Why would you make an off-hand attack when you can Shove someone over the ledge or into lava, without any investment in a Feat or Fighting Style? Or drink a potion. Or use a Weapon Skill.
Do people who think this actually play the game very often?
You don't always have a ledge to throw someone off or lava to throw someone into. And even when you do, sometimes it's a bad idea because you want to get the loot.
Yes you do.
No, you don't. Lava is obviously not everywhere, and there certainly aren't one-shove-one-kill cliffs at hand in every fight. Far from it.
Their combat design revolves entirely around always finding the nearest high ground. And it's always available.
Ah, there it is, the goal post shifting.
Now it's not about one-shove-kills into the abyss. It's about high ground existing in combats.
First, having levels to interact with in the environment is fun.
Second, the existence of high ground doesn't immediately equate to being able to use the high ground, much less to being able to shove all your problems away.
Consider Fezzerk. Yeah, there's technically high ground to be had in that encounter, if you can fight for it, but it's also just not feasible to arrange a situation where shoving Fezzerk off the high ground is the winning move. It makes way more sense to just attack him, as it does for most of the enemies you encounter in the game.
Just to go through a handful of encounters, if only to show how absurdly disingenuous you're being:
1. The first imps you fight. No one is seriously shoving those imps to their death.
2. At the helm of the Nautiloid. This isn't a shove fight.
3. The intellect devourers on the beach. Again, no one is shoving these creatures to their death. Someone might climb onto the ledge and then shove one or two of them off if they follow, but that's not doing substantial damage. The better tactic is to use ranged attacks.
4. The three people under the mental control of the dying mind flayer. Is shove your big tactic there?
5. The two tieflings debating Lae'zel's future when she's captured in a cage. You're not shoving them to death.
6. Inside the chapel. Yeah, there's an oil barrel there. Also, in case you're not aware, the position of the folks inside depend entirely on your actions before you enter.
7. The skeletons in the dank crypt. Are you shoving them off high ground? Seriously?
8. Outside the grove. Let's say you take the high ground to start the fight. Most of the combatants aren't on the high ground with you, and you have to attack them using ranged attacks. There's one enemy on a ledge on the high ground with you. You can certainly push him off, but not for a substantial amount of damage. Certainly not enough damage to kill him with one shove.
Okay, I've just gone through the timeline of fights all the way to the grove. Most of those fights don't involve shoving enemies off the high ground.
And the ones that do allow you to shove someone (there are basically two of them, one is on the deck of the Nautiloid. It's not necessary to shove anyone, but it can be fun to push the intellect devourer there overboard. And two, on the outside of the chapel, there's the fellow standing on the crate just begging to be pushed off. To those situations, I say: great. That's a good thing because it shakes things up and makes the combat more than: I hit you. You hit me. I hit you.
Again, it's like the people arguing these tired points don't even play the game. Under any analysis, there's way less effective shoving than many of these posts will acknowledge, especially when you start factoring in how difficult it is to shove some combatants.
As for NPCs ruining the player's experience by pushing the PC into lava... I've played well over a thousand hours of this game, and I haven't had this problem.
I'm convinced that people are being hyperbolic and grossly disingenuous. I suspect the reason is because they want a game that's "true to 5e rules." Well, that's fair. Except I don't care about 5e, not even in the slightest. I accept it as the inspiration of the game, but I think of the game as being 5e adjacent. All I care about is how interesting the game is and how interesting the combats are. Like I said, I have no interest in: I hit you. You hit me. I hit you.
I want my characters jumping around the map. I want levels and high ground and shoves and the occasional exploding barrel. I want to replay scenes and look for different ways to win them.
Anyway, this was about dual wielding which actually needs homebrewing to be viable.
I disagree. I already explained how dual wielding can be superior to using the offhand bonus action for something else.
