Lizardfolk Hungry Jaws: 1 hit or 1 attempt per rest?

[x3n0n]

Here's the text of Hungry Jaws ability of the Lizardfolk race as currently found on DNDBeyond: "In battle, you can throw yourself into a vicious feeding frenzy. As a bonus action, you can make a special attack with your bite. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage, and you gain temporary hit points (minimum of 1) equal to your Constitution modifier, and you can’t use this trait again until you finish a short or long rest."

I'm parsing this as "You may attempt this. If it hits, you may not attempt it again (and other effects)."

The summary/gloss on the DNDBeyond character sheet reads differently to me: "Once per short rest as a bonus action, you can make a bite attack. If it hits, you gain 2 temporary HP."

How do others read it: (unlimited attempts until) one hit per short rest, or one attempt per SR, or something else?

[Protolisk]

I try to parse the whole "If" sentence as one massive clause, so "If you hit... you can't try it again."

Infinite attempts until one lands is how I'd use it.

Edit: I don't use DNDBeyond, only the books themselves, so I think they edited it to condense it, but lost important info by doing so.

[WaroftheCrans]

"In battle, you can throw yourself into a vicious feeding frenzy. As a bonus action, you can make a special attack with your bite. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage, and you gain temporary hit points (minimum of 1) equal to your Constitution modifier, and you can’t use this trait again until you finish a short or long rest."
My interpretation is highly semantic, but it falls into the unlimited attempts.
The reason for this is that it's structured as three sentences: the first being "flavor text," the second being the action type and mechanical description and the third is the conditional statement.
Since the part about not using it again is part of the conditional statement it relies on that condition being met: if you don't hit , you don't gain thp or expend a use.

If the resource expenditure clause were a separate sentence I would say it's one attempt. If it were part of any other sentence it would also be one attempt. Since it's part of the conditional statement it's per hit.

[Rynjin]

Here's the text of Hungry Jaws ability of the Lizardfolk race as currently found on DNDBeyond: "In battle, you can throw yourself into a vicious feeding frenzy. As a bonus action, you can make a special attack with your bite. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage, and you gain temporary hit points (minimum of 1) equal to your Constitution modifier, and you can’t use this trait again until you finish a short or long rest."

It seems incredibly clear cut to me. Two sentences.

Sentence 1: As a bonus action, you may make a special attack with your bite. No stated limit on uses.
Sentence 2: If it hits (list of benefits), and you can't use it again until you rest.

If it were intended to be limited in use whether or not it hits, it would have been trivial to phrase it as such: "As a bonus action you can make a special attack with your bite. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage and you gain temp HP equal to your Con mod. This ability may be used only once per Short Rest."

[x3n0n]

Thanks, folks. Glad to hear you all agree (and all agree with me, to boot). :)

[Lunali]

Edit: I don't use DNDBeyond, only the books themselves, so I think they edited it to condense it, but lost important info by doing so.

This particular one isn't edited down any, typically the only text that gets edited down is the text that goes on the actual character sheet. Even there, I've rarely found it to be missing any important information. At the very least, it misses important info less frequently than I would if I were copying it to a character sheet.

[x3n0n]

This particular one isn't edited down any, typically the only text that gets edited down is the text that goes on the actual character sheet. Even there, I've rarely found it to be missing any important information. At the very least, it misses important info less frequently than I would if I were copying it to a character sheet.

Right.

To amplify that: since a virtual character sheet has *lots* of stuff, they put snippets of text to describe a feature, and then if you click on the feature, the full text comes up. This particular snippet happens to be misleading enough that I thought the feature did something different than it really does.

[JNAProductions]

Agreed with the others-you can keep trying till it hits.

Like the old Reliable abilities from 4E.

[Verble]

This is the first time I've even thought that it might not be a single attempt per short rest. This is a big boon to my Lizardfolk Moon Druid. As a 6th level Polar Bear I can get 3 attacks a turn until my BA bite connects.

It makes sense that a 'feeding frenzy' wouldn't be satisfied until your bite attacks connects.