The Tavern Brawler feat in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition enhances a character's ability to fight effectively in unconventional, close-quarters combat, particularly with improvised weapons and unarmed strikes, and facilitates grappling.
Feat Features
- Ability Score Increase: You can increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- Improvised Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with improvised weapons. An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands, such as a broken bottle, a table leg, or a frying pan. Your attack bonus with an improvised weapon is your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. An object that bears no resemblance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage (the DM may rule that a particularly sturdy or weapon-like object deals more).
- Unarmed Strike Improvement: Your unarmed strikes use a d4 for damage. You can use Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes.
- Bonus Action Grapple: When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon on your turn, you can use a bonus action to attempt to grapple the target.
Strategic Applications
Enhanced Grappling: The core strength of Tavern Brawler lies in its bonus action grapple. This allows a character to make an attack (either unarmed or with an improvised weapon) and then immediately attempt to grapple the same target as a bonus action. This is highly efficient for characters aiming to control enemies on the battlefield. It synergizes well with builds focused on Strength and athletics, such as Fighters (especially Battle Masters or Rune Knights), Barbarians (who can gain advantage on Strength checks while raging), and some Strength-based Paladins or Rangers.
Improvised Weapon Master: Proficiency with improvised weapons makes a character adaptable to their environment. In situations where conventional weapons are unavailable or inappropriate, a Tavern Brawler can effectively use common objects as weapons. This adds a flavorful and mechanically supported option for creative combat. The d4 damage die is a reliable baseline for such items.
Unarmed Combatant: While Monks typically excel at unarmed combat, Tavern Brawler provides a useful damage increase for other Strength-based characters who might find themselves fighting without weapons. The d4 damage die is an improvement over the standard 1 + Strength modifier damage for an unarmed strike for non-Monk characters.
Building Around the Feat:
- Characters who take this feat often focus on Strength as their primary ability score, as it benefits their attack rolls, damage rolls (for both unarmed and improvised weapons), and their Athletics checks for grappling.
- Combining Tavern Brawler with the Grappler feat can create a dedicated grappling specialist, though the Grappler feat itself is often debated for its utility compared to simply shoving a grappled creature prone.
- For classes with Extra Attack, a common tactic is to make one attack, hit, use the bonus action to grapple, and then use subsequent attacks (potentially with advantage if the target is now prone and grappled) or to shove the grappled target prone.
In summary, Tavern Brawler is a strong thematic and mechanical choice for characters who want to excel in rough-and-tumble fights, control enemies through grappling, and make creative use of their surroundings in combat. Its action economy benefit for grappling is its most significant advantage.
