Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Combat Jump (and again, Shove)

As we all know, shove beeing a bonus action has been an issue since day one. I added that here because, in combination with how jumping works in this game, It completely alters the way combat is desiged for D&D 5e.

The one and only good thing about it is that i creates hilarious combats events at times. Sacrificing a balanced combat expirience for that is not a good choice imo. Larian already got their surfaces...i dont like them, but i can live with them.

Changing shove to an action and recalculating the distances would greatly improve combat.

And here is my problem with jumping as it is now...distances. Characters with high strenght jump like double their own height while standing. Fully armed. I created myself a Barbarian, pushed him to Str 20.... no need for a fly spell anymore.

The PHB does not say aynthing about jumping in combat. But logically that should also be a full action.

The distances a character is able to jump in the PHB states for a long jump, you can cover your STR in feet IF you have at least moved 10 feet. Standing only half that. for my Dwarf that would be a 10 feet long jump from a standing position.
For a high jump we have 3+ your STR modifier IF you move at least 10 feet. Half again if standing. Back to the Dwarf: 3+5 Str mod would be 8 feet high after moving 10 feet and only Fking 4 feet from a standing position. right now he clears easily 10 to 15 feet. Thats plain ridicoulous.

As of now, jumping also renders a lot of larians so loved surfaces pretty useless. Using spike growth rarely does anything because nearly every enemy just jumps out of it without walking a single step.

Also, as far as i have seen the cost for jump is 3 feet of movement. So if you cannot reach your enemy, jump and then move. This gives higher STR chars an unwanted advantage. My dwarf has 7.5m racial movement, yet he can reach enemies further away than an elf with low str score. Out of balance.

Here the PHB states: Every foot jumped costs a foot of movement, be it long or high.


I can just beg here: I do like to have fun and laugh but in this case the cost to combat balance is just too damn high, please consider changing that.

Changing shove to action will help little with balance, i never use it and the game is still unbalance. Ai is too stupid to use it effectively if you know how to play. So i don't really care about it much. I get the idea behind the fix but wont help at all in my opinion. Biggest problem i have with jump is that you can stand still and do a standing jump.

There should be a jump runin range, so effects like web and others do not get bypassed so easily. How long of a run would depend on your acrobatics skill.

I agree that both Shove and Jump need rebalancing, and yes both have been discussed at length on these forums before. Hopefully Larian have listened and we’ll see tweaks to both in the full release, but I suspect if they haven’t changed their minds by now they’re not going to. The community has loudly expressed its views, and I don’t think there’s any danger of them not having heard what we think .

+1 for all except :

"Jump" is supposed to consume "movement". Not an action or bonus action. Even in combat.
PHB page 190:

Thus, it's my understanding that the distance of the "jump" would be limited by the character's movement speed.

Admittedly, I haven't done enough research to know whether or not the distance is properly calculated in BG3, but "jump" is definitely not supposed to cost a bonus action.

I'm not sure I understand every points you tried to make about jumping (my apologies if my answer didn't fully fit that then), but I think I agree with you that there are some balance issues when it comes to things like "jump" and "shove".

I really like this "quick reference" guide to what is considered "action", "bonus action" and "movement speed" (among other things) according to the PHB : https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html

edit : same with "Hide", it should be an action unless of a class feature like for 2nd level Rogue or 14th level Ranger.

I really hate BA Jump & Shove. Ranged NPCs commit suicide because they run into melee range to use Shove and then get killed. Jumping several feet with a lot of weight feels silly. Most importantly, those long-distance jumps (even without the "Jump" spell buff, mind you) feel like a spell available to any class anyway, even non-casters.... The Shield Master feat is devalued etc. pp.

Can't beat this drum loud enough. Shoving and Jumping are not good or fun mechanics in BG3.

Jumping distances and especially height with high strength are completely ridiculous and devalue magical movement. There is very little reason for a spellcaster to cast Jump on your Fighter with 18 Strength who can already reach absurdly far and high. Same with potential Potions of Flying or Jumping. Getting out of or simply jumping over huge surfaces like Sleet Storm. Enemies jumping over your "tanks" and just ignoring their threatened area. It's just really stupid. And if Larian wants high strength characters to have more movement, it should be calculated directly in their movement rate rather than having characters jump in combat like idiots to extend their reach.

Shove, shove, shove.. pits, lava, lethal falls in every fight... so sick of it I can't really be bothered to write about it again. It ruins tactical combat rather than adds to it when it's stupidly OP like that. Nerf the distance and action economy already!

I don't care that jump is a bonus action but it should definitely consume the good amount of movement on top of consuming your BA.

