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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ccooke" data-source="post: 6499542" data-attributes="member: 6695890">Now, I really like this feat. It's fun, it's thematic... and it has a little bit of an issue I only spotted this morning.The feat gives you, among other things, proficiency with Improvised Weapons.The rules have this to say about improvised weapons:This seems pretty clear to me: If I'm proficient with a greatclub, I could use a greatsword as one and get proficiency. That's without a feat.With the Tavern Brawler feat, you're proficient with all improvised weapons. That has to be better than what you could do without the feat - so it should be better than the above excerpt from the basic rules. Does that mean, then, that the Tavern Brawler feat therefore gives you proficiency with all martial melee weapons? Well, effectively it does. The cost of using a weapon you are not proficient with is that you do not get to add your proficiency bonus to your hit roll. That's it. You can use all the properties of the weapon regardless - reach, versatile, thrown, finesse. You are able to attempt anything you like with the weapon, you just aren't as good with it. Therefore, the proficiency granted by the Tavern Brawler feat should not, in ruling, be worse than what you can do without the feat. Players who pick up an unfamiliar weapon, without any feats or proficiency, have the choice of using the weapon as something they are proficient in (and thus losing access to whatever special features the real weapon has that the thing they're using it as does not - for instance, you could use a halberd as a greatclub, but you would presumably lose the benefit of reach while doing so. With multiple attacks, you could treat the weapon as a greatclub (and get proficiency) in one attack and as a halberd (and get reach, but no proficiency) in another. That's all fine by the basic rules. The only way to make the proficiency granted by Tavern Brawler be better than what the basic, unmodified rules give you is to assume that Tavern Brawler grants you proficiency with all melee weapons, martial or otherwise.The issue, then, is what that does to the Weapon Master feat, which gives you +1 to STR or DEX and proficiency in any four weapons. This suddenly does not compare well to Tavern Brawler, which gives you +1 to STR or CON, proficiency with improvised weapons and unarmed strikes, a bonus to unarmed damage (from 1 point to 1d4) and the ability to grapple as a bonus action when you hit with an improvised weapon or unarmed strike.After some thought, I'm probably going to rule that the feat allows you to use any one or two handed weapon, or any weapon with the versatile property. It does not provide you with the ability to use any other property of the weapon - if you try to use the finesse, thrown, reach or any special properties, you get no proficiency bonus doing so... and ask the players not to take the piss. It helps that many characters planning to take the Tavern Brawler feat will already have access to a lot of martial weapons, I guess.What do people think?</blockquote>

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