+1 to limiting shove. It should obviously stay in the game in some form, and it's fun that BG3 has high ground. But, currently the ease & distance of shove plus the prevalence of pits (including instant-death pits) is just too much.
Shove should be an attack-equivalent action
This would make the AI have to choose between attacking and shoving. Importantly, NPCs with multiple attacks (should) use "Multiattack" which specifies allowed attacks and doesn't actually allow replacing individual attacks with Shoves or Grapples, whereas PCs have Extra Attacks which does allow replacement. This would limit NPCs to shoving 1x per turn, and they'd have to give up their entire attack action to do so. Whereas PCs with Extra Attack could now shove 2+ times per turn, replacing a single attack for a shove. (Add Haste and/or Action Surge for even more shoves)
Shove should move characters 5 feet
This means you'll still be punished if you leave a character right next to a pit, but will be more lenient so you don't have to keep characters super far away from a pit at all times. Currently, even if your character is currently like 20+ feet away from a pit, 2 enemies shoving your character in a row can still put them into the pit! So you can't really avoid pits without incredibly limiting your available play area.
Characters should fall mostly straight down a cliff
Shoving someone 5 feet is more akin to pushing them backward, stumbling, not flinging them in the air (throw is for that). If you shoved (stumbling backward) someone off a cliff, they'd pretty much fall straight down. You'd still take damage and should land prone, but you wouldn't have to spend as much movement getting back to the combat if e.g., there's a ladder back up.
There should be fewer instant-death pits
And they should have reasons for existing. Fewer instant-death locations would make the ones that do exist more special.
- Grymforge has a lava ambiance and a lava boss battle - sure lava being present is fine.
- The hole in the Spider Matriarch cave leads down to the underdark, so it has a use. Also it's not instant death if you have featherfall.
- The instant-death holes in the Hag Lair and in the Goblin Camp near Minthara? Nah. There's no real point to those being there. There's nothing below them, no particular reason why there should be infinite holes there.
I agree with everything here. Shove needs to be an action and toned down. I don't get, how a small goblin can for example shove Wyll through half of the Blighted Village. He was standing on a roof by the windmill on the right Side and was pushed nearly back to the well that leads to the Whispering Depth.
