The shove attack is a skill contest as stated in this section of the PHB:
Shoving a Creature
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.
It's also worth noting that you can use your bonus action to make the shove attack BEFORE using your action to attack. It's enough that you are declaring that you will be making an attack to satisfy the requirements to allow use of your bonus action.
I have a question regarding the bonus action shove:
If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield.
So, if I make an attack roll with my weapon, I then make an attack roll with my shield to shove them?
Just remember that you must use the Attack action, not just roll an attack. Small but important distinction. A case where the difference matters is something like Booming Blade where you make an attack roll with a weapon but are actually using the Cast a Spell action rather than the Attack action. Other examples include attacks of opportunity and attacks granted by a Battlemaster's Commander's Strike, both of which use reactions.
Jeremy calls it a clarification when in fact, he completely reverses what he said before about it. Maybe next month he'll change his mind again. So take your pick which Sage Advice RAI you prefer. RAW doesn't specify other than saying that if you shove, as a bonus action, it's because you are committed to taking the attack action.
Jeremy calls it a clarification when in fact, he completely reverses what he said before about it. Maybe next month he'll change his mind again. So take your pick which Sage Advice RAI you prefer. RAW doesn't specify other than saying that if you shove, as a bonus action, it's because you are committed to taking the attack action.
It is annoying that he changed his mind and it is much more useful to shove and then attack. However, RAW you do need to attack first. It has an if/then statement and you can't do the then until the if is satisfied. Otherwise you could get into situations where you shove an enemy, that triggers a reaction from them that prevents you from attacking, and then you've shoved as a bonus action without having had the ability to do so.
It has an if statement, not an if/then statement. There's a big difference.
EDIT: It's obvious that Jeremy Crawford (eventually) intended the bonus action to follow the attack action. I'm not contesting that. However, you said that RAW says the attack needs to come first. I am disagreeing with that assessment.
That's actually the problem I have with the ruling.
He intended for the Shove to be do-able before the attack. That is evident from the rulings before this year. Before this year all actions in 5e were supposed to be agnostic of order. So you when you start the Attack Action is irrelevant in the turn as long as it's accomplished.
The only way a player could USE the bonus action and be unable to complete the Attack Action would be if they had already moved their maximum distance and then shoved the enemy 5', leaving them with no movement and no target to attack. This while possible is absurd and no one but a QA engineer would do it, so it still passes.
Since order is Agnostic you start the Attack Action, interrupt it with a Bonus Action, then complete it. I wish JC had explained why he changed his mind after 3 years, because it leaves a lot of people looking at a feat and going "we it kind of sucks now, because it does.". He has stated they have no intention of rewording it and this also frustrates people.
The only consolation I can give is that it should be possible once you hit 5th lvl to use Extra Attack. So you make 1 attack, use the Bonus Action to Shove, then make the 2nd attack after the Shove.
JC’s reasoning for this change (or clarification?) is that he’s trying to be consistent with his rulings? Ok, but I’d be more concerned about the role playing rather than whether the wording of the feat, bonus action rules or anything else makes it possible.
Shield Master feat says you can use a bonus action to shove a creature within 5 feet. It says if you take the Attack action on your turn but it doesn’t say it has to be a creature that you attacked with the attack action. This indicates to me that the shield shove isn’t a follow through of your attack. There doesn’t seem to be any role playing reason that the shove has to come after the attack, only that it has to be on a turn that you are fully committed to attacking. It’s part of your style of fighting.
Given that this change has a tremendous negative impact on the use of the Shield Master feat, I would say ignore this ruling and go with what makes sense to you. Of course AL players and DMs may not have that luxury.
JC’s reasoning for this change (or clarification?) is that he’s trying to be consistent with his rulings? Ok, but I’d be more concerned about the role playing rather than whether the wording of the feat, bonus action rules or anything else makes it possible.
Shield Master feat says you can use a bonus action to shove a creature within 5 feet. It says if you take the Attack action on your turn but it doesn’t say it has to be a creature that you attacked with the attack action. This indicates to me that the shield shove isn’t a follow through of your attack. There doesn’t seem to be any role playing reason that the shove has to come after the attack, only that it has to be on a turn that you are fully committed to attacking. It’s part of your style of fighting.
Given that this change has a tremendous negative impact on the use of the Shield Master feat, I would say ignore this ruling and go with what makes sense to you. Of course AL players and DMs may not have that luxury.
I'm guessing he's drawing the line in the sand now because either other rulings have been written similarly with the intent of having action A go before B can happen. Since that would create a disjunction between rulings it's probably safer to say that Shield Master does the same thing, since they're worded the same. This is all a guess, I don't have anything to back this up.
Personally I disagree with bonus actions between attacks from the attack action. From the attack action:
Attack
The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists.
With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. See the "Making an Attack" section for the rules that govern attacks.
Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature of the fighter, allow you to make more than one attack with this action.
This simply states, you may attack once unless you may do more often. It does not declare that you can do anything between those attacks. Then, under Combat -> Breaking up your move:
Moving Between Attacks
If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. For example, a fighter who can make two attacks with the Extra Attack feature and who has a speed of 25 feet could move 10 feet, make an attack, move 15 feet, and then attack again.
This rule enables that whenever you have multiple attacks you may move between those attacks. This also includes spells or other effects that allow you to make a weapon attack, since this rule does not refer to the "attack action" per se but to "an action that includes more than one weapon attack".
Unless I'm mistaken, there's nowhere that states that you can use a bonus action whenever. It's simply put "on your turn". Now this leaves it somewhat up for debate, since it's not said that you can't do it... It's a bit of a conundrum.
Personally I believe it's rules as intended that you can't use bonus actions as part of the attack action, unless specified. Allowing so would open a whole can of worms with unforseen combinations of spells, features and attacks that I would not allow at my table. I also don't believe this is what the designers (and mr. Crawford) intended because it complicates things and slows down combat.
that said
While I do believe that this is the case RAW, I don't think some actions particularly break the game when a DM would allow a bonus action between the attacks and might be used for very cool scenes such as a fighter/sorcerer attacking, then using misty step to go to another opponent and attacking them. In the Adventure League, however, I would not build a character around this concept since I don't think it's meant to be used that way.
Bummed by Shield Master... I kinda built my current character around Shield Master. I had been 'taught' by my daughter's gaming group that bonus actions could be taken in any order in a turn. When first building him, I wanted to make sure, did some searching and found an apparently official ruling on the subject:
Apparently his reason for this ruling has nothing to do with balance or a desire to nerf anything, by his own words, but is him semantically frankly nitpicking. I am feeling very frustrated with this, because it feels like artificial rules lawyering utterly divorced from any semblance of reality. I have personally, on numerous occasions back in my SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) days, stood in battle shoulder to shoulder with weapon and shield fighters, clashing with opposing lines. I have fought in set piece field battles of thousands, as well as woods battles filled with small unit action and fluid movement, and I've witnessed countless shield bashes. Every last stinking one of them was a shield bash followed by weapon strikes. Every one of them. Not a single one was weapon strikes followed by a shield bash.
A shield bash is meant to destabilize an opponent, to knock them off balance, to create an opening for your weapon strikes. You do not wail strikes at a braced and shielded opponent, and then as an afterthought, give them a shield bash. And you most emphatically do not do that and then stand around waiting while they recover before you do some more weapon strikes at them again braced with their shield.
If this ruling stands, I am forced to re-evaluate the whole idea of weapon and shield in D&D. Polearm Mastery with Sentinel is now head and shoulders superior to shield.
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To be fair, polearm mastery with sentinel has long been recognised as the most powerful combination of feats for a melee character in 5th edition D&D. :)
I understand what you're saying about using a shield though - the game rules don't really capture how a shield would really be used in a fight, based upon our real-world knowledge, but this is a fantasy game and rules are often designed to simplify things.
I'm not making excuses for others here, but pointing out that maybe a mistake has been made, but for the right reasons - having a set of rules that are consistent.
I'm trying to think of other situations where a player might want to take a bonus action in the middle of an action. The examples I can think of are pretty irrelevant because the bonus action works just as well before or after the action.
I'm trying to think of other situations where a player might want to take a bonus action in the middle of an action. The examples I can think of are pretty irrelevant because the bonus action works just as well before or after the action.
Yeah I think that in most cases this would be true. However, it's the thing that this particular action (shield shove) is a lot more effective before the Attack action rather than after. However, mr. Crawford said that the trigger needs to have happened in order to use any feature, meaning that the attack action has to be done to its completion before you could use the bonus action to shove. And since standing up provides no attack of opportunity in 5e, a melee enemy could simple stand up and the shove was pointless, maybe even hindering if your allies all use ranged attacks.
The only way to make use of shoving an enemy prone yourself seems to be to use action surge after using the shield master feat.
At my table, I've held that (1) you must actually attack before using the bonus action shove; (2) once you've made one attack, you can use the bonus action between any other attacks.
This seems consistent to me. The feat says you have to take the attack action before shoving, not that you just have to have the intention to attack in your brain. However, it doesn't say you have to complete the attack action before making the shove. And, if you can break up your multiattacks with running around the battlefield, I see no reason why you can't also break them up with a bonus action (particularly when that action is whacking someone right in front of you with a shield).
I've considered houseruling that standing up after being knocked prone provokes an opportunity attack since, as RAJ points out, it seems like a lot of the time knocking something prone ends up being pointless as the creature just stands up at the start of its next turn with no consequence (other than some lost movement). I haven't thought through the balance issues on this, though.
