Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shove/push ruin the game and I'm angry !

Shove ruins combat for me too.

The biggest problem is the ridiculous distance that makes it impossible to even plan against, but the Bonus Action part is a close second.

These 20ft. yeets are absurd and it seems like the joke never gets old at Larian. They make the combat trivially easy and impossibly hard at the same time, depending on who gets to push first and succeed.

The Bonus Action part just means it will get used much more than it would otherwise because it's literally a "bonus". It also makes all kinds of stupid scenarios possible where an enemy can Dash all the way across the battlefield, climb a 30m high ladder and push your carefully placed Wizard or archer to their death on the same turn, before anyone can react or try to stop them.

I would also be very careful with giving warrior classes or enemies access to Misty Step or teleport abilities for that same reason.

Enough with the slapstick meme combat already. It's time to play D&D now.

Shove should absolutely not be a bonus action. It should be usable in place of a weapon attack, like in the tabletop rules. And it should follow the tabletop rules for how far you can shove something, which is usually 5 feet or to knock them prone.

The community can help fix Throw after Shove if Larian are unable to.

Clearly it needs a grapple check to allow throwing in the first place.

D&D isn't children's sandbox play where stuff just happens when the player says so. Rules are in place. Larian seem to forget this, and Saving Throws to mitigate damage.

Clear announcement!

But throwing opponents depends on your strength, so it often has a short range. So it's not quite as dramatic as pushing, I think.

The thing is - throw is guaranteed and deals damage. This is what makes it superior I think.

Shove should be 5 feet - this would allow actual tactical positioning, where you risk getting close to ledges or you play it safer possibly at the cost of having a less effective turns.
Shove should also be able to Shove Prone.
Shove should cost an (attack-equivalent) action - this would fix the ~free disengage that characters/enemies get. Since there are very few ways to hold aggro in 5e as melee characters, allowing enemies to run away without provoking AoOs is too punishing and makes playing a melee character feel terrible.
- The above would allow characters with multiple attacks to shove multiple times, but this would be fine as, with the distance of 5 feet, 2 successful shoves would still be less distance than the current shove.

Instant-death pits should be less frequent. There are way too many fights that can trivially be ended by shoving the boss/enemies down a hole (boat, Spider Matriarch, Minthara, Hag, Nere into Lava, etc). The occasional instant-death area/pit is fine, but BG3 is way over-relying on it. Especially when enemies can and will push your player characters into those areas.

Does Throw still automatically succeed? Even if you fail the attack roll, the picked up character is still thrown; they just don't hit whoever you throw them at? If so, this is obviously a terrible implementation and should be fixed.
- It should be a grapple check to pick someone up
- Then an attack roll to throw them
- Then the throwee and the target get Dex STs to mitigate damage.

Push in 5e has much shorter distance, and therefore generally doesn't result in instant death. In scenarios like barge combat I wouldnt want to have to succeed in 3 saves per enemy or die.

I am all for making shove more like 5e, but as it is now I feel that making it full action without further changes might actually make it worse.

At least creatures that don't have more actions per turn would probably not do it at all. At worst they would do it once exactly like now.
Shove should just not be available more than once / turn on top of being a full action.

Technically, enemy monsters that have Multiattack cannot use those attacks for multiple shoves. Monster stat blocks say exactly what the monster can do, no more, and Multiattack doesn't say that these attacks can be replaced with shove. E.g., a Brown Bear specifically makes one bite and one claw attack with it's Multiattack Action.

The rules for Shove state that "Using the Attack Action, you can make a Special melee Attack to shove a creature...if you're able to make multiple Attacks with the Attack Action, this attack replaces one of them." An enemy Fighter with Extra Attack or Action Surge could shove multiple times, but a Brown Bear with Mutltiattack could not.

Now, do I expect Larian to actually follow this rule if they change shove to being an attack-equivalent action? No. But the correct implementation of shove does, per 5e RAW, prevent most monstrous/beastial enemies from shoving multiple times per turn.

I would agree with the general sentiment that shove should be a full action instead of just a bonus action. In lieu of that I wouldn't mind a spell or ability that makes it so shoving doesn't move your characters. Like if a wizard casts enlarge on a party member then most enemies (especially smaller ones) shouldn't be able to shove them. Maybe also let warriors take a brace position that cuts movement but reduces distance they can be shoved.

Either way they should do something. Don't get me wrong, I love a good map with environmental hazards, but at present it feels like the only way to play around those hazards is to pray for a good initiative roll. Having instant kill hazards is more annoying really that fun when luck is currently the only strategy to beat them.

Also speaking of hazards like lava. I also wish there was a way to get the body of anyone who got knocked into lava and died out of the lava to revive them. Obviously if you res them in the lava they die immediately. To get someone out you have to use rally to put temp HP on them. Have a healing potion or spell immediately ready, and jump out super fast on revival. An incredibly annoying and tedious process because of map hazards that can't be avoided.

I also got insta-killed in the raft fight by being pushed into the water before I could get a turn. It is triggering. Makes you quit and not want to experience that stupidity again.

Sure I have 9 unused Revivify scrolls but I hate using those as well. If someone falls into a bottomless pit or river, or is utterly incinerated in a sea of lava, why is their body conveniently at camp? Is this an immersive RPG, or some arcade game where you have X lives?

Also, falling into water being insta-death is dumb, assuming all adventurers can swim.

Seems like Larian really likes this version of shove, it has been the subject of many threads on many forums since day 1. So i'm not going to hope any longer, i'm just going to put my trust in the modding community to fix this one.

Except Shadowheart apparently. She should be the only party member who drowns.

OMG 😂 We'll put night orchids, on her grave don't worry!

+1 to shove as an action that can be used instead of an attack, choice to shove prone or 5ft

Regarding the argument that shove as action would make throw less useful:
I think it is almost impossible to throw an unwilling creature aka enemy. The just need to grab your arm (or another part of you) and you cannot throw them.
The closest thing I can think of is a wrestling move where you lift the enemy up and smash it on the ground. This is more a combat meneuver that causes damage+prone than a throw.
So I would say:
- Shove = action to move an enemy (5ft of prone)
- Throw = action to move an object

Shove seems to be a Larian PR gimmick since day one of EA.
The first thing they really want to show off in this games combat gameplay is of course, shove.
It will probably never change. Its the BG3 sacred golden goose egg.

Its a fun gimmick in the players toolbox. Feels like a cheat code. Not so fun when all enemies uses it.
I have a feeling that Larian is going out of their way to have an achievement that reads:

"beat the game only using the shove ability".

THAT is a problem. It forces areas/world to be designed to make it so every combat is beatable with just shove.
My first mod for the game will probably be shove related. But thats a bandaid on a poorly though out ability that affects the whole game. "Editing" shove won't change the way the world is designed around it.

Changing Shove to an action and making it a spell container where you can choose between shoving 5ft or shove to prone can be done easily by mods.

In fact, there are already mods out there that do that. I dabbled a little bit in modding the game (and made a mod only for me, with such changes), stuff like changing the cost or effect of a spell or ability is very, very easy.

So Larian could change it anytime and it would cost one of their developers only like 5 minutes of working time - that they have not done it yet, means they like how shove plays out, IMO.

I think it is used to balance the weakness of the power system in video games. (The weight is based on the fact that it can be sent back to the camp, basically there is no advantage.)

What was reinforced in the previous version was the charm attribute, which has an advantage in trading.

So push has its necessity. It's actually quite interesting.

In fact, we need to pursue realism in the world of magic, including why gravity can jump so high, but can’t push it so far? In physics, the result should be the same for a human body of the same weight.

The ninth edition, changing and weakening the invisible pusher is sure to succeed. Whether to further weaken it, it is necessary to explore the balance of the game mechanism.

1. The success rate of pushing people depends on the strength of the force, and the damage will be fatal in addition to certain terrains, but players who are theoretically skilled in these terrains should be able to make a slight assessment.

2. The real damage depends on the amount of damage one's own constitution (health value) can bear. There is also a thing to contend with called "Falling Feather Spell", which can be cast from the shoes of the spell tower in the underground dark world, or the spell scroll.
Assuming that the current terrain is dangerous, is it possible for players to accept the casting of Blessing during or before the battle, but not the casting of "Featherfall"? What is the reason for this?

3. Another more advanced technique is the battle team formation. Sticking together can resist this risk, but it will increase the risk of AOE.

4. However, if the player does not intend to cast the falling feather spell and maintain a good team formation, the weight-bearing benefits of personal strength will come! You can carry a 10-weight box and place it next to your character for protection during battle. You can also cast some spells that hinder the enemy's action on the enemy's attack route in advance, or hide yourself.

Returning to the topic of balance improvement, I personally have the experience of being pushed by the enemy after teleportation spells...

suggestion:
I think it's good to be related to the health value, and the distance that the full health value is pushed is half of the current distance.

Less than 80%~30% is the same as the current distance.

If it is lower than 30%, give 1.3 times the bonus of the current version. (To satisfy the fun of the game, you can choose whether to push the enemy to death)

It can protect the exaggerated one-push kill, increase the fun of the game, and encourage players to take proper rest to maintain high blood volume.

I would be fine with losing out on shoving multiple times per turn as a martial to change it to a full action, or even removing the ability entirely, and nerfing the distance to 5ft according to tabletop rules. Anything, ANYTHING, to keep enemies from spamming bonus action shove to try to instant kill the player, which is seriously problematic in some fights.

A 5th level Fighter getting to Shove twice per turn is not a problem as long as the distance is cut down to 5ft (from 20ft+ currently). They would have to trade damage for those shoves which would make it a tactical choice instead of an OP no brainer gimmick to be used every turn as a bonus.

An attack action Shove would also compete with Pushing Attack and every other form of action that pushes, instead of the player getting to do both.