Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
The bonus action and reaction action uses, however, are pretty niche. Yes, every fighter who has ever been 35' from their opposition had bemoaned that they have to take their move and a dash action to get to their opponents, and being able to dish out d6+str that round is better than nothing. But that's it, better than nothing. The shove... well you bring up a good point about grapple-breaking. If I was convinced that was the intended result I might consider it better. The bigger problem, from my perspective, is that the most comparable race IMO is half-orc (same stat bonuses and intimidation skill, same social role as 'uncivilized traditional villain race who just as often subverts that'), and their bonus abilities are useful for any build (1/LR ignore dropping to 0 hp), and useful for any combat build (increased crit). Compare that to these rather... 'hard to consistently make use of' is the way I'd put it.
The reaction shove can also be used to get allies out of trouble (shove enemy out of attack range so squishy ally can run away without taking opportunity attack) and as a form of pseudo-Mobile feat to avoid OAs yourself. It's definitely competitive with half-orc, whose stand-out ability is useless unless you're both overmatched (enemy is able to hammer you down to zero HP) but not too overmatched (else enemy will insta-kill you and you get no benefit) and is basically only as strong as a first-level Healing Word spell. I'll take an at-will reaction shove instead, please, with a side order of better grapple + shield + attack and a free charge option.