Shield master on twitter

[Krachek]

Well, in this specific instance (using the bonus action shove from Shield Master before the attack action) - the Sage had made one ruling that (almost) everyone agreed with, and now he has reversed that ruling. And a lot of people don't agree with his logic for the reversal and are pointing out flaws in that logic, or discrepancies they believe are created as a result.

So we don't really want "the rule", because we already had that (or so we believed). And now the Sage is changing "the rule" (i.e. the clarification he'd made earlier and that we have been using) and is now claiming that the new ruling is the way it was supposed to work all along.

For some of us at least, we don't agree with his new position and don't intend to change our games. It's been the de facto ruling for too long, and worked just fine. We don't care for the disruption caused by trying to change something we didn't have a problem with.

Fortunately for me, none of my AL characters have the Shield Master feat so this doesn't affect them.

Their credo is build your own game.
considering that, It is perfectly normal that they give opposite advices in sage advice.
You say you don’t want « the rule » but you are also angry that he give an advice against your ruling.
Your ruling is fine, his advice is fine too. That is my point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah now, "I don't want to play with you guys anymore!" becomes "I meant that other game we were playing 5 minutes ago, not this one!"

You might want to pick a definition of that word "anything" and stick with it.

Oh Mistwell, I’m sorry, I really am, but nothing you ever say is going to make me far at all about semantics.

 

[Hriston]

Of interest to me is that the original 2016 ruling primarily addresses intent (RAI), which is how I prefer to align my interpretations of the rules. The 2017 ruling's emphasis on RAW indicates that even though these rules didn't end up as intended, it would be too much work to fix them now, so it isn't going to happen.

 

[5ekyu]

The trigger for both is "When you take the Attack action".

One of them further specifies "and attack...".

Nothing here says you can nest the bonus action between attacks during that attack action however. Both trigger off an "When you take the Attack action", though one adds a further limiter in addition to that one.

So while the trigger for two weapon fighting is both "take the Attack action" AND "attack", I am not seeing why one would allow the bonus action between attacks in the Attack action and the other would not.

Either an Attack action is composed of all of the attacks contained within an Attack action, or it is not. Unless something specifies different timing, which this does not. A qualification is not itself a different timing for what an Attack action means. I mean, if a bonus action qualification had said, "take the Attack action and you are a half-orc" would that mean you can take the bonus action after all the attacks or between the two attacks if you are a half-orc?

You may now want to expand the meaning further than JC did and dismiss (or pretend he did not make) the answrr about the difference but that does not change the results.

Take an attack action or use the attack action type language has been used to separate out "choices" that can only be done as part of that action, as opposed to any time you get an attack.

A good example would include shove/trip and grapple - which (perhaps triggering those hoardes of narrative dissonsnce victims) by the "letter of the rules") one can do only when one uses the attack action and not when one uses the reaction OA or even presumably things like the reaction sttike at 5' moves from whatever that style is called.

Point being the includion of limiting you to the attack action has a number of different results, has meaning outside of the can you insett bonus actions.

On the other hand, adding in specific reference to **an attack** adds more... Because that references one of the attacks...

You may choose to see that as **only** an additional limit but clearly it can also be seen as an additional specification.

You choice obviously supports the conclusion you wanted, but the fact is one set of text references only the attack action while the other references the armttack action **and** an attack within that action.

At this point, not wanting to give more credence than is deserved for forum ragers, i will state that IMO because this does change a previous sage ruling, i hope they choose to rather quickly get this into actual eratta or at least into the compendium.

Not that either has to matter to a GM who house rules (including pick and choosers) and dont put RAW and official sources on any pedestal above their own choices.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh Mistwell, I’m sorry, I really am, but nothing you ever say is going to make me far at all about semantics.

I think the word you're looking for is "care" by the way....speaking of semantics.

 

[Mistwell]

Not that either has to matter to a GM who house rules (including pick and choosers) and dont put RAW and official sources on any pedestal above their own choices.

For what it is worth, my DM's reaction was, "this feat was not overpowered in any way to begin with, and in fact it's not even coming up as often as I thought it might, so I really don't care when you use the bonus action."

