Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Differences and Similarities between BG3 and D&D5e core ruleset.

Eh, I'd still allow it in my games. Even if we listen to Jeremy Crawford that shoving isn't a "melee weapon attack", Polearm Master doesn't use that exact phrasing.
Also Shove (in 5e raw) is pretty weak, so I'm against things that nerf it further.

In BG3, this is kind of irrelevant since shove is a bonus action. With polearm master and sentinel, you could totally do this strategy of shove and then prevent the enemy from reaching you. As people above have said, you're sacrificing ASIs for feats.
However, in BG3 disengage is also a bonus action. So you could just disengage instead of shoving the enemy away, which is guaranteed to succeed.

Totally fair. Like I said, the RAW is pretty ambiguous.



Hmm, I'd reckon you'd have an easier time arguing that shove can be defined as a melee weapon attack (since it's never clearly stated it is not), as opposed to saying something that is not a melee weapon attack (shove) can qualify for a glaive, halberd, quarterstaff, or spear attack - all of which are melee weapons.



I'd say Shove is still pretty useful in 5e RAW.

It's a much more debilitating debuff in 5e because unlike BG3, you can shove someone prone as opposed to away. This means they can't get up until their turn (that can be an entire initiative order), and your party can dog pile the advantage attacks. It also scales well for martials because they gain extra attack and can shove and attack in the same turn.

It's one of the easiest and cheaper ways for to gain advantage in 5e RAW, a system where advantage is more rare/expensive compared to BG3.


Shove in BG3 is deadly more so because of cliffs than the attack itself. I wouldn't argue it's not more powerful, but it's also a different kind of powerful which is much more terrain dependent.



If we're strictly talking about BG3, can't the enemy just bonus action jump in (from outside of the polearm reach) and attack?

They should eat an opportunity attack from Polearm Master + Sentinel (which should counter Jumps OA immunity), but I doubt Sentinel would literally stop someone dead mid-air.

STR attackers will always have great jump distance (since it scales on STR). DEX Attacks are a little worst off, but if they use DEX they can always just switch to range.

Shoving Prone is very powerful in an optimal situation but there's some significant qualifiers
1.) It gives ranged attacks disadvantage. Most parties are ~25-50% ranged, plus the fact that you (the person who knocked the enemy prone) dont get a full turn with the enemy prone. Thus, the remaining members of the party are probably more like ~33-75% ranged characters.
2.) It requires good initiative order, where all/most of your allies go before the enemy. Often only 1, or maybe 2, allies will go before the enemy's turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but enemies don't have the Jump+Disengage ability in BG3. I've only seen goblins disengage, and that's a special ability of goblins.
Edit: The minotaur/bulette have this, but again this is a special creature ability, not a generic one

100% I agree it's situational depending on your build and party composition and not a definite a go-to strategy in every party.


I get what you're saying. You don't necessarily need to win initiative and go first - rather, you need to have the cycle work out so that between your turn and your targets turn, you have allies in between to go. There's definitely still RNG in there for sure. It's not as bad as it sounds if it's done with coordination between the melee characters - i.e. you should only shove when you know your teammate is going to get a turn.

For example, look at the following initiative orders (PC = player character, underline = "shover"):

PC1, Enemy, PC2 (PC2 shoves, so initiative will cycle around and PC1 gets to go before Enemy can get up)

Enemy, PC1, PC2 (PC1 shoves, enemy doesn't get to stand up before PC2's turn)

PC1, PC2, Enemy (PC1 shoves, enemy doesn't get to stand up before PC2's turn)




I haven't really noticed/kept track on my end either.

The only times I remember jumps used extensively outside of the Goblin Racial disengage is the Minotaur and Owlbear. I don't remember for the human fights (because they are so rare unless you go evil).

True, only the cycle matters, not winning initiative. All those initiative orders are good situations to shove (assuming at least 1 PC has extra attack). However, if you add a ranged PC3 that goes after PC2, then shove becomes neutral or suboptimal in all of those situations.
Of course, if that PC3 can target a different enemy or can use AoE/Save Spells, then shoving is back to being a good idea. Which circles us back to "Prone is situationally very good."

I guess I just want Shove to be a bit more useful in all situations. It'd probably be too powerful if standing up provoked AoOs...maybe Prone could grant disadvantage on Dex STs? Then it would synergize well with both casters and melee characters.

Ah right, I also forgot about the Owlbear.
We don't fight many humans, true, but I don't remember either the dwarves or myconids jumping at any point.

In the case of facing a single enemy, don't forget about readied action either (I'll fire X when he is no longer prone).

If the Ranged attack is a caster, they don't lose their extra damage at level 5+ since it's a spell. Rogues will keep their sneak attack too (as long as the prone target is engaged when he gets up)

It's not as great as someone who has the Extra Attack function, since they will lose their extra attacks. However, if you have Extra Attack (so likely a Ranger or Fighter), you can just draw your melee weapon and join the pile on if you're in range.