Also, I haven't run into any game-breaking, spell-related problems allowing bonus actions between attacks. The only such combo I can think of that's come up at my table is attack --> misty step ---> attack, which I think is pretty cool.
I feel that the rule is fairly open to interpretation, as can be seen by the fact that the rules designer himself has changed his mind on what the rule means.
If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield.
Generic_Poster's interpretation above is the one that I personally go with and have seen mentioned by others.
The feat states that you must take the attack action. By completing a single attack from that attack action, I believe that you have satisfied that condition - you are no longer able to decide to take a different action instead.
Honestly, with the previous interpretation (clarification) via twitter, that the bonus action could be taken prior to attacking, I saw that resulting in characters using it ALL the time, every round. I feel with using it in the middle of multiple attacks, it's a bit more situational.
The feat says you have to take the attack action before shoving, not that you just have to have the intention to attack in your brain.
Can you point me to where the feat says this?
It's purely academic for me since none of my players have the feat (yet?) I think if you specified that you have to take and complete the attack action before using the bonus action, that would cripple the feat's functionality. The thing that is so interesting to me about this is that Crawford clearly stated that the bonus action can be taken at any point, even prior to the action. Then over a year later he changed his mind. That is not a clarification. It's a complete reversal. I wonder what it was that he noticed as being problematic in his first ruling that caused him to reverse himself.
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Hey there,
I have a question regarding the bonus action shove:
If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield.
So, if I make an attack roll with my weapon, I then make an attack roll with my shield to shove them?
The shove attack is a skill contest as stated in this section of the PHB:
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D&D Beyond FoundersIt's also worth noting that you can use your bonus action to make the shove attack BEFORE using your action to attack. It's enough that you are declaring that you will be making an attack to satisfy the requirements to allow use of your bonus action.
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Which is usually a preferred tactic, given that you have advantage on melee attacks against prone opponents. :)
Oooh, ok. Thanks for the clearing that up everyone!
This is incorrect according to Jeremy Crawford just for the record. https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/994993596989300736
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Jeremy calls it a clarification when in fact, he completely reverses what he said before about it. Maybe next month he'll change his mind again. So take your pick which Sage Advice RAI you prefer. RAW doesn't specify other than saying that if you shove, as a bonus action, it's because you are committed to taking the attack action.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It is annoying that he changed his mind and it is much more useful to shove and then attack. However, RAW you do need to attack first. It has an if/then statement and you can't do the then until the if is satisfied. Otherwise you could get into situations where you shove an enemy, that triggers a reaction from them that prevents you from attacking, and then you've shoved as a bonus action without having had the ability to do so.
It has an if statement, not an if/then statement. There's a big difference.
EDIT: It's obvious that Jeremy Crawford (eventually) intended the bonus action to follow the attack action. I'm not contesting that. However, you said that RAW says the attack needs to come first. I am disagreeing with that assessment.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
That's actually the problem I have with the ruling.
He intended for the Shove to be do-able before the attack. That is evident from the rulings before this year.
Before this year all actions in 5e were supposed to be agnostic of order. So you when you start the Attack Action is irrelevant in the turn as long as it's accomplished.
The only way a player could USE the bonus action and be unable to complete the Attack Action would be if they had already moved their maximum distance and then shoved the enemy 5', leaving them with no movement and no target to attack. This while possible is absurd and no one but a QA engineer would do it, so it still passes.
Since order is Agnostic you start the Attack Action, interrupt it with a Bonus Action, then complete it. I wish JC had explained why he changed his mind after 3 years, because it leaves a lot of people looking at a feat and going "we it kind of sucks now, because it does.". He has stated they have no intention of rewording it and this also frustrates people.
The only consolation I can give is that it should be possible once you hit 5th lvl to use Extra Attack. So you make 1 attack, use the Bonus Action to Shove, then make the 2nd attack after the Shove.
JC’s reasoning for this change (or clarification?) is that he’s trying to be consistent with his rulings? Ok, but I’d be more concerned about the role playing rather than whether the wording of the feat, bonus action rules or anything else makes it possible.
Shield Master feat says you can use a bonus action to shove a creature within 5 feet. It says if you take the Attack action on your turn but it doesn’t say it has to be a creature that you attacked with the attack action. This indicates to me that the shield shove isn’t a follow through of your attack. There doesn’t seem to be any role playing reason that the shove has to come after the attack, only that it has to be on a turn that you are fully committed to attacking. It’s part of your style of fighting.
Given that this change has a tremendous negative impact on the use of the Shield Master feat, I would say ignore this ruling and go with what makes sense to you. Of course AL players and DMs may not have that luxury.
I'm guessing he's drawing the line in the sand now because either other rulings have been written similarly with the intent of having action A go before B can happen. Since that would create a disjunction between rulings it's probably safer to say that Shield Master does the same thing, since they're worded the same. This is all a guess, I don't have anything to back this up.