 

[5ekyu]

They let space in the rules on purpose.
They now made clarifications, trying to not remove all the space.
And still we want THE rule, the one without any doubts or possible meaning.

Its always been common that whenever a rule is changed or clarified or whatever some of those who liked what the new ruling prevents or dont like what the new ruling enables find all sorts of direct and indirect ways to fault the new ruling, even if those faults are things they accept for other rules where they like the results.

Nothing new here... the original ruling gave the feat more power, so much that builds were for some framed around it. Its expected some wont take it quietly.

The key is of course, one of the lines of attack is the *not official enough* or "advise not rule" sage advice status which is funny to me since it is one sage ruling reversing a previous sage ruling.

I can only imagine what one of these guys would have said a month ago to having someone in AL tell them they did not believe sage ruling and so they did not accept the original one - would they have bern "yup, sage is just advice, no problem"? Or would they have pushed the case of how it should be applied to AL due to the sage status?



Nothing new here. Same old same old when a clarification hits a potent build tool. Honestly, this is trlame next to most any MMO patch notes release.

 

[Arial Black]

The ruling on War Magic is in the Sage Advice Compendium. The original ruling appears in the 2016 version of the compendium. Here it is:

Does the “when” in the Eldritch Knight’s War Magic feature mean the bonus attack comes after you cast the cantrip, or can it come before? The intent is that the bonus attack can come before or after the cantrip. You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action specifies when it must take place (PH, 189).​

But in the 2017 version, the ruling was changed to this:

Does the “when” in the Eldritch Knight’s War Magic feature mean the bonus attack comes after you cast the cantrip, or can it come before? The bonus action comes after the cantrip, since using your action to cast a cantrip is what gives you the ability to make the weapon attack as a bonus action. That said, a DM would break nothing in the system by allowing an Eldritch Knight to reverse the order of the cantrip and the weapon attack.​

This change established that words like when and if specify the timing of a bonus action, which has now been clarified to apply to Shield Master as well.

When reading the PHB without the 'benefit' of the tweets/Sage Advice, it is just as reasonable to interpret 'when/if' to mean 'when/if you take this action this round', so both Action and bonus action must be chosen together but the timing withing the round of the execution of each element of those actions is up to the player.

How do I know that this interpretation is 'reasonable'?

Because that is the interpretation and the intention that JC himself had from the time he wrote the PHB until the 2017 errata.

 

[Undrhil]

For the people who don't like "If you do X then you can do Y" as a reasoning for the Shield Master shield bash to come after the attack action, then allow me to point you to another quirky Bonus Action thing:

If you cast a bonus action spell, the only other spell you can cast that turn is a 1-action cantrip.

That's a paraphrase but the basic premise of that rule.

So, what happens if you want to cast Fireball and then Misty Step? You can't do it. You can cast Fireball, but some magical force prevents you from then casting Misty Step. Or you can cast Misty Step and because you "cast an expedient spell" you are unable to cast anything more than Fire Bolt.

However, if you are a Fighter with Action Surge who happens to have spellcasting tendencies, you can cast Fireball, use Action Surge, and cast another leveled spell... just not a bonus action spell.

 

[cbwjm]

For the people who don't like "If you do X then you can do Y" as a reasoning for the Shield Master shield bash to come after the attack action, then allow me to point you to another quirky Bonus Action thing:

If you cast a bonus action spell, the only other spell you can cast that turn is a 1-action cantrip.

That's a paraphrase but the basic premise of that rule.

So, what happens if you want to cast Fireball and then Misty Step? You can't do it. You can cast Fireball, but some magical force prevents you from then casting Misty Step. Or you can cast Misty Step and because you "cast an expedient spell" you are unable to cast anything more than Fire Bolt.

However, if you are a Fighter with Action Surge who happens to have spellcasting tendencies, you can cast Fireball, use Action Surge, and cast another leveled spell... just not a bonus action spell.

Yeah, I ignore the 'bonus action spell + cantrip only' rule so in my games, if a player wants to fireball then misty step, they can or if a sorcerer wants to lay down a couple of fireballs, go for it!