And I want to emphasize:
At level 5 according to RAW, most martials can shove up to 2x per turn. At level 11? Fighters can shove 3 times. Double both of those numbers if you use Action Surge.
However, in Larian's implementation they'll only be able to shove once.
If you think Larian's implementation of shove is too powerful to be a BA, you should want shove to be an attack-equivalent action.
If you really like shoving people, you should also want shove to be an attack-equivalent action*.
*This primarily helps non-rogue martials, but casters can Thunderwave to shove possibly multiple enemies and Misty Step to disengage as BAs, so they're fine.
This is a really good point.
The distance is actually a much bigger offender than the action economy of it. The ridiculous distance is what KILLS tactics in combat, not so much the fact that you can spam it easily since you will later be able to anyway. When a random Duergar yeets a PC into lava from the
center of a large room the mechanic undermines the player using good tactics and actively staying far away from the hazards.
In a video game they absolutely should make the system a bit more complicated and factor in the Strength of the attacker and the weight of the defender when calculating the distance. Creatures that would be anatomically hard to Throw or Shove like spiders should have a natural resistance against it. The ridiculous power Shoves that can easily decide the outcome of combat or one shot targets should be reserved for extremely strong creatures or require a Potion of Giant Strength to pull off. That would be tactical. Focus firing or disabling the Duergar that drinks such a potion when there are lethal hazards around.
Considering Action Surge and higher level Fighters combined with the high focus on verticality in BG3, I would probably still limit Shove to max 1 attempt / turn. At least make it Shove + 3 x Pushing Attacks for a 5th level Battlemaster to expend some resources. Action Surge is a pretty insane spike tbh.
