As I read it, it leaves room for intepretation, wether the battlemaster can decide on the direction the target is pushed in, or wether the direction in which the affected creature is pushed, is determined and locked by the fighter's positioning.
For me personally pushing a creature to the straight left or right from it's current position would qualify as "pushed away from you", since the movement wouldn't have any directional component that isn't moving away from your characters position, but I don't know if this is RAW or even intended. It would make sense at least, because you could strike somebody with a horizontal attack.
When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to drive the target back. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll, and if the target is Large or smaller, it must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, you push the target up to 15 feet away from you.
I have always interpreted that as “up to 15 feet [directly] away from you [in a straight line].” Kinda like a shotgun in a movie (not IRL, physics doesn’t actually work that way). The reason being that you could throw a Dart at them and still use this maneuver. I could see the force of an impact driving them straight back, but hitting someone with a dart and making them move sideways seems dubious.
That being said, I could potentially see a DM ruling that as long as the target is further away from the Battle Master after the push that it would still count. I would personally need a player to give me a very good explanation for why it would work on a case by case basis though.
That makes sense! I completely disregarded the fact that it can be used with ranged attacks and therefore needs a consistent application. I think I'll allow my players to use it with sideways movement as long as they are using melee, though, since they could effectively achieve the same outcome with 5 extra feet of movement, which isn't too much of a concession that hugely imbalnces this feature I feel like.
Thank you for the explanation.
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As I read it, it leaves room for intepretation, wether the battlemaster can decide on the direction the target is pushed in, or wether the direction in which the affected creature is pushed, is determined and locked by the fighter's positioning.
For me personally pushing a creature to the straight left or right from it's current position would qualify as "pushed away from you", since the movement wouldn't have any directional component that isn't moving away from your characters position, but I don't know if this is RAW or even intended. It would make sense at least, because you could strike somebody with a horizontal attack.
I have always interpreted that as “up to 15 feet [directly] away from you [in a straight line].” Kinda like a shotgun in a movie (not IRL, physics doesn’t actually work that way). The reason being that you could throw a Dart at them and still use this maneuver. I could see the force of an impact driving them straight back, but hitting someone with a dart and making them move sideways seems dubious.
That being said, I could potentially see a DM ruling that as long as the target is further away from the Battle Master after the push that it would still count. I would personally need a player to give me a very good explanation for why it would work on a case by case basis though.
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That makes sense! I completely disregarded the fact that it can be used with ranged attacks and therefore needs a consistent application. I think I'll allow my players to use it with sideways movement as long as they are using melee, though, since they could effectively achieve the same outcome with 5 extra feet of movement, which isn't too much of a concession that hugely imbalnces this feature I feel like.
Thank you for the explanation.