Tavern Brawler

Tavern Brawler is a passive feature granted by the feat of the same name. It increases the accuracy and damage of Unarmed Strikes, Throw attacks, and Improvised Melee Weapon attacks.

Description

When you make an unarmed attack, use an improvised weapon, or throw something, your Strength Modifier is added to the damage and  Attack Rolls an additional time.

Technical details

UID

TavernBrawler

Property flags: Highlighted

Stats functor context: OnAttack

How to learn

Granted by the feats: Tavern Brawler (feat)

Notes

• This feat always adds the Strength modifier. For example, if an  Unarmed Strike is made with Dexterity, both the Dexterity and Strength modifiers are added a single time.
• Druids in  Wild Shape receive the bonus, except when taking the form of a Fire, Water, or Air Myrmidon.
• Characters (and Wild Shape forms) with negative Strength modifiers have their attack and damage rolls reduced an additional time by this feat.
  • This does not apply to damage from  Throw and  Improvised Melee Weapon attacks, however, because Tavern Brawler adds a separate damage source which cannot deal less than 0 damage.
• When a creature is Thrown, it takes extra damage from Tavern Brawler when it lands.
• This feat, especially in conjunction with high Strength, is considered to be one of the strongest in the game, as it significantly increases both the likelihood of a hit and the damage dealt. It also benefits from a number of synergies:
  •  Halfling Luck, which significantly reduces the odds of a critical miss when an attack roll would succeed on a 2 or higher, as Tavern Brawler enables. Normally, there is a 1 in 20 chance of a miss on such an attack, but for halflings there is only a 1 in 400 chance (or 1 in 160,000 with  Advantage).
  • When making a Throw attack or Improvised Melee Weapon attack, the additional damage of Tavern Brawler is treated as a DRS.

Bugs

• As of Patch 8, bonus damage from this feat bypasses  Sturdy and similar conditions when attacking with  Throw.
• As of Patch 8, this feat applies to the damage of several spells and effects while the caster is in  Wild Shape, including spells like  Spike Growth and items like  Noxious Spore Grenades. Wild Shape forms with low Strength have a penalty applied to the damage rolls of these spells and effects.
  • Additional elemental damage from attacks while in Wild Shape, such as ⁠Acid damage from  Corrosive Spit or ⁠Thunder damage from  Grounded Thunder Strike, will receive an additional damage bonus, even in Honour Mode.
• The additional damage of Tavern Brawler applied to Throw attacks and  Improvised Melee Weapon attacks has no damage type and therefore can never be resisted, even by an  Elixir of Universal Resistance or  Warding Bond (In this case, both the caster and target take full damage). Flat damage reduction effects still apply.
• In Honour Mode, Improvised Melee Weapon attacks do not receive extra damage from Tavern Brawler. They receive a bonus to attack rolls, as expected.
  • Although using Throw on anything but  Thrown weapons behaves similarly to Improvised Melee Weapon, Throw attacks always benefit from both the attack roll and damage benefits of Tavern Brawler. However, when throwing a creature in Honour Mode, the creature will not receive extra damage from Tavern Brawler when landing.