to happen before the "Y" part. Perhaps they could've spent more time explaining this in greater detail in the PHB, but when the lead rules designer comes out and says "this is what we mean by these words in the PHB" then that's what the rules are, in my opinion. Given the fact that the "if X, then Y" timing requirement is a trigger, and that X has to happen before Y, you have to actually take the Attack action before you can get a bonus action to shove someone from the Shield Master feat. The Sage Advice compendium is pretty clear about this. You can't skirt the rules by saying "well I declare that I'm going to take the Attack action on my turn" to get the bonus action first. As I've said, I played the feat using the incorrect 2015 tweet for a long time. I think the difference here is that I'm willing to accept the new information from the lead rules designer of the game about how the feat is actually supposed to work, while you are not. Again, as JEC has explained in detail on many different platforms, the feat is not designed to just grant near-permanent advantage. If it was, then they would've just said "you have advantage on all weapon attacks while wearing a shield" or something similar. When the lead rules designer says "this is what we intended" by a particular rule, yeah, I'm going to take that as a statement of intent as to how they expected the rules to work. "RAI. Some of you are especially interested in knowing the intent behind a rule. That’s where RAI comes in: “rules as intended.” This approach is all about what the designers meant when they wrote something. In a perfect world, RAW and RAI align perfectly, but sometimes the words on the page don’t succeed at communicating the designers’ intent. Or perhaps the words succeed with one group of players but not with another. When I write about the RAI interpretation of a rule, I’ll be pulling back the curtain and letting you know what the D&D team meant when we wrote a certain rule." You can obviously just ignore that and play some mental gymnastics to extract a meaning from the words that isn't designed to be there, I'm just pointing out that the Sage Advice compendium is quite clear that this is not the way the feat is supposed to work. [/QUOTE]
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