So, I don’t. If the shove distance would be shortened to 5 feet, then it would change he nature of how would we be using. At the moment shoves main function is sending enemies down the clif - shorten the distance and it’s function changes. Disengage, perhaps move it to another party members attack of opportunity zone.
Having an option to invest in lengthening character’s push distance might be interesting, but having variable results mean that players can’t use push tactically very much - not only it is not certain if push will succeed, but it is not certain how far it will move the enemy.
There are at least few problems with shove.
- Making it a bonus action "to give characters more things to do" makes it TOO convenient to use almost at every turn, which is why even the AI abuses it constantly instead of making it a highly situational action, as it should be.
- The "physics" of it are completely bonker. This becomes an issue both mechanically (in some cases there are hardly any "safe spots" a character can stand without risking being YEETED dozens of meters away)...
- ...AND it's also an issue in terms of visual presentation/suspension of disbelief, because, to put it bluntly, it looks just stupid.
It's almost like the game has an identity crisis and doesn't know if it wants to be "a somewhat realistic, gritty depiction of D&D in videogame form" or a cartoony meme factory.
The way characters fall in ample arcs and with a slow "floaty" animation rather than plummeting vertically in a quick, straight trajectory seems more fitting for a Wil E. Coyote sketch than it is for a "fantasy epic".
This last point is a somewhat similar problem to the one I highlighted in my thread about the "floppy archery" and the ridiculous way projectiles fly in this game.
Except this time the problem is reversed and the physics are far more accentuated than they should be, rather than looking unreasonably weak as it happens with arrows and bolts.
Their common trait is just looking unnecessarily wrong for no real benefit, in general.
And YES, I'm repeating myself as a broken record, but in my defense that what tends to happen when the topic being argued keep remaining the same (and going unaddressed by the devs).
