Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback another thread about SHOVE

I could have just been really lucky but I've only ran into 2 scenarios where shove screwed me over. First one made me laugh, if I can remember correctly my party was on fire and wanted to rush it. Jumped on a ledge that was trapped and shot my character off, it was, "this is what I get" kind of scenario.

Second one actually pissed me off, combat started abruptly, I haven't been save scumming so I just went with it, first round both my main character and my cleric got shoved into lava instantly. That was round one you are dead.

Yeah, so that's out of 71 hours still in act 1 and two areas still to finish, not bad.

Edit* oh btw I don't shove enemies off the edges either but I do have a really nice barb for dmg.

if you shove
In other cases i don't care about poor loot.

I must try that mod - I was also shoved off duergar boat, and off narrow walkways, and by Balthazar's minions - there I survived some shove attempts. But one 'thundering' arrow blasted gale into the abyss. At least the arrow (which is still overpowered - like all larians's special arrows) requires an action - BA shove, as examples have shown, just too good for the AI to pass up. I don't see why I should be forced to give everyone athletics proficiency etc to try ad avoid a broken game mechanic, that Larian simply won't fix because 'lolz'. And then the's the near-free wake-up shove that the AI uses to get around control spells etc etc... Maybe in the 'definitive edition' they'll have some kind of core rule setting - one can hope. If modders can do it, they certainly can.

In 60 hours of gameplay, I've lost a companion on the Whisper Tree to the drow wizard's thunderwave only once. On the other hand, I've taken out dozens of enemies by throwing them into chasms or causing significant falling damage. It all comes down to good positioning, and honestly, I haven't noticed this AI doing everything it can to push your companions. Naturally, in encounters near adjacent chasms, it's a given that you should be the first to capitalize on it, just as it's logical in an actual fight.

I present to you the ancient city of ShoveForge on Tactician difficulty, pushovers beware!

*Benny Hill theme not included*



This is all during a single battle and I've intentionally skipped my own turns just to observe and display how the shove script takes precendence over any actual logical action, turning fights into a shoving clown fiesta where battle-hardened warriors will resort to pushing eachother over and over instead of actually fighting... and even ignoring my entire party throughout the fight. Also you get to see some wonderful scripted gems such as the archer on the ramparts who will dash and come down from her advantage spot in order to not miss out on the shoving party.

TIMESTAMPS:

• 00:00 - Dash + Shove
• 00:07 - The amazing female archer's Dash + Useless Hunter's Mark because she wants to get into shoving distance
• 00:18 - Dash + triggers an Opportunity Attack + Shove
• 00:27 - Attack + Extra Attack + Shove
• 00:37 - Push Arrow
• 00:45 - She finally got to Dash + Shove! Amazing archer script
• 00:54 - Dash + Shove
• 01:01 - Shove
• 01:10 - Main Attack + triggers an Opportunity Attack + Shove

Amusing.

However, it must be said that the character with the crossbow was well positioned on the edge, ready to take a dive into the lava.


I would say that not only is it fair, but also necessary, that they tried to push him into the lava at all costs.

True she was positioned on the edge and precisely because of that the entire fight is just one big shoving competition due to the first Duergar who missed his shove, so everyone piles on trying to shove shove shove.

As you can see;

• I won the entire battle by doing absolutely nothing... they all shoved eachother to death. Only a single Duergar in that entire fight died to actual normal attacks, everyone else died by shove.
• My entire party is completely ignored during all of this (their HP is full the entire time), other than my main character who I intentionally positioned near the edge to see if they'll shove her (and they did).
• Even the archer on top of the ramparts who has access to thunder arrows and extra attack and advantage... will rather dash and run down in hopes of shoving, rather than do anything worthwhile.

That is just plain stupid and ridiculous... and this is Tactician difficulty of all things. It creates a parody of a fight which should be epic because we're fighting an Absolute's disciple here... not circus clowns.

I've seen plenty of suggestions that shove should be an action instead of a bonus action, but having observed their scripts in detail... that honestly would not help anything, it would make fights even worse because turning shove into an action would just motivate them to only shove and do nothing else. In my opinion shove should just be usable if a player is stealthed, to kinda simulate pushing someone who's caught off-guard. There are plenty of abilities, spells and items which push people... shove simply has no place in combat due to it being such a dumb cheap one-shot feature which ruins fights and turns them into a parody of what they should be.

