Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[Maxperson]

Show me 10 rules where the author said it's written different than his intent or how he plays it. I'll wait.

Right. Now that we're done with that silliness, it's not like all the other rules in the game. It's pretty unique. If you don't want to discuss that aspect that's fine, you can stop replying to me. But that's the point I am making, no matter how much you want to drag this back to the minutiae.

So you waltzed into the thread with nothing to add except to poo poo on the people having the discussion. There's a word for people who do that on the internet. If only I could remember it.

 

[Mistwell]

So you waltzed into the thread with nothing to add except to poo poo on the people having the discussion. There's a word for people who do that on the internet. If only I could remember it.

Oh no, I participated for over a week. This is an old thread now though, being continuously discussed for a month and a half now with no meaningful progress since that first week. Nothing new has been said for ages. It's just the same people repeating the same points over and over at each other, and not really addressing anyone else's point anymore other than to be dismissive and play whack a mole with each other,

It is in fact an addition to the discussion to say, "This rule in particular, due to the nature of the rule and what the author's specifically said about it, results in it being specially more of a a DMs call than most other rules."

To which you appear to have no reply. Instead, for multiple posts now, you've distracted from that point. Your current distraction is to whine and pretend that point isn't part of a discussion. Which just reinforces my point.

 

[Asgorath]

Oh no, I participated for over a week. This is an old thread now though, being continuously discussed for a month and a half now with no meaningful progress since that first week. Nothing new has been said for ages. It's just the same people repeating the same points over and over at each other, and not really addressing anyone else's point anymore other than to be dismissive and play whack a mole with each other.

Well, I didn't see the thread for a while, and wasn't participating actively at the start. I've been fascinated by some other people's interpretations of basic things like how the action system works, and have enjoyed digging into why they believe what they believe. I haven't been trying to convert anyone or change their mind, so apologies if it's come across that way. The discussion certainly seems to have died down after the most recent round of tweets, so maybe we can all just move on and keep playing the feat the same way JEC does.

 

[Yardiff]

Nope.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think the more common response will be to keep playing the same way that the DM/table agrees to. Some will play with JC's interpretation (the new one, that is), others will continue to use the old, and others will do whatever else they want. Heck, some will keep playing without feats at all!

Maybe they're the smart ones?

 

[Maxperson]

Your current distraction is to whine and pretend that point isn't part of a discussion.

It's whinge. If you're going to insult someone, you could at least get it right.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's whinge. If you're going to insult someone, you could at least get it right.

"Whinge" vs. "Whine"

Ah... British/Australian English versus American. Love it!

 

[Hriston]

JEC has come out and said that tweet was incorrect.

When? Please provide a citation.

Here's a tweet from this week with the word "intent" in it, just so there's no confusion:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1105204044610428929

"The simple by-the-book way (RAW) to determine whether you've completed an action is to finish the whole action.

Yet you fulfill our design intent (RAI) with the Attack action if you make at least one attack with it, since that is how we define the action in its basic form."

This unequivocally establishes RAI for bonus actions with conditions as having a timing requirement, and that the action must come before the bonus action.

No, it doesn't. It establishes that RAI for "completing" the Attack action is to make at least one attack with it. It says nothing about the intent behind conditioned bonus actions.

 

[Asgorath]

When? Please provide a citation.



No, it doesn't. It establishes that RAI for "completing" the Attack action is to make at least one attack with it. It says nothing about the intent behind conditioned bonus actions.

Take your pick:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/994993596989300736

"Clarification about bonus actions: if a feature says you can do X as a bonus action if you do Y, you must do Y before you can do X. For Shield Master, that means the bonus action must come after the Attack action. You decide when it happens afterward that turn."

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995016512497840134

"Curious why I changed my ruling on bonus actions? When there's a gray area in the rules, I lean on general rules or exceptions to determine a ruling. My original ruling relied on the general rule, but over time, the weight of the exceptions swayed me to a more logical ruling"

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995064126866010113

"In 2017, I clarified in the Sage Advice Compendium how timing works for a bonus action. The query there is about the Eldritch Knight’s War Magic feature, but as I've stated today, the answer applies universally to bonus actions with triggers. See https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf ..."

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995064841214676994

"Today's clarification makes it so that you can trust your book more than ever before, since I've now eliminated an illogical ruling that actually seeded doubt about the book's text."

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995069135905161216

"In 2017, I changed the ruling on bonus action timing because the old ruling was illogical. The original ruling failed to account for the fact that X relying on Y is a form of timing. The new ruling corrects that oversight."

He originally used the word "intent" in his ruling. He then realized he was wrong, and corrected that ruling. He's even used the word "intent" in describing the corrected ruling as of this week. Thus, I don't think you can say "well his 2015 tweet is still the correct one because that's the only time he described RAI".

If you don't believe me, here he is describing what the feature is supposed to be, i.e. the intent of the feature:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/994997405492772864

"It's supposed to be what it is: a way to knock someone prone after your attack. It's essentially a finishing move."

 

[Hriston]

The declarations are completely informal and have no mechanics attached to them. When a player declares that his PC attempts to smash the kobold, it has no mechanical meaning. When he actually says, I am targeting the kobold with the mace, then the mechanics start. He's not bound in any way by his informal declaration, either. He can tell you he's going to smash the kobold, then change his mind and say he's targeting the orc next to it instead.

Wait, because he uses the word targeting in one declaration and not the other, it's more mechanically binding? Is that your position? Because, to me, "I try to smash the kobold with my mace." and, "I target the kobold with my mace." are equivalent statements.

RAW does not let you make a statement about what you will do on your turn and have it trigger a bonus action. No mechanical declaration phase exists, so no declaration about the future has any mechanical meaning whatsoever.

I didn't say it did. I said the condition (i.e. "you take the Attack action on your turn"), the way I look at it, is a statement about what you do on your turn. If it's a true statement, then use of a bonus action to shove a creature is also a valid option for that turn.