D&D 5E PH(B) Tavern Brawler Feat

[Salamandyr]

that's clearly not the case:

Basic Rules, page 46 (Improvised Weapons)
"At the DM's Option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus." Unless you're proficient with Chair or Lamp, you might want this feat.

Also, it takes your Unarmed Strike from 1 damage to 1d4 damage.

You are correct; I mis-remembered. Unarmed strikes are simple weapons, but improvised weapons are their own separate category and not on that table.

Okay, that makes this feat a little more interesting to me. I did note the bit about unarmed strike damage going up. I just don't think it's enough to get excited about.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Bonus action to grapple is what the feat is mostly about, and might be useful for even a Monk, since I don't seem to remember the Monk getting such an ability.

 

[GX.Sigma]

What does "proficiency in improvised weapons" actually do, though? The description of improvised weapons describes two types of improvised weapons: those that resemble actual weapons and those that don't.

For those that resemble actual weapons, they pretty much just count as those weapons (the character gets the proficiency bonus if he's proficient with the weapon it resembles). So this feat doesn't affect those (unless it gives you proficiency in "things that resemble [x weapon]," effectively giving you proficiency with all weapons, but that doesn't seem like the intent).

For those that don't, they deal 1d4 damage. The feat already gives you this damage on melee attacks, so there's no point in swinging around a dead goblin.

So, apparently, all it does is let you add your proficiency bonus to a ranged attack that deals 1d4 damage. Congratulations, you now have an attack that's identical to throwing a dart.

 

[Salamandyr]

that might still be useful assuming maybe you didn't have any darts, but maybe a plethora of beer steins.

 

[Agamon]

What does "proficiency in improvised weapons" actually do, though? The description of improvised weapons describes two types of improvised weapons: those that resemble actual weapons and those that don't.

For those that resemble actual weapons, they pretty much just count as those weapons (the character gets the proficiency bonus if he's proficient with the weapon it resembles). So this feat doesn't affect those (unless it gives you proficiency in "things that resemble [x weapon]," effectively giving you proficiency with all weapons, but that doesn't seem like the intent).

For those that don't, they deal 1d4 damage. The feat already gives you this damage on melee attacks, so there's no point in swinging around a dead goblin.

So, apparently, all it does is let you add your proficiency bonus to a ranged attack that deals 1d4 damage. Congratulations, you now have an attack that's identical to throwing a dart.

The bonus grapple action and bonus to Str or Con are the main parts of the feat, I think. The rest just makes you more versatile in a brawl.

 

[ccooke]

My wife has been playing a dragonborn barbarian for the last several years who has a habit of using improvised throwing weapons a lot. Usually this means corpses, but occasionally they are still living - at least, before being thrown. This feat is basically made for her - once her character has two attacks, she can attack unarmed, grab the target as a bonus action, then attempt to throw them with the second attack*

She tells me she's going to take the flaw in 5e: "Trusts people as far as she can throw them"


* Obviously, such an attack would be made with disadvantage and the grappled enemy would get a chance to escape the grapple during the attack. Of course, a raging barbarian has advantage on strength checks and attacks, so that basically cancels out the negatives. But there's still a decent chance of failure.

 

[Remathilis]

So the people wanting WotC to comment on the alpha leak should be satisfied now, as this is one of the feats people were spoiling in the L&L thread and it shows that they were simply using the alpha leak not the actual PHB. It is still an interesting feat however.

Which is why the Alpha leak shouldn't be viewed as anything other than an insight into what they were working on, not what the final product will be. For example, I got a feel for what the races look like or what they are trying to do with feats, but I refuse to form opinions on how the specific mechanics/math is going to work.

Feel free to grab some and move along.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Bonus action to grapple is what the feat is mostly about, and might be useful for even a Monk, since I don't seem to remember the Monk getting such an ability.

This. And since we know there's another specific grappling feat, there could be some cool synergies here.

I can't believe they got rid of the alcohol tolerance, though!

 

[Blackbrrd]

I do think that mixing in stat boosts into feats is a bit boring. It kind of feels like they couldn't think of a good enough feat, so they propped it up with a stat boost.

 

[Agamon]

I can't believe they got rid of the alcohol tolerance, though!

Eh, that's some fluff that the player can pretty easily convince of, especially if he's got this feat.