As someone who hates bonus action shove, here are my observations:

-I am walking with my party, get into fight, roll low initiative, get fired upon with a Thunder arrow, see Shadowheart be blasted off into the Abyss.
-Cast sleep/hypnotic pattern only for the enemy to shove each other awake and waste a spellslot.
-Because Feather Fall is an action and can't protect you from falling into instant death pit, you will either play around this bullshit or mod it out.
-Shove distance is absolutely insane. You can shove people across 20 feet or more, while it’s only supposed to push them 5 feet away.
-You cant knock someone prone with shove, which is a valid strategy for STR fighter, unless you use battlemaster.

Basically, it helps more the AI than the Player and is a stupid mechanic that I could do without.

There is also jump and movement, which breaks combat, as in tabletop you can only move so much during a single turn, mostly around 30 feet, which includes jumping. With the way it is implemented you get more movement than you should be able to.

It is Larian's super star gimmick cheese clown mechanic.
So can't touch this.

It is supposed to be fun...I don't get it. Its just annoying.

I say, make it 100m shoves, lose all their cloths and gear, and an unlimited action. if you want FUN.
OR, heres a CRAZY idea:

Make it per D^D rules.

To be frank the characters in question, are so close to the edge, that even with properly implemented shove, using it would be tactically sound. That characters CAN dash and push is a potential issue (not to mention bullshit push arrows) - standing in the vacinity of the ledge becomes simply a wrong move to make under any circumstances. Of course, the question is how riddiculous the shove distance is in 1.0 - in EA units could easily get shoved to lava while standing at the centre of the platform.

The clip, unfortunately, seems to confirm what I have been fearing since Tactician spotlght during PfH - the combat simply gets filled with Larian cheese, rather than cranking up difficulty. They should have called it a "Cheesemonger" mode, rather than a Tactician.

Gamers/streamers nowdays LOVE cheese.
I mean, just go to Nexus and check out all the mods for BG3...

I second a CHEESEMONGER mode. SO SAY WE ALL.

I encourage not taking the clip as a representation of the Tactician difficulty, because it's truly not. I just wished to showcase how this shoving cancer is present in Grymforge even on Tactician difficulty, but outside of Grymforge the tactician difficulty is absolutely fantastic and shove is entirely non-existent.

I can wholeheartedly say I love it because as someone who played Early Access for countless of hours I know the difference between Balanced and Tactician by heart and it feels like the game was truly made and balanced around it by giving a ton of personality in combat and variety. But Grymforge is unfortunately the one special exception where everything goes to s*** and devolves into shove shove shove contest, even on such a difficulty which is just a shame as I expected an actual challenge during the Nere fight, not shoving comedy.

Ah! That's good to hear. I will be probably doing 2nd run with Durge if it gets a major content patch, so might try Tactician myself.

Changing Shove to be an action would at the very least help by removing the ability for enemies to Dash + Shove on the same turn. This would make it much less likely that enemies could actually reach the proper position to shove you off a cliff. It'd also make it easier for the player to avoid a situation where they're shoved off a cliff, because players would only have to be wary of enemies within 1-move's distance as opposed to 2-moves.

But yes, +1 for shove being an action and having a reduced distance. And/or players should be able to Grab A Ledge as a reaction if they're shoved off a cliff.

I don't know butr the anwers of seom ppl here seem to be aimed against shove beeing removed altogether. Shove just needs to be an action as per DND rules. Right now characters can swing a two handed sword, put it away to shove another opponent like 15 m into death. i could even live with the distance if it were an action.
Right now every str character can literally thunderwave each turn. The mobil flourish of the sword bard is way less usefull too. gust of wind spell?`nah. shove. ans so on

Doesn't shoving into a pit already come with the downside of denying yourself all the loot from the target?
I've found myself in plenty of situatious where I could've finished a fight 5 turns early if I just shoved the enemy standing next to a pit, but decided not to just so I can loot their corpse.

It was grossly tuned down. NPCs don't do it nearly as often as they used to.

I could see the distance being a bit of a pain, but honestly, they probably coded it and spells the same, because spells knock back more than that(6m iirc).

+1 from me. Absolutely agree it needs to be a full action due to how overpowered it is.

I wish enemies were a lot better at using shove since the AI should be able to calculate the trajectory and odds very well. I only remember seeing enemies cheesing it twice to knock me off a cliff. Once during the 1st githyanki fight and once in the astral plane. Both times were hilarious and the lesson was clear... don't stand next to a cliff like an idiot if you play on tactician.