Not surprised, but not satisfied, either. I would have preferred revisions over dropping it.
Hopefully this means they'll at least bring back the Unarmed fighting style (with no pre-requisites for anyone to take it: anyone can take it as a Feat, anyