D&D 5E Forced movement

[Mistwell]

And the higher the PC gets, the more he is able to shove even larger and stronger creatures off of cliffs.

A 17th level 20 Str Fighter with Athletics trained has a 50/50 chance of pushing the Tarrasque off a cliff.

1. Right now there is no way to do it against something that is bigger than large, and
2. What cliff would bother the Tarrasque? It's probably taller than the cliff itself.

 

[KarinsDad]

Normally you cannot shove a target that is more than one size category larger than you. Is this some fighter thing I've overlooked?

Nope. I just read things and promptly forget them as soon as I do.

 

[DracoSuave]

Most of the time, if they're going off the cliff, they already failed a saving throw in the first place.

 

[ranger69]

That would be a heck of a DC considering how fast they would be traveling. Don't forget that in general, if they were pushed, they will be falling away from the cliff.

Yes it would be, and I wouldn't automatically give the chance. Just if the player requested. The characters in D&D are meant to be extraordinary, the heroes. Able to survive where others die.
That does not mean that the characters do not suffer the consequence of the players decisions, or the roll of the dice.

 

[Boarstorm]

(Is a dragon turtle a beast? I don't have my MM with me, but I doubt it.)

It is a dragon. I am not up on druid's rules. I saw the youtube video with SlyFlourish DMing a level 20 party against a Tarrasque. The druid had been swallowed and kept shapeshifting into larger creatures to get regurgitated. He turned into a dragon turtle and popped out.

The druid in question was making use of the Shapechange spell.

 

[SkidAce]

In the case of Eldritch Spear, the player invested valuable character resources into the ability to push people off of cliffs. What's punitive is when you negate that by allowing his target a saving throw. It's an extremely situational benefit, and you've just taken it away because your monster isn't smart enough to move the fight to a safer spot, but you think it's somehow cheap or anticlimactic to let the players use gravity (and the monster's stupidity) to their advantage.

So it will be okay to do it to the PCs when the villain is a warlock or two?

 

[Joe Liker]

So it will be okay to do it to the PCs when the villain is a warlock or two?

Absolutely. That's why I keep saying the players need to be prepared if they choose to fight in such a dangerous location. Part of being prepared is knowing what you're up against.

Now, if the DM were to rig things so that said warlock ambushed them on a cliff with no chance of escape and forced them to do this fight where the enemy warlock had this huge advantage, THAT would be a little unfair. But we're not talking about bad encounter design. We're talking about how stupid the extra saving throw is.

 

[brehobit]

Thanks for all the feedback. I think I'd probably give a saving throw (Dex) to avoid getting thrown off. DC18 you fall prone at the edge, DC 13 you fall but grab on to something before you fall far. +5 DC per 5' pushed past the ledge. Or something like that. Just seems reasonable that the target would have a chance.

But it's a DM call as written and I think it should be a DM call (off of a bridge I'd probably give higher saves and off a cliff (that assumedly isn't straight down) a lower one).

 

[SkidAce]

Absolutely. That's why I keep saying the players need to be prepared if they choose to fight in such a dangerous location. Part of being prepared is knowing what you're up against.

Now, if the DM were to rig things so that said warlock ambushed them on a cliff with no chance of escape and forced them to do this fight where the enemy warlock had this huge advantage, THAT would be a little unfair. But we're not talking about bad encounter design. We're talking about how stupid the extra saving throw is.

Thank you for the reasonable reply. And I agree that the DM stacking the deck to far...would be unfair.

I feel I will probably allow a saving throw of some type for any non-mooks (pc OR npc) for the drama etc.

"take mah hand...." /arnie

 

[Authweight]

Right now, RAW doesn't seem like it has anything to say on what happens when someone is pushed off a ledge. That seems to me like it leaves it clearly in the realm of DM adjudication. I wish there was some more clarification on this in the rules, but whatever.

In terms of general immersion, fun, and storytelling, it seems like there should be a possibility for someone to catch themselves when going off a cliff. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that if someone shoves you over a cliff, that's it, there's absolutely nothing else to be done about it. You also lose the classic narrative device of the literal cliffhanger.

YMMV. But in my games, unless it is clarified through errata or something, everyone gets a save to avoid falling off a ledge.