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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5235365" data-attributes="member: 51942">If a PC shifts towards a monster with threatening reach, does he provoke an OA?This question is relevant since it highlights different approaches to reading RAW.  On the one hand, the PHB says that "No opportunity attacks: if you shift out of a square adjacent to an enemy, you don't provoke an Opportunity Attack" and read closely, that suggests that shifting does not protect from opportunity attacks if you shift out of a non-adjacent square.  Read more broadly however, the PHB only ever speaks of OA's for movement from adjacent squares, and the specific wording is just a coincidence of the attempt to be clear where those OA's might come from.I'm firmly in the second camp; RAW should be read like common English text and not like a precise legal document or even a computer program (and on shifting, the MM FAQ seems to be too).Concerning staves then: The PHB simply does not clearly distinguish between staff weapons and staff implements.  When in a clearly weapon context (e.g. the weapons table) they treat it as a weapon; when in a clearly implement context (the small blurb on the 5gp basic staff implement anyone can buy) they call it an implement though mention it doubles as a quarterstaff.  They never spell out that certain staffs are only weapons or only implements, and they frequently fail to make the distinction at all (such as in the most relevant bit of text - the wizard blurb).As such, the interpretation that pries a distinction from the text by examining the detailed wording of an non-primary bit of text - namely the description on the basic non-magical staff implement in the gear section - and deducing from the fact that it mentions the quarterstaff specifically (the only staff weapon in the book) that weapons and implements are distinct is an interpretation I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot staff.As an aside; using propositional logic inference rules (such as A->B => ~B=>~A) is tricky and shouldn't be something you base your ruling on.  If someone says you can have an apple or you can have an orange, and you pick both - are you doing what they meant?  Yet in logic A v B is satisfied when both A and B hold.  If you will, predicate logic is not homomorphic to english text <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />.  If you combine two facts from a text but ignore the context linking the two, you might not be reading what the author meant.The text is supposed to help you play the game, not trick you.  When it says you can use a staff as an implement, the most straightforward interpretation is that any staff will do.  If you can dual-wield a quarterstaff and treat it as if you were holding a staff in both primary and off hand, and if you can use a staff as an implement, then DIS kicks in; you are wielding a magic implement (a staff) in either hand.  Of course, as others have pointed out, this is what the character builder permits, and it's obviously something they explicitly added - a double sword does the same, but an orb does not.</blockquote>

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