I get what your saying. But, it's in black and white, you don't get a bonus action until a mechanic gives you one. So there is no bonus action off hand attack to use until the attack action with your main hand gives you one.
Yeah, no one is arguing that you can bonus action attack without making a valid Attack action, just that both happen, and can happen in either order. The Attack gives you the Bonus Attack, but the order can be chosen. That is also written there in black and white. All further arguments both sides are making at based on exclusive interpretations of words which have more than one meaning or inferences from other places. I am agreeing with you, your interpretation is valid and correct - but so is mine. Neither of us can point to an unambiguous sentence which proves their point.
If I understand Zaikyu's argument, they're examining the game as a series of events occurring at points on a one-way timeline (that is, like real life, hehe). So, at any given point during the round, the character in question has either not used his Attack action, in which case he does not have a bonus action (since said bonus action is granted by the event of the Attack action occurring), or he has used his Attack action, in which case he has a bonus action available. From that point of view, the timing is inherent in the conditions that lead to the bonus action, and there is no need to explicitly state it.
On the other hand, we have direct input from the game designer that contradicts such an interpretation of the game: Shield Master gives you a bonus action if you use your action to Attack (during your turn), but that bonus action can be taken before the Attack action.
So while the "fixed-direction, one-way timeline on which events happen" view is probably the most logical, and certainly the most realistic, it's not, apparently, the one the game was designed around. Apparently, actors plan out their next 6 seconds, and by merely deciding to do certain things, other options are available to them. In real life, that makes no sense, clearly. Deciding to hit someone with a club doesn't suddenly make it so that I can now also bash them with my shield. But, of course, many things that make sense in-game make no sense in real life, and that includes more than just "magic". (To be fair, people taking turns in order also makes no sense in real life.)
So yeah, "you need to attack before you can take the bonus action" makes sense, given a strict reading of the rule in a vacuum... but we're told the game world works differently.
Regent is right though. We both are interpreting it in our point of view. One thing about 5th edition compared to previous editions I will say, there is a bit less clarity rule wise and more than a few rules that appear to contradict each other. Don't get me wrong, for my style of DMing this is my favorite edition to date overall, but it thus far leaves almost "to much" up to interpretation and needs more resource books. I miss my multiple volumes of monster manuals and class books.
It is thoughtful of them to write a rulebook that forces us to wrestle with our own understanding of the concepts of time and existence just to decide whether we can throw a dagger or not...
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I get what your saying. But, it's in black and white, you don't get a bonus action until a mechanic gives you one. So there is no bonus action off hand attack to use until the attack action with your main hand gives you one.
Yeah, no one is arguing that you can bonus action attack without making a valid Attack action, just that both happen, and can happen in either order. The Attack gives you the Bonus Attack, but the order can be chosen. That is also written there in black and white. All further arguments both sides are making at based on exclusive interpretations of words which have more than one meaning or inferences from other places. I am agreeing with you, your interpretation is valid and correct - but so is mine. Neither of us can point to an unambiguous sentence which proves their point.
If I understand Zaikyu's argument, they're examining the game as a series of events occurring at points on a one-way timeline (that is, like real life, hehe). So, at any given point during the round, the character in question has either not used his Attack action, in which case he does not have a bonus action (since said bonus action is granted by the event of the Attack action occurring), or he has used his Attack action, in which case he has a bonus action available. From that point of view, the timing is inherent in the conditions that lead to the bonus action, and there is no need to explicitly state it.
On the other hand, we have direct input from the game designer that contradicts such an interpretation of the game: Shield Master gives you a bonus action if you use your action to Attack (during your turn), but that bonus action can be taken before the Attack action.
So while the "fixed-direction, one-way timeline on which events happen" view is probably the most logical, and certainly the most realistic, it's not, apparently, the one the game was designed around. Apparently, actors plan out their next 6 seconds, and by merely deciding to do certain things, other options are available to them. In real life, that makes no sense, clearly. Deciding to hit someone with a club doesn't suddenly make it so that I can now also bash them with my shield. But, of course, many things that make sense in-game make no sense in real life, and that includes more than just "magic". (To be fair, people taking turns in order also makes no sense in real life.)
So yeah, "you need to attack before you can take the bonus action" makes sense, given a strict reading of the rule in a vacuum... but we're told the game world works differently.
Regent is right though. We both are interpreting it in our point of view. One thing about 5th edition compared to previous editions I will say, there is a bit less clarity rule wise and more than a few rules that appear to contradict each other. Don't get me wrong, for my style of DMing this is my favorite edition to date overall, but it thus far leaves almost "to much" up to interpretation and needs more resource books. I miss my multiple volumes of monster manuals and class books.
It is thoughtful of them to write a rulebook that forces us to wrestle with our own understanding of the concepts of time and existence just to decide whether we can throw a dagger or not...