Everybody brawls.

Liek, no. I don’t know a single DM who hasn’t had to adjudicate a sudden tavern brawl, or an impromptu street fight, or an informal prizefight in the hold of a ship, or some manner of scrappy fisticuff. Normally these play out using the unmodified combat rules, two folks just wailing on each other until an HP bar runs dry. Then either a healing spell is cast or the DM handwaives the damage and play continues. Either way, 1+ STR-ing one’s way through an HP bar much above fifth level takes forever, and swiftly stops being fun. Not to mention the issues inherent with blowing all of your HP on a random fistfight in the street. The standard combat rules just don’t work so well for this.

The DM for Grave of Saints, one of the two campaigns I’m playing, came up with a particularly elegant fix for this that we’ve been incorporating into our toolbox ever since, and which he’s given me permission to share. I’ll present his original system and then some side ideas for different situations I’ve been brainstorming since.

Maker’s Not-Boring Prizefighting Rules

1.) Don’t bother with Initiative – these rules are intended primarily for duels, and in a duel both fighters resolve their attacks simultaneously.

2.) Each fighter rolls two rolls – an Attack roll, using whatever mod they have a valid unarmed attack roll for (usually Strength, but can include Dex for monks, Intelligence for prosthetic-limbed battlesmith girls who get away with more than her DM should really let her sometimes, or the like) and a Defense roll. The Defense roll is the player’s choice of Acrobatics or Athletics, with Acro representing slippery dodges and Athletics representing boxing techniques like blocks, boxer’s parries, or similar.

3.) Any fighter whose defense roll fails to defeat their opponent’s attack roll takes a hit. Ignore hit points – instead, the first fighter to suffer three hits is knocked down and loses the fight.

And that’s it!

It sounds over-simplified and too simple, but I can attest that having seen it in play, there’s definitely something to it. The defense-roll aspect keeps a level of unpredictability in the bout that works well for chaotic fistiscuffles, street brawls, and tavern beatdowns, while also rewarding characters with physical training that should have a natural advantage in a fistfight. Characters with no Acro or Athletics and a low physical attack score end up having Nerdy Slapfights (guilty q_q), while characters with powerful unarmed modifiers and proficiencies across the board end up in epic boxing showdowns.

When we played these rules in a shipboard fistfighting competition during sea travel, our paladin went something like eight rounds with the ship’s dragonborn champion before a fall; far from being boring, some of the ladies in the party were hot under the collar by the end of it because these rules allow plenty of time for narrating your moves and adding some flavor to the contest without bogging down in 1+STR-ing 80-point HP bars to death.

Now, my DM brain likes to latch on to things like this and expand them, so I’ve been working on ideas to expand the basic system to cover more chaotic encounters (tavern brawls, primarily) and better incorporate different characters’ abilities. Some pointers that way below:

Yurei’s Tavern Ruckus Expansion Set

1.) For tavern brawling or other multi-fighter contests, reintroduce initiative. Each fighter gets one attack on their turn as per normal, and gets to roll a Defense roll against any attack thrown their way. Any fighter who flubs their defense roll takes a hit, as per normal. Yes, this potentially means somebody gets knocked out before they even get a swing if everybody gangs up on them. It’s a tavern brawl; working as intended.

2.) In a tavern brawl, each fighter can sustain a number of hits equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum one), rather than the flat ‘three good hits’ of a more organized fight. Fighters with a negative Constitution modifier roll Defense checks at disadvantage – keep your eight-con wizard out of the fracas. A fighter who suffers one hit over their Con modifier (or two hits period for low Con folks) gets the wind knocked out of them and effectively drops out of the fight.

3.) Any fighter with the Tavern Brawler feat gains advantage on their attack rolls in this ruleset and can sustain one extra hit in unorganized brawls, in addition to Tavern Brawler’s normal abilities.

4.) Any fighter with an Unarmored Defense class feature can choose to roll one defense with advantage. Monk Unarmored Defense can roll Acrobatics at advantage; Barbarians (and anyone with a Natural Armor ability, if the DM permits) can roll Athletics at advantage. Both classes can still roll the other defense if they like, they just don’t get advantage on their ‘off’ defense. If somebody’s playing a Monkbarian, they have advantage on both defense rolls for being the sort of mad lad who’d play a Monkbarian in the first place I suppose.

5.) Normal combat-rules bonus actions don’t tend to apply, but consider allowing players using the Brawling Rules here to use a ‘bonus action’ to boast, grandstand, or do something else showy and fun. If they do and it’s cool enough, let them roll attack or defense with advantage (as appropriate for their Cool Thing), or if they have advantage already give them a d4 to the roll. Try not to let players get carried away with this, but the whole idea is to have a big, messy, flashy nonsense battle. Get your players invested in that notion.

All righty! Hopefully that’s a helpful start on brawling rules that don’t derail your game for an hour using the combat rules and too-high HP bars. Feel free to experiment and fiddle around, figure out which variation works best for your table. Lemme know if you come up with any particularly useful variations, and what you think of the ruleset in specific. Enjoy!

Seems interesting! I think I'll be using this in my next campaign. The 'Cool Thing' (boasting, goading, etc) looks like it would lead to some fun RP interactions. Thanks!