Talonhawke |
Nothing RAW to support me but I would assume that your not required to take it if you don't want to. It would seem silly that your now so trained that you couldn't use the weapon to a lesser extent.
wraithstrike |
Benefit: Any opponents hit by your shield bash are also hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack roll for the combat maneuver check (see Combat). This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
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Attacks are always voluntary.
Attack Roll
An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round.
The word attempt is evidence that it is a conscious choice, not a reactionary one.
Lobolusk |
@Mergy by Raw you can choose not to make an attack roll so if you choose to not bullrush and attack instead then you Could choose not to attack.
Ranged damage is different you cant attack then choose not to roll damage because you have already loosed the arrow.
are you hearing from the DM you can forgo the bullrush? I would like to hear why you think you cant?
Mergy |
@Mergy by Raw you can choose not to make an attack roll so if you choose to not bullrush and attack instead then you Could choose not to attack.
Ranged damage is different you cant attack then choose not to roll damage because you have already loosed the arrow.are you hearing from the DM you can forgo the bullrush? I would like to hear why you think you cant?
There's been no ruling made either way necessarily. From my reading of it, it doesn't seem optional, especially because you substitute your attack roll as your CMB roll; however, I'll be talking to him anyway to see if I can make it optional. As far as I can tell, the feat doesn't allow for you to not take the free bull rush, because there's no 'may' in the wording.
Lobolusk |
But doesn't it go against what you would perceive to be free will?
you slam with a shield then you are compelled by some unknown force to push a dude across the room?
think you cant jut hit them and stop at that? what id the guy had some magical power that every time he was bullrushed he was given 1d10 HP?
wraithstrike |
Not by RAW but common sense say you can. you can hit a target with a sword and then choose not to deal damage by pulling out at the last minute.
That is not correct. You roll the dice separately, but the damage is there when the attack is made. Rolling the attack dice, and the damage dice are not two separate actions. They just require two different real life actions that have to be done to resolve one action which was the attack itself.
wraithstrike |
wraithstrike wrote:That's what I'll present to my GM, but I wish it had been stated explicitly in the feat.A feat is basically something you have learned how to do. Just because you know how to bull rush with a shield that does not mean you have to bull rush with a shield.
Feat that require effort work this way. Things like Iron Will are assumed to always be on.
Sorry your GM is being so difficult also.
Knight Magenta |
If your attack is successful, your target is pushed back 5 feet. For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD you can push the target back an additional 5 feet. You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so. If your attack fails, your movement ends in front of the target.
The "can" implies a choice. You can push someone less than what you rolled. The specific wording does not include 0 ft, but I think that is because in this context, if you wanted to push someone 0 ft you would not use a bullrush action. I think it is safe to generalize so that you can always choose to push less than the maximum.
Selgard |
So lets extend the ruling to other feats, shall we?
like say- extend spell.
Is it optional or mandatory?
Empower Spell (Metamagic)
You can increase the power of your spells, causing them to deal more damage.
Benefit: All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by half.
Saving throws and opposed rolls are not affected, nor are spells without random variables including bonuses to those dice rolls. An empowered spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.
Exhausting Critical, Blinding, bleeding, and deafening crit feats also have the same wording despite you only being able to apply one.
Guess you have to randomly roll for it?
Maximize Spell also had similar (but not exact) wording- but it lacks things like "if you choose" or "if you want to".
I think the clear intent for feats is that you can choose to utilize them or not- therefore a good many of them simply don't include the language that would imply or directly say otherwise. They assume it, rather than stating it out right.
-S