Yes,
obviously they intended to limit it. Yes, by placing a limit on something, they did in fact mean to limit it. However, that's so obvious that it's tautological; it's circular reasoning, which is why it's not persuasive. The mere existence of a rule does not mean that that rule is necessary, useful, or beneficial to the game even if the designers thought it was when they wrote it. Existence of a rule does not mean that it is
necessary. You have to show
why the game breaks without the rule.
Let's set that aside for a moment.
Your argument here seems to be based on the fact that you think a shove action is equivalent to an attack.
I do not believe that. Yes, you can trade an attack for a shove, but you can't do the reverse. It's one way only, and it's a trade
down in power and utility. A shove deals zero damage, while an attack does damage. A shove works on a limited subset of creatures. An attack basically works on everything essentially always (with very limited exceptions proving the rule). Shove is clearly a less powerful ability than an attack is in general -- this is easy to judge just by comparing the number of shoves to the number of attack rolls that occur in your games -- so shove is, at best, situationally useful. A character with Shield Master will
often not use their bonus action to shove, IMX, and in that case that ability of the feat provides no benefit. I do not equate using Dodge and Shove together as being remotely similar as using Dodge and Attack together. I think one is minimally useful at best, and the other is significantly more useful.
Therefore, yes, I have no problem at all allowing Shield Master's shove ability to be used as a bonus action when the character takes actions other than Attack.
However,
that does not mean that I think there should be a general rule where all Attack-linked bonus actions should be allowed after any given action taken.
And that is exactly what I read when you say this:
This statement inaccurately represents what I'm saying by assuming that my exception for
one feat must be a general rule for all Attack-linked bonus actions. That is not what I'm saying at all, so this example is entirely unpersuasive of any point you were trying to make with it.
To be clear, this is what I could allow with very little fear of abuse:
- Shield Master shove with Attack action
- Shield Master shove with many non-Attack actions
- Any attack-linked bonus action with Attack action
- Any attack-linked bonus action with Attack action even if there are no targets to attack (i.e., "Do Nothing") as long as the bonus action still makes sense (i.e., it doesn't refer to a creature you attacked this turn or similar)
I understand that Crawford thinks that a master of shield tactics shoving with a shield requires that you also swing a sword at somebody. I don't buy that. I also don't buy the idea that the game breaks if you allow someone to take the Attack action and
make no attack rolls and then use an Attack-linked bonus action.
Hell, I don't even buy the idea that you can't choose to take no regular Action and use two [non-Attack- or other action-linked] bonus actions in one turn as long as you're not taking the same bonus action twice. I'm sorry Crawford, but if I can make an attack and cast Shillelagh together in 6 seconds and the attack takes longer, and I can make an attack and cast Healing Word together in 6 seconds and the attack takes longer, then I can certainly see that I could cast Shillelagh and Healing Word together in 6 seconds, too. The general rule of "what can you do in 6 seconds" should still apply
especially when the actions taken are neither disruptive of game balance nor prone to abusive play.
Maybe Crawford thinks this is more complicated to let the rules be more flexible than what they have now. Maybe it is for new players. I do not think it does, however. I think it adds a lot of needless rules burden and needless restrictions. I think all that discourages creative and natural play.
So much - let's be generous- apparent confusion in this I hardly know where to begin.
"I understand that Crawford thinks that a master of shield tactics shoving with a shield requires that you also swing a sword at somebody. "
Actually as JEC has said, you can shove with a shield without swinging a sword at them first - its represented in the rules as using an attack to shove.
Everytime someone paints this as a question of "can I use shove first?" they are doing or revealing either confusion orbintentionsl misdirection.
If you can take the attack action and your target is legal to shove then you can shove... as an attack as part of the attack sction.
What is being defined here is when you can by dint of this feat get allowed a bonus action shove in addition to an attack action.
As for tautology... again you said you did not see a reason why it was limited to go with attack actions and I pointed out why I thought this feat and others made a fairly consistent case of limiting bonus sction offense to only getting granted whrn you took an offensive bonus action as well. To me, not opening up willy nilly offensive bonus at-wills with non-offensive actions seems really good and sound design. If it doesnt to you, if that's in the list of reasons you dismissed as not worth noting, that's fine - we play very different gsmes.
As for the power of shove vs the power of attacks, the games I run are not solo games but gtoup gsmes and so there I'd not this overly simplistic accounting of who will get up before whom that says that a shove at the end of your action is gonna be useless.
In fact, I have seen shoves in a group setting to be very strong. A strong shove character getting a bonus shove st the end of their attacks can knock down a foe, often a weaker foe, allowing another to strike with advsantage and that can be big if the follow-up guy has some heavy damage potential like smites or sneak or even special effects like hex or maybe their attack hits the vulnerabilities. I recall fondly a session where my character handed the only-dagger-that-mattered to the hulking cleric-warrior and the used help to let her hit, falling the foe.
If I had been a bonus action shove built character, it could have been stronger giving her multiple shots with advantage over the turn.
Net result is this, in a group game, shove is a support move, not a damage move and can be if used well and with planning as or more powerful than an attack. Too often "analysis" is skewed by focusing on events as if it's a one-on-one fight, when the game was designed for group play.
"Shove is clearly a less powerful ability than an attack is in general -- this is easy to judge just by comparing the number of shoves to the number of attack rolls that occur in your games "
That's just faulty logic. Firebolt is cast more often than fireball but that doesnt mean firebolt is more powerful.
A single shove can allow multiple effects over the turn - setting up advantage strikes, setting up disadvtantage on the downed foe opportunity attack helping escapes or end runs, even simply removing a partial cover issue for friendly attacks against those behind the now prone foe... not to mention movement reduction in cases where that matters.
It's kind of like say "casting bless" vs using the help action. Bless gives multiple allies bonuses to hit and save over multiple turns - to every attack. Help gives one character one attack at advantage. You can likely "help" more than you can cast bless and hey, for one attack only, help may seem more powerful, but bless is overall gonna add a lot more to that combat if used when it matters than help will in spite of it being cast as an action less often.
But we dont have to agree...
After all, maybe your game sees more solo fights where an end of turn bonus shove **is** actually pointless. Maybe in your games the state of tactical play does lead shoves to be seen as somehow weak sauce when it comes to tools that help win fights. If so, maybe lots of house rules help that work out great for you.
Me? Not do much. I disagree with the "indivisible action" part of the various JEC rulings, but I see a great deal of sense and good for the game results in the "attack action" (at least one attack) being required before you earn your bonus attacks for the cases where it is required.
***
One last bit... it's just not true that a rule has to be preventing game breaking for it to be needed or good for the game. If you want to set the bar for *I am right unless it can be proven I break the game* that's fine, but I find there to be a whole lot more nuance and sophistication to games and rules than someone's idea of broken or not.
I use cooking analogies frequently and for instance my burger for supper is not "broken and rendered inedible" if I dont add sauteed mushrooms - but it sure is to me better with them. My cream sauces are not broken without nutmeg, but they are not as good.
Same for games - D&D is likely not broken without the Bless spell or the barbarian class- but it's better with them - to my tastes.
But you enjoy your games, like I will enjoy mine.