Personally I disagree with bonus actions between attacks from the attack action. From the attack action:
This simply states, you may attack once unless you may do more often. It does not declare that you can do anything between those attacks. Then, under Combat -> Breaking up your move:
This rule enables that whenever you have multiple attacks you may move between those attacks. This also includes spells or other effects that allow you to make a weapon attack, since this rule does not refer to the "attack action" per se but to "an action that includes more than one weapon attack".
Unless I'm mistaken, there's nowhere that states that you can use a bonus action whenever. It's simply put "on your turn". Now this leaves it somewhat up for debate, since it's not said that you can't do it... It's a bit of a conundrum.
Personally I believe it's rules as intended that you can't use bonus actions as part of the attack action, unless specified. Allowing so would open a whole can of worms with unforseen combinations of spells, features and attacks that I would not allow at my table. I also don't believe this is what the designers (and mr. Crawford) intended because it complicates things and slows down combat.
that said
While I do believe that this is the case RAW, I don't think some actions particularly break the game when a DM would allow a bonus action between the attacks and might be used for very cool scenes such as a fighter/sorcerer attacking, then using misty step to go to another opponent and attacking them. In the Adventure League, however, I would not build a character around this concept since I don't think it's meant to be used that way.
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Bummed by Shield Master... I kinda built my current character around Shield Master. I had been 'taught' by my daughter's gaming group that bonus actions could be taken in any order in a turn. When first building him, I wanted to make sure, did some searching and found an apparently official ruling on the subject:
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D&D Beyond FoundersTo be fair, polearm mastery with sentinel has long been recognised as the most powerful combination of feats for a melee character in 5th edition D&D. :)
I understand what you're saying about using a shield though - the game rules don't really capture how a shield would really be used in a fight, based upon our real-world knowledge, but this is a fantasy game and rules are often designed to simplify things.
I'm not making excuses for others here, but pointing out that maybe a mistake has been made, but for the right reasons - having a set of rules that are consistent.
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I'm trying to think of other situations where a player might want to take a bonus action in the middle of an action. The examples I can think of are pretty irrelevant because the bonus action works just as well before or after the action.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Yeah I think that in most cases this would be true. However, it's the thing that this particular action (shield shove) is a lot more effective before the Attack action rather than after. However, mr. Crawford said that the trigger needs to have happened in order to use any feature, meaning that the attack action has to be done to its completion before you could use the bonus action to shove. And since standing up provides no attack of opportunity in 5e, a melee enemy could simple stand up and the shove was pointless, maybe even hindering if your allies all use ranged attacks.
The only way to make use of shoving an enemy prone yourself seems to be to use action surge after using the shield master feat.
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
At my table, I've held that (1) you must actually attack before using the bonus action shove; (2) once you've made one attack, you can use the bonus action between any other attacks.
This seems consistent to me. The feat says you have to take the attack action before shoving, not that you just have to have the intention to attack in your brain. However, it doesn't say you have to complete the attack action before making the shove. And, if you can break up your multiattacks with running around the battlefield, I see no reason why you can't also break them up with a bonus action (particularly when that action is whacking someone right in front of you with a shield).
I've considered houseruling that standing up after being knocked prone provokes an opportunity attack since, as RAJ points out, it seems like a lot of the time knocking something prone ends up being pointless as the creature just stands up at the start of its next turn with no consequence (other than some lost movement). I haven't thought through the balance issues on this, though.
Also, I haven't run into any game-breaking, spell-related problems allowing bonus actions between attacks. The only such combo I can think of that's come up at my table is attack --> misty step ---> attack, which I think is pretty cool.
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D&D Beyond FoundersI feel that the rule is fairly open to interpretation, as can be seen by the fact that the rules designer himself has changed his mind on what the rule means.
Generic_Poster's interpretation above is the one that I personally go with and have seen mentioned by others.
The feat states that you must take the attack action. By completing a single attack from that attack action, I believe that you have satisfied that condition - you are no longer able to decide to take a different action instead.
Honestly, with the previous interpretation (clarification) via twitter, that the bonus action could be taken prior to attacking, I saw that resulting in characters using it ALL the time, every round. I feel with using it in the middle of multiple attacks, it's a bit more situational.
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Can you point me to where the feat says this?
It's purely academic for me since none of my players have the feat (yet?) I think if you specified that you have to take and complete the attack action before using the bonus action, that would cripple the feat's functionality. The thing that is so interesting to me about this is that Crawford clearly stated that the bonus action can be taken at any point, even prior to the action. Then over a year later he changed his mind. That is not a clarification. It's a complete reversal. I wonder what it was that he noticed as being problematic in his first ruling that caused him to reverse himself.
"Not all those who wander are lost"