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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 6500141" data-attributes="member: 6680772">Yes, the point of the Tavern Brawler feat is that they've gotten so good at using their hands that they don't need a weapon, but if they pick something up to use as a weapon, they're pretty skilled with that.Remember, the Tavern Brawler isn't generally brawling with adventurers -- he's brawling with town drunks and commoner good ol' boys.  Those guys do 1 point of damage with their fists and if they pick up an improvised weapon they do 1d4, but get no proficiency.  The Tavern Brawler, OTOH, can do as much damage with his fists as they can do with weapons, and use improvised weapons more skillfully.  But he's still a Tavern Brawler, not medieval fantasy Jason Bourne.If I'm an adventurer facing a Tavern Brawler, I'm not worried about his use of improvised weapons -- that's still relatively course and unrefined.  I'm worried about his punching and grappling skills -- the things he's really honed brawling in taverns.Someone able to pick up a table and hit someone with it has such incredible strength that, yeah, I think the benefit of hitting me with a table is probably negligible to punching me in the face.Damage scales with size.Sure.  But if someone can swing a bow at an enemy they can swing a sword.  Now, they don't know how to hold and swing a sword so that the edge always hits the enemy.  They don't have a good grasp of the ideal distance for the sword.  When they swing they telegraph the blow more than a skilled swordsman does.  So this all affects the effectiveness of their attack with the sword (represented by damage).  But they do know how to put a weapon on target; they aren't swinging wildly.  So they get the prof. bonus.It's a trade off.  You can attempt to use a non-proficient weapon like that weapon, and get that weapon's damage.  But you're not really good at using that weapon AS that weapon, so you don't get the proficiency bonus.  Or, you can say, forget that fancy fighting stuff -- I'm going to use this thing like I did when I fought Bobby Joe Aragorn and his buddies with a two-by-four.  Then you get proficiency, but not the damage.</blockquote>

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