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

[variant]

Yeah, 1d6 for two-handed helps a lot with the feel too.

For a Tavern Brawler, the only difference between punching someone or slashing at them with a broken bottle is damage type and style. If there is no benefit for using a two-handed object, then that is also limited to style.

But if two-handed objects do a tad more damage, you are now encouraged to pick up the bar stool and smack someone over the head with it. And this really adds to style, because most objects of that sort break once you use them, so you will have to go back to one handed strikes or objects. Now that's the kind of fight scene I want to see!

And of course, if you are lucky enough to have a nice hefty frying pan at your beck and call, then you just have a leg up over those poor fools breaking your barstools.

As far as I can see it there is no drawback to having two-handed improvised weapons do 1d6 rather than 1d4. Not sure why the change was made. Seriously doubt they will ever change it back, because they won't consider it significant enough. As soon as it came up in any game I was in I'd ask the DM if he would consider allowing 1d6.

The rules say if it doesn't resemble a weapon it deals a default 1d4. If it is something like a heavy chair, a DM may rule that it resembles a great club which would be 1d8. If anything the idea that a improvised two-handed weapon always deals 1d6 is a lot less flexible than simply letting a DM decide. It also doesn't always make sense. Let's say you use a saddle as a weapon because it is the only thing on hand. It doesn't even remotely resemble any kind of weapon and I really doubt a saddle is going to deal 1d6 damage.

 

[Branduil]

I really doubt a saddle is going to deal 1d6 damage.

That depends on how long you ride on it!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The rules say if it doesn't resemble a weapon it deals a default 1d4. If it is something like a heavy chair, a DM may rule that it resembles a great club which would be 1d8. If anything the idea that a improvised two-handed weapon always deals 1d6 is a lot less flexible than simply letting a DM decide. It also doesn't always make sense. Let's say you use a saddle as a weapon because it is the only thing on hand. It doesn't even remotely resemble any kind of weapon and I really doubt a saddle is going to deal 1d6 damage.

(Bear with me as I repeat stuff you already know to organize my thoughts)

In the playtest, if a weapon is very much like a real weapon, you could treat it as that. If it is oddly shaped (a chair, a saddle) you are just hitting something with an unwieldy object, and the weapon chart is essentially:

Unwieldy Object, 1d4 damage
Large Unwieldy Object, 1d6 damage, two-handed

No one is proficient in Unwieldy Object or Large Unwieldy Object.

I think the basic premise from the playtest version was that improvised weapons would do less damage than normal weapons. 1d4 for one-handed weapons is the same as a few, but it's also the lowest real die value, and I'm guessing they were intentionally avoiding 1d3 and 1d2. 1d6 is lower than all two-handed weapons.

If something is very much like a club, such as being shaped and weighted like one, then you can use it like a club, which means you are likely proficient with it. If you are hitting someone with a beer stein, though, it isn't the same as a club at all and you just aren't proficient with it.

All of that made a lot of sense. I'm just not seeing a good reason to take Large Unwieldy Object off of the theoretical equipment chart.

 

[Juriel]

Without the Str/Con boost, this would be fine as part of a Background. As a feat, though? Horrible.

Bonus action grapple could be nice (for classes who have nothing to do with their bonus actions already), if grappling didn't require a free hand, and if it did something besides just immobilize the target.

Damage to improvised weapons needs to be BETTER than using regular weapon, for it to ever be worthwhile to do - stuff like 'proficiency and d12 damage, the item breaks on use, but only the first time in combat you use that kind of improvised weapon' - then you're actually supporting a theme and giving players a mechanical choice to make, with the limitation that they have to come up with new ways of using their environment to keep getting benefit from it.

Now, it's just bloating up the feat list.

 

[Juriel]

Seriously, people saying 'it could come up if you cannot pull a weapon'... In that case, forced into unarmed punching someone, the difference between 1+Strmod and 1d4+Strmod in damage is unlikely to be the deciding factor (a damage boost of +1.5 points!).

And you WILL just punch someone if you have this feat and are in that situation, because totally improvised weapons do just d4 damage, so you will never have any reason to use them.

You will be much better off using an improvised weapon that 'is similar to an existing weapon and can be treated as such'. And, if you already have something around that counts as a club/greatclub/quarterstaff/maul/whip (which is completely down to DM's inclinations), congrats, you need this feat for NOTHING, as anyone who can use that weapon gets the proficiency and damage that weapon would do!

 

[pemerton]

I played and DMd 4e since it came out and enjoyed it but one failing it had was that when making build decisions they were almost always balanced very carefully. Which made the decision not a decision because whatever you did would work out about equally well. Having non-obvious non-perfect choices to make gives character building well.. character.

I think the feat is a potentially interesting one - I can think of at least one character in a game I've GMed whose player might have chosen this. But I don't see that it has anything to do with balance/imbalance. If I want my players to choose interesting elements when building their PCs, I think that options that are transparent in their effects and consequences - ie that make the balance/imbalance easy to see - are better.

In the case of this feat, it's obvious what you're giving up - you're losing a point of stat to get the benefit of a potentially damaging grapple. It's not as versatile as the 4e brawler fighter (who can grab following a normal weapon attack) but it's clear what the cost/benefit is all about.

 

[Cyberen]

This feat is awesome !
It is really an Aspect you get to add to your character. It prompts the DM to lput/frame situations where Tavern Brawling, or unarmed fighting, occurs.
I also feel that balance is kind of shaky, but I expect DM would offer extra boons : contacts, resistance to intoxication, advantage to Intimidation in your favorite den...
(I believe "intoxicated" was edited out both for streamlining reasons and to preserve the children friendly vibe of the game)

 

[trentonjoe]

This is superuseful when fighting the old spring attack (goblins, rogues, ??) opponents who are constantly hitting and running away.

In my head, I see the fighter dropping his shield and choke holding the goblin sneak.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

On the contrary, I strongly suspect they came at this from the other side: "We need something for PCs who have a single odd-numbered stat."

Let's say you have a 13 Con and all your other stats are even-numbered. Maybe you used point buy and ended up with a point left over, or maybe you rolled for stats and this is what came out. If you only ever take stat boosts or "normal" feats, you will forever have that leftover stat point not doing anything for you. A feat like Tavern Brawler changes that: You get the benefits of putting a stat boost into Con, and you get some perks to unarmed combat.

The actual number in your ability score is irrelevant*. Whether you have a 14 or a 15 doesn't matter. All that matters is that you have a +2 mod. Therefore, if you have a 13 and no other odd-numbered stats, Tavern Brawler is strictly better than putting an ability boost into that stat. That's the context in which to understand this feat.

[SIZE=-2]*The single exception is Strength, where the raw stat determines your encumbrance thresholds. But the difference between "encumbered at 70 pounds" and "encumbered at 75 pounds" is pretty small.[/SIZE]

 

[keterys]

I like the flavor of it, but I really wish that it wasn't so much worse than just using a normal weapon. It's especially rough once you realize that folks will have +1 or even +2 soon enough, so it becomes 1d4 vs. 1d10+2 kinda thing. At the cost of a feat.

It works best at low level, but scales horribly. If it had instead been "You can use a bonus action to make an unarmed or improvised attack, which could do damage or grab or whatever" then, bam, solved.