Details about how extra movement due to jump works in the game here : https://forums.larian.com/ubbthread...mp;Words=Jump&Search=true#Post839079

Height is also a problem in my opinion but I heven't look yet into the games files to try to fix it.
In my opinion it is perfectly fine if the characters can only do a standing jump... but of course it has to be correctly balanced.

Consuming the proper movement for non magical jump appears to be basic.
About height I guess it could be fine if our characters could jump 1m/strenght modifier (which may already be a lot !)

With all the ways shoving can instantly kill a foe or give you significant advantage, you'd think it would count as a full action. It just makes sense that the benefit of an action should be proportional to the inherent risk of the action, which should be represented by how much of your own resources (action) it takes up.

Distance needs to be 5ft. more than anything.

Most instant kills or wins would suddenly require two or more successful shoves. And you could actually defend against being shoved to instant death by smart positioning, rather than being slapped into lava from the center of a room.

Hehe funny every single one has it's own version of how jump should works and so does larian. i guess that's why we gonna be stuck with what we got...

Edit same for shove...

Ofc it will help balancing. Here just a few more examples than you can already get out of the post above.

Show me the difference between a punch and a shove (apart from the fact that you usually shove with both hands). Punch costs an action, shove a bonus action.

Take a spell like thunderwave. Yes it can hit multiple enemies but it still loses a lot of value compared to a full melee weapon attack plus additional shove.

When a character shoves, he puts his weapon away, shoves, and takes it back out? eh.... (switching between melee and ranged weapons without spending an action is already strange, have to read up on that. asfaik you even get AC from your shield when switching, or do i err there?)

compare throw and shove. why would i throw? apart from the fact that, especially as a Berserker, what you can throw and how far is totally off. Shove is way more effective.



Back to the jumping. Enemies jump a lot less then before the last patch but they still clear a lot of surfaces that are meant to hinder or dmg. Also, it should be possible to move through the space occupied by an ally. Atm we have to jump to pass...you dont just jump over a person, high STR or no.

Thing is that they based this game on the rules of D&D 5e. That ruleset, while not perfect, has its rules for a reason. If you just randomly change certain aspects, you will change how the whole system works.

Go play chess and simply decide pawns can now jump 2 square and see what happens.

Just riffing here, but pawns can jump two squares as a first move.

Larian has clearly demonstrated that their vision of D&D 5e is their DOS engine modified to have D&D skins and flavours. We have shove and jump because Larian, not because of anything related to D&D, and the reasoning is "because homebrew rules".

I think shove and jump being an action would be a good change IMO. shove is basically just a free action in combat and makes opportunity of attacks nothing to worry about.

jump being an action makes sense but some classes should get it as a bonus action such as the rogue once they unlock their bonus dash and disengage

Larian is supervised by WotC for anything D&D related, so you might as well blame WotC for letting Larian doing their thing.

i meant in like jump over. It was just an example that came to mind.

i guess the meaning is clear

Yeah it's clear I was just messing around.

Its not based on DOS, its based on D&D 5e. The changes are homebrew rules taken from DOS. At least thats how i see it.

As i would say "never change a running system". But if you do, you should be aware what the consequences are. Even if its just 2 small things, it completely alters the flow of combat. and for what? Laughs? Our party sadly consists of only 4 people. Insta Death shoves can be a real mood killer.

Larian did not decide to make another Divinity, they decided to go for D&D Baldur's Gate. Set in Faerun on Toril in the Forgotten Realms. So as a long term D&D player and fan i kinda expect adhesion to D&D.

Don't get me wrong, i like the game but this is a change that simply makes no sense. They have their DOS flavor with all the surfaces already. Otherwise they could just have used their own rules and just got the rights for the setting from WotC (not that they had done that).

I would still not like it but would not complain because those mechanics are based in their rules.

And as stated in a lot of places already its not only annyoing but it impacts on other things that do adhere to D&D rules.

I don't care if it's DOS or D&D or something entirely different. Shoving is simply, objectively, far too prevalent and powerful for BG3 tactical combat to be credible. Someone just can't get enough of the joke. Swen himself seemed to have a great time thunderwaving his co-op buddy over the edge. It seems like memes over gameplay any day at Larian.

I get how players not looking for a tactical challenge would find OP stuff fun. But some of us do play for that challenge and I don't want it to be a lazy afterthought of giving enemies double HP and shove immunity.

Finally, BG3 has so much verticality everywhere the natural instinct would be to nerf Shove from 5e. Instead, they greatly overpowered it. (And where you have no verticality, you have explosives lying around, or some gimmick that can entirely dominate a fight. Always something that makes character abilities secondary.)