@JeremyECrawford can Blessing of the Forge effect a shield?
— TJA (@Nay_a_no_mi) March 16, 2018
Blessing of the Forge works on a suit of armor or a simple or martial weapon, not a shield. #DnD https://t.co/DtxnRFWONe
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) March 16, 2018
One has to wonder WHY this is the case.
Crawford loves harping on about what the rules actually say, but he never seems to have a good explanation for WHY they say it. Just that they do.
People assume rules like this must be in error, because they don’t seem to make sense. Why exclude shields from this ability? It goes directly against the theming of the ability and subclass. And there is no readily apparent mechanical justification for the exclusion. So why does it exist?
Erroneously written rules are more forgiveable than arbitrary and nonsensical ones. People would rather believe that a writer or editor accidentally excluded shields, than believe that shields were purposefully excluded for no good reason.
Crawford seems so wrapped up in the rules being -technically- correct that he doesn’t seem to be able to recognize when they are -essentially- wrong. It doesn’t matter if the rule as written is logically coherent in form, if the is underlying assumptions of that logic are flawed to begin with.
He appears to hate Tortles specifically…