Shove

Shove is a common bonus action that allows the user to shove an creature or object, pushing it away (and possibly off ledges or into harmful effects).

Description

Try to push your target away.

Your success depends on your Athletics, and the target's Athletics or Acrobatics. You have Advantage if you're  Hidden or  Invisible.

The shove distance depends on your Strength and the target's weight.

Properties

Cost:

Bonus action

Details:

 Range: 1.5 m / 5 ft

Overview

Shove is a basic, common action available to almost every humanoid. Because of falling damage and chasms, shoving can be an extremely potent action both when used by the party or against it. Shove has a dedicated keybind (V) with the keyboard and mouse interface, or it can be used from the ability bar like any other ability.

Using Shove will show a percentage chance preview and the trajectory and landing position of the object or character if the push were successful. Whether or not the shove is successful and the distance of the shove depend on a number of factors described below.

A valid shove. The goblin will be pushed into the pit and land in a valid location, taking significant fall damage.

For a shove to be valid, the target creature must land in a position where it could normally stand, or in a dedicated chasm. Chasms can be identified by the "Chasm" tooltip that appears when hovering your cursor over them. Pushing a creature into a chasm will instantly kill it, but the body and any loot it carries will (usually) be lost forever.

An invalid shove. The goblin would be shoved into the wall which is not a valid location. Rather than hitting the wall and then falling into the pit, the goblin will not move at all if shoved.

Attempting to push a creature into an invalid location (for example, into a wall) will show a red shove preview. While the game does not prevent you from making an invalid shove, doing so will not move the target even if the roll is successful.

Roll

When attempting to shove a non-allied creature, both the target and the shover make skill checks in a contested roll. The shover makes a normal Athletics check against a DC determined by the target's passive skill using either Athletics or Acrobatics, whichever is higher. This passive skill is equal to 10 + skill bonus with Advantage on the relevant skill checks adding 5 and Disadvantage subtracting 5. For example, a barbarian at level 1, with 17 Strength, proficiency in Athletics, and currently  Raging will have a passive Athletics skill of:

10 + 3 (STR modifier) + 2 (Proficiency) + 5 (Advantage on STR checks) = 20

If the shover's roll meets or exceeds the target's passive skill, the shove will be successful. Shove attempts cannot critically fail, provided rolling a natural 1 would still beat the target's passive Acrobatics or Athletics skill. Both  Hiding and  Invisibility grant Advantage on shove's Athletics skill check.

An example of the erroneous shove DC shown in the combat log.

Information on the contested skill check is not readily visible in-game since, in the combat log, the DC of a shove skill check is always erroneously shown as 0. The percentage chance preview before making a shove is accurate, however.

Shoving is one of the few cases where skill checks are made in combat. As a result, this is one of the few uses for the component of  Hex that imposes Disadvantage on skill checks of a specified ability. Hexing Strength will greatly reduce the chance of an enemy successfully shoving you and make it easier to shove high Strength enemies. Hexing Dexterity will make it significantly easier to shove high Dexterity enemies. Note that it is not possible to see an enemy's skill bonuses in the inspect window, so it is not always easy to determine whether hexing Strength or Dexterity would be more impactful.

When targeting an ally, Shove does not require a skill check and will always succeed, provided all other prerequisites for a successful shove are met. This behaviour was added in Patch 6 and prior to that, shoving allies required passing a skill check.

Max weight

The weight of a target object and a creature's Strength score determine whether a shove attempt can be made in the first place. The requirement is:

${\text{Strength score}}\times {\text{Multiplier}}\geq {\text{Target object weight}}$.

Note that this is the full Strength score, not the Strength ability modifier that is usually used. The multiplier is 12 unmodified, but is increased to 28.2 for  Enlarged creatures, and decreased to 5.1 for  Reduced creatures.

Smaller characters like gnomes do not receive penalties to max shove weights. The multiplier is adjusted specifically by the Enlarge/Reduce conditions and has nothing to do with creature size. Even functionally identical effects like  Elixir of The Colossus or  Giant Form do not affect the maximum shove weight.

If the weight condition is not met, attempting to shove an object or creature will display a message "Too heavy to Shove."

Distance

The distance an object or creature is shoved depends on the Strength of the shover and weight of the shoved object. This distance is restricted to a minimum of 1 m / 3 ft and a maximum of 6 m / 20 ft. Note, however, that the maximum shove distance assumes level terrain. When shoving an object off a ledge, it can go further than 6 m / 20 ft since it will continue its parabolic trajectory as it falls.

Tactics

Shove is an excellent tool to exploit terrain and environmental hazards. When pushing enemies off ledges, they will take damage according to the falling damage rules if they fall at least 4 m / 13 ft. Additionally, if they fall at least 8 m / 27 ft, they will get knocked  Prone with no saving throw. Pushing enemies into chasms is even more potent, but you lose out on any loot they carry.

Aside from the obvious use of pushing enemies to their deaths, Shove has a wide range of creative uses.

• Shoving can be used to avoid  Opportunity Attacks by pushing a threatening enemy out of range before retreating.
• It can be used to rouse a creature from  Sleeping or help them shake off the effects of certain spells like  Hypnotic Pattern.
• Shoving (or even just attempting a shove) counts as an attack for the purposes of maintaining  Rage.
• Allies can be shoved out of range of dangerous effects. For example, you can shove an ally that is  Garrotted by a Meazel to break the effect.

Related features

•  Charger - Grants a special shove ability,  Charger: Shove. Note that while this ability costs a full Action and a Bonus action, it is not actually any stronger or more effective at shoving than the basic shove.
•  Displace - When inflicting falling damage through a shove, this feature will add bonus Psychic damage.

Related items

• Bracing Band - Gain +1 AC for a turn after shoving an enemy. Also works when pushing an enemy any other way.
• Corpsegrinder - The special weapon action uses your normal shove distance to determine the pushback.
• Reaper's Embrace, The Mighty Cloth, Boots of Striding, and Helldusk Boots can prevent you from being forcibly moved by Shove.