If for some crazy reason the Fighter or Ranger must use their bow, they can still shoot from 5 ft out for a neutral roll - advantage (prone) cancels out the disadvantage (threatened). Recall - Prone gives advantage to any attack from 5 ft, not just melee weapons. It's a terrible choice if it doesn't finish the prone enemy though. However, if they have the Crossbow Expert or Gunner feat, doing that will actually gain them advantage, and tons of style


I think it has to be situationally good, otherwise you'd always use it - kind of like the issue many people have with the backstab system in BG3. If backstabbing is always the way to go and is available to everybody, then you're just adding an extra step/clutter into the combat equation.

Example - I posted this vid in the Gith Patrol thread for an unrelated reason, but this timestamp shows the unnecessary struggles I had dealing with the UI caused by the need to backstab as the optimal strategy.

Aha, while the caster is concentrating on their readied spell, another enemy bursts from the bushes and attacks the caster, hopefully making them lose concentration and waste the spell slot!
More seriously, the caster probably already had a spell they were concentrating on, as that's basically how all casters are played in 5e. 1st turn: cast concentration spell. 2nd-nth turn, cry about not being able to cast all your other cool concentration spells. :P

Yeah probably. Although this case is a bit different since you're giving up an attack in order to attempt to shove, whereas backstab is free and guaranteed. Every melee class in BG3 should always backstab, whereas only some melee classes in 5e should sometimes shove (and even then, you still might fail). I think shove would still be situational even if prone also gave disadvantage on Dex STs, but hey maybe not. I'm certainly not a game designer.

Gotta love that pathfinding, unable to find a safe path around an enemy. But you can do it manually using 5ft baby steps. :\

I hope they make it possible to shove enemies prone, rather than just pushing them away.

Really, the more they deviate from the core rules, the more they need to adjust and alter things because of all the consequences of their homebrewing choices. They really ought to FIRST try and make things very true to the rules and get that working before they alter things, since there are numerous things they couldn't foresee and now they have to change because of their modifications. All the new classes and everything that they are yet to implement will likely be quite different from the core rules.

I couldn’t agree more. And as EA testers it’s impossible to judge whether their “improvements” are necessary or not because we don’t get to try it any other way.

So true.

I never played any of the DOS games so I don’t know how EA went with those games. Was there serious balance issues in DOS at roughly the same development cycle as BG3? Were they ever fixed?

Because BG3 seems to have a lot of balance issues and it’s only going to get worse as they add more classes and as levels increase.

After more than 5 months of silence from Larian and hundreds of post on those topics from countless D&D fans, I have completely lost faith in Larian about D&D5.
My young daughter is still fond of the game.
For my part I have left related forums, and I do not play the game anymore.
I just do not care at all anymore.
When the next patch will come, maybe I will have a look at D&D5 rules content, just with a tiny hope.
Today, it will be ToEE with Temple+

I agree that the lack of communication is disappointing. Would be lovely to know if they could even theoretically consider implementing rules that are truer to core, whether it is innate or as an option. I wonder how hard it would be to make optional DND ruleset content?

I'm surprised that this isn't a Mega-thread yet. 22 pages and not a Mega-thread.

Sleep (the status) in patch 4 works more as intended from 5e RAW and it's made sleep more enjoyable to use. I would be very happy if Patch 5 was focused on better rule/status/spell implementation.

Agreed. It's time for it to become a megathread.

This definitely should be a megathread, especially since it is one of the main conversations of this site in which many other topics relate to.

How does it become a mega thread? Do I need to do something? I am the OP.

I think it's simply up to the mods.

I played DOS 1 and 2 including EA. Small bugs were fixed, but I don't recall any massive changes based on players who disagreed with certain aspects of the design. Larian tends to stick to their major design decisions. Either that, or by the time players are able to give feedback in EA, it's too late for the changes players would like to see.

For example, DOS1 had an issue where melee-based characters in your party were not as effective compared to magic users. If you didn't choose a party with a heavy tilt towards magic you'd have a very difficult time. There were also complaints about the more "goofy" aspects of the story line with attempts at humor. They didn't change any of that in DOS1 but they did tone that down a bit in DOS2.

In DOS2 there was a brand new armor system that some players absolutely hated (I didn't love it myself, but never felt that strongly about it). They never changed that, as far as I know.

The overall impression I have from those games and how they're handling this one, is that they're very interested in fixing bugs, and they may slightly tone down something here and there where the fix is easy, like eliminating a few of the surface effects resulting from spellcasting. But they probably won't change any fundamental aspects of the design like the party size, the camp rest mechanic, or the use of homebrew departures from 5e rules. Either because it's what they want, or it's already been baked into the cake and it's too late to change.