I, like many, do not like Crawford's ruling about shield master. I've given this a lot of thought and it just doesn't make physical sense or role play sense if you want to put it that way.
If you've ever watched someone fight with sword and shield, especially a larger shield, you know this doesn't work. It makes no sense to swing with your sword arm, which puts your shield out of line with your enemy, and then attack with that shield (I guess you could pokey-pokey-bash, but that's hardly a real attack). It makes plenty of sense to lean in for heavy bash and follow it with a sword swing. In light of that, this is what Shield Master's first point should say:
"While using a shield, you can use your attack action to make a special shield bash to knock the enemy prone. After you do so, you may use your bonus action to make an attack against that enemy with the weapon in your main hand, even if the shove is unsuccessful."
It comes at the cost of extra attack, but gives a chance for advantage. Good for low levels or vs high AC low str enemies, or for rogues. It also makes more sense physically (one person pointed out that you could attack one enemy run 30 ft and then shield bash a totally different enemy - silly!)
I might even go as far as "If you replace an attack during your attack action with the shove attack you may make one mele attack with your bonus action. You must be wearing a shield to use this feat." It matches how players want to use the feat and really only opens up one extra attack at advantage over players without the feat.
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I, like many, do not like Crawford's ruling about shield master. I've given this a lot of thought and it just doesn't make physical sense or role play sense if you want to put it that way.
If you've ever watched someone fight with sword and shield, especially a larger shield, you know this doesn't work. It makes no sense to swing with your sword arm, which puts your shield out of line with your enemy, and then attack with that shield (I guess you could pokey-pokey-bash, but that's hardly a real attack). It makes plenty of sense to lean in for heavy bash and follow it with a sword swing. In light of that, this is what Shield Master's first point should say:
"While using a shield, you can use your attack action to make a special shield bash to knock the enemy prone. After you do so, you may use your bonus action to make an attack against that enemy with the weapon in your main hand, even if the shove is unsuccessful."
It comes at the cost of extra attack, but gives a chance for advantage. Good for low levels or vs high AC low str enemies, or for rogues. It also makes more sense physically (one person pointed out that you could attack one enemy run 30 ft and then shield bash a totally different enemy - silly!)
Full fighters should probably just be GWM anway.
Any DMs think this is a viable adaptation?
I might even go as far as "If you replace an attack during your attack action with the shove attack you may make one mele attack with your bonus action. You must be wearing a shield to use this feat." It matches how players want to use the feat and really only opens up one extra attack at advantage over players without the feat.