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Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7283009" data-attributes="member: 6919838">So, I have this rule that has served me well for man years that I call "The Stupid Rule"."If i will feel stupid explaining this (often a rule) to my players in or out of game, then i will not use or change this."Given i play with mixed groups of veteran players, new players, roleplayer, number crunchers etc at various times, it has served me well to help keep the games running smoothly.Now, for the record, "its a genre thing" does not make me feel stupid. chandelier swinging swashbucklers - no problem. But let me give you an example heading forward that is scratching that "stupid rule itch" - the seemingly arbitrary division between ability checks and attack rolls.base in point: HEX (1st level spell) or even Guidance (cantrip) (plus class abilities that allow advantage on checks) all allow an adjustment to ability checks -  one a disadvantage the other a bonus d4. but they do not affect attack rolls. Likely plenty more examples.So, for most cases, i can justify this with say "attack roll is quick, short only needing success for an  instant thing while ability check is ongoing" and i can cover that something that is a problem or boon to a climb is different than just a quick swing or flurry.But then there's grapple and shove - the attacks that are not attack rolls but ability checks. Now, grapple obviously can fall under "ongoing" for making sense but shove - not so much. the game has attack rolls against ability checks - disarm. So there seems to be flexibility in how things can be done, not exclusively attack rolls and ability checks always separate.It seems the easiest fix would be to change shove into an unarmed attack roll vs ath/acro just like disarm is an attack roll. this flat out changes which type of things would benefit your shove absolutely and thus just swaps around certain ways to optimize it, but it makes the division between attack roll and ability check a bit clearer and leaves me the general division for "stupid rule" between "attack = quick" and "check = complex" kind of fluff - which for sure is not precisely true but is close enough for private sector.Now, to be clear, i do not have a problem with "but this build combo wont make a good grappler now" or "this combo will now be a good grappler now" and the fact that it switches around your preferred build selections here and there to achieve your goals, but are there other landmines in this approach? it does split shove and grapple into two different types of rolls but at the same time making shove and punch the same type of roll. Any thoughts on impacts of this change, if you have done it, better explanations for the difference between shove and punch that makes guidance work on one but not the other, on the Stupid Rule itself etc are all appreciated.Thanks</blockquote>

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