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 twice to the damage and Attack rolls.^{[See: Bugs]}

How to learn

Granted by the feats: Tavern Brawler (Feat)

Notes

• This feat is an example of rule zero of Dungeons & Dragons in that it defies the Bounded Accuracy principle of the fifth edition rule set, the basis for much of the rule mechanics used in Baldur's Gate 3. While it is not the only occurrence of such a deviation, it is arguably one of the strongest examples (if not the strongest example) present in the game.

• This feat works well with Weapon Bond.

• 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.

• Weapons with the "Thrown" tag are treated as a type of unarmed attack. In addition to damage granted by this feat (and normal weapon damage), unarmed strike 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) may not work with this feat in conjunction certain thrown weapons, such as the Shining Staver-of-Skulls.

• Unarmed attacks that use Dexterity as a modifier still gain the strength modifier as a bonus with this feat and thus don't get the Dexterity modifier applied twice to the attack. Your base modifier is whichever is higher, the modifier you get from TB is always Strength.

• When Tavern Brawler is applied to the damage roll from a thrown weapon, the additional damage this feat grants is treated as a "DRS."

• The damage bonus is applied to unarmed attacks that a Druid makes while in Wild Shape. This behavior was added in Patch 5.

Bugs

• As of Hotfix 6, the bonus Strength modifier damage from throws with Tavern Brawler seems to be directly applied to objects, bypassing any Toughness condition they may have. Thus, even if a character cannot deal enough normal damage in a single attack, they can still slowly but surely chip down the health of any locked door or chest by repeatedly throwing an item. This was fixed in patch ??, tested in hotfix 20.
• As of Hotfix 21, the bonus Strength modifier damage to unarmed strikes does not apply to unarmed strikes while Wild Shaped in Honour Mode.
• As of Hotfix 21, the bonus Strength modifier damage to unarmed strikes does not apply to unarmed strikes while in Slayer Form in any difficulty setting.