Shield Master POLL: Rules as Fun!

[DND_Reborn]

Rules have been written in a casual and friendly way.
It is on purpose that they avoid a more formal and accurate way.
They decide to let dm decide their best interpretation of ambiguous parts.
It seem that some people get crazy about that! Funny!

True, but for me and I imagine some others it comes from earlier editions when there where more concrete rules specifically written to avoid confusion, not foster it. Of course, I am certain because some of those rules were so complex, they caused confusion anyway.

If DMs didn't like the rules, we changed them anyway. Either way, same result: people debate them and make changes as desired.

 

[Azzy]

You are thinking along the right lines but incorrect on some of your points.

2. With TWF, if you use your attack to shove, you don't get the bonus action to attack because it requires an attack with a light melee weapon. A shove is not an attack with a weapon of any sort.
2b. If you have extra attack, you can shove (attack), attack (extra attack), attack (TWF bonus) though.

I believe his example was your 2b.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I believe his example was your 2b.

I would think so, too, but I wanted to clarify the comparison more concretely. At one point, I was thinking along the same lines, but have since realized that if your goal is to shove Shield Master is superior in many respects to TWF.

 

[Yardiff]

dnd4vr Did you get what you were looking for with this Pole?

 

[DND_Reborn]

dnd4vr Did you get what you were looking for with this Pole?

Quite a bit, actually. I only started playing again about six months ago, so I was never part of the original Shield Master rulings. To me, it made more sense reading it the way I would any if-then conditional, with the Attack action first (or at least one attack).

I would guess with a bit over 1/2 using the shove whenever they want, it follows the original rulings, but others like me are in the next larger group with at least one attack "opening the way for the shove". That's how we read it, anyway, for the most part.

The lowest group that uses feats is the shove first, but in hindsight I wished I had removed the "any time during your turn" option, since I would think many of them would fall in the "shove first" group if forced to choose. Who knows?

Regardless of how you interpret the feat, the important thing is that each table runs to in a manner which brings them the most fun! That was what I wanted to know. In retrospect, I wonder if ANY bonus action really needs timing? Like the Eldritch Knight, would any granted bonus action really break the game if allowed to take at any point in their turn? Something to think about.

I do want to thank everyone whose voted and added to the thread. Thanks and play on!

 

[Satyrn]

The lowest group that uses feats is the shove first, but in hindsight I wished I had removed the "any time during your turn" option, since I would think many of them would fall in the "shove first" group if forced to choose. Who knows?

If you had removed that option, I wouldn't have answered the poll, and I would've told you that none of your options matched the way my table rules.

Because even if my table universally uses the shove first, we haven't ruled that it must come first.

 

[Oofta]

If you had removed that option, I wouldn't have answered the poll, and I would've told you that none of your options matched the way my table rules.

Because even if my table universally uses the shove first, we haven't ruled that it must come first.

Ditto. Sometimes I did it first, sometimes between, sometimes after all my attacks. Depended on the situation. For my game all I care about is that they've declared they're attacking.

 

[Brashnir2]

I'm aware of how the rule is written, but I'm okay with the shove happening any time during the turn, as long as an attack is intended. If somehow the attack is prevented, then retroactively if the attack was prevented, we usually say the shove was the action for that turn. For some people it's easier to just remember "I get a free shove once a turn" and use it than memorize the specific situations in which it's usable. While I personally very much enjoy system mastery over a complex ruleset, that's not everybody's jam, and I'm willing to be accommodating.

Similar to how I see a lot of tables using Inspiration as an after-the-fact-reroll mechanic instead of a spend-first-for-advantage mechanic the way it's written. But that's a topic for a different thread.

Totally agree. I also allow College of Swords Bards to use their extra 10 feet of movement before making an attack, as long as an attack action was declared.

It's not that hard as a DM to find ways to challenge the party, so I let them use their abilities and feel awesome while tweaking things behind the curtain to make sure encounters aren't constantly steamrolled. (though an occasional steamroll is also super fun for the players, so sometimes I just let it happen.)

 

[DND_Reborn]

If you had removed that option, I wouldn't have answered the poll, and I would've told you that none of your options matched the way my table rules.

Because even if my table universally uses the shove first, we haven't ruled that it must come first.

Ditto. Sometimes I did it first, sometimes between, sometimes after all my attacks. Depended on the situation. For my game all I care about is that they've declared they're attacking.

Valid points. I guess I just added it to be complete, and later thought it might have been too "open" to be useful. Glad I was wrong!

 

[Argyle King]

In the current group, we haven't really discussed it, but it seems as though we've just sorta naturally fallen into the idea that one attack needs to be made first, then the shield bash, and then whatever...

If pressed to think about it, I'm not really sure where my own individual thinking falls. Thematically, a lot of fighting styles treat the shield as an active weapon, with shoves, bashes, and etc being a prominent part of those styles. So, in my mind, that's one point toward allowing the bonus action to come first. If we're talking strictly rules-as-written, I feel as though the game-logic and how things are labelled seem to point toward things working the way that the group in which I am in currently does things, so that's one mental point toward that. Other rpgs that I play allow a shield be used in a more active manner, but those rpgs also contain combat systems which tend to lean more toward the granularity of a "real" (for a lack of better words) fight; D&D has different assumptions about how the gameworld and combat work, so I'm not quite sure which way that tips my opinion.

From a broader scale, I think that it's hardly the most gamebreaking thing in 5e, but I can see (and have seen) situations in which being able to keep an opponent prone can be quite powerful. Though, even then, we're talking the difference of one attack (attack-bash-attack versus bash-attack-attack), so I am not sure that it really matters or that the feat itself (and being more open to how to rule it) is the problem. I think that, perhaps, it simply highlights one of the areas of the system which arguably has a quirk/flaw on the broader scale of how things are put together, but that manner of construction is relatively consistent with how the rest of the game works.