Tavern Brawler

Tavern Brawler is a passive feature obtainable by the Feat of the same name. Users of this feature excel at improvised and unarmed fighting and deal more damage more often.

Description

Increase your  Strength or  Constitution by 1, to a maximum of 20.

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.

How to learn

Granted by the feats: Tavern Brawler (Feat)

Notes

• This feat, especially in conjunction with high  Strength and  Halfling Luck, is considered to be one of the strongest in the game, since the bonus to attack rolls can bring a character's chance to hit up to a near guaranteed success against most enemies, and also provides a substantial boost to damage output.
• This feat synergizes with  Enraged Throw,  Fast Hands and the  Duelling passive fighting style. The use of all three together can be a particularly potent combination, and reinforces the above point.
• This feat works well with  Devilfoil Masks. As at least four of these masks are available relatively early in the game they can, if worn by all party members, be used to raise the Strength of those wearing them as high as 23, while saving elixir slots for other functions such as  Bloodlust.
• This feat works well with weapons which have the  Thrown tag and return on their own (such as the  Returning Pike,  Dwarven Thrower and  Bloodthirst) or are  Bound to the wielder.
  • When weapons with the  Thrown tag are thrown in conjunction with this feat, normal damage from these weapons is also applied. Thrown weapon attacks can trigger useful effects from other items such as  The Sparkle Hands and  Flawed Helldusk Gloves. However, some items (the  Gloves of Cinder and Sizzle being one of them) do not work in conjunction with thrown weapons with this feat.
  • Weapons without the  Thrown tag are treated as improvised weapons, which only apply damage based on item weight plus the wielder's strength modifier with the feat applied.
• When Tavern Brawler is applied to the damage roll from a thrown weapon, the additional damage this feat grants is treated as a "DRS."
• Unarmed attacks which use  Dexterity as a modifier still gain the strength modifier as a bonus with this feat and thus do not get the Dexterity modifier applied twice to the attack. The base modifier used is whichever is higher, while the modifier applied from Tavern Brawler is always  Strength.
• The damage bonus is applied to  unarmed attacks that a Druid makes while in  Wild Shape. This behavior was added in Patch 5.
• The bonus Strength modifier damage to  Unarmed Strike works in honour mode and in  Slayer Form mode as of patch 8.
• For weapons which are thrown, Tavern Brawler usually does work with the  Duelling fighting style, as long as these requirements are met:

1. The weapon must not be two-handed (versatile weapons wielded in one hand and a shield in the other are OK).
2. The weapon must have the  Thrown property.
3. The weapon must be equipped at the time of being thrown, and not thrown from inventory (fixed in a recent patch).

• While there has been some confusion about the  Duelling passive not working with thrown weapons, this is clarified with points and references listed below:
  • Player testing shows Dueling can apply to thrown weapon attacks made with a melee weapon that also has the Thrown tag, but only if one meets Dueling’s “one weapon only” condition at the moment of the throw. Implementation quirks can make this finicky.
  • In tabletop 5e, Dueling applies to a thrown melee weapon (e.g., dagger, handaxe, spear). This is the rules intent Larian broadly follows.
  • In BG3, player tests conflict: some show +2 damage from Duelling on equipped, thrown-tag melee weapons, while others report no bonus. This inconsistency appears to come from how BG3 sometimes classifies Throw (and improvised throws) under the hood.
  • Keep in mind Duelling’s Requirements - Duelling Fighting style reads as:
    • "When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand, and no weapon in the other, you deal an additional 2 damage with that weapon.”
    • Key Point: It specifically says “a melee weapon in one hand”, not an improvised weapon that is thrown.
    • Tavern Brawler’s Focus - Tavern Brawler revolves around unarmed attacks, thrown objects, and improvised weapons (like chairs, mugs, or corpses the player character can pick up). While thrown objects generally qualify for the Tavern Brawler bonus, not all thrown objects qualify for the Duelling passive fighting style bonus.
      • Duelling Tavern Brawler builds focus on weapon-based throws. Improvised objects (mugs, crates, bodies) are not “melee weapons,” so Dueling does not apply.
      • Improvised Weapons are sometimes treated like melee weapons, but not all improvised items neatly qualify for the conditions that trigger Duelling.
    • Possible Outliers
      • If one happens to find and / or use an improvised weapon that the game specifically recognizes as a one-handed melee weapon and the player character has no other weapons equipped, some report the Duelling bonus applying. This can be finicky and may depend on how the game tags that particular item.
      • Another possible method is to wield a one-handed weapon in each hand where, immediately after one weapon is thrown, the game sees the thrower with only one weapon equipped.
  • To summarize: Duelling generally does stack with Tavern Brawler when one throws an actual melee weapon with the Thrown tag (dagger/handaxe/spear, etc.). Duelling also applies if its conditions are satisfied (one weapon in hand; a shield is OK). Several non-wiki threads report the +2 applying in those setups, while others found it did not when throwing from inventory or due to classification quirks - hence the mixed reports.

Bugs

• Characters with negative strength modifiers (and  Wild Shapes with the same, such as Wild Shape: Cat) have twice reduced attack and damage rolls from this passive.
• As of Patch 8, bonus damage from this feat bypasses  Sturdy and similar conditions, but only when thrown.
• As of Patch 8, this feat applies to the damage of several spells and effects while the caster is  Wild Shaped, including but not necessarily limited to:  Moonbeam,  Spike Growth, Noxious Fumes, and even the caster of a  Warding Bond (with no damage type, so resistances do not apply but items with a subtraction from all damage do). Wild Shapes with low  Strength have a penalty applied to the damage roll of these associated spells or effects.
  • Additional elemental damage from Wild Shape attacks, such as ⁠Acid from  Bite (Dilophosaurus) or ⁠Thunder from  Grounded Thunder Strike, will receive an additional damage bonus, even in Honour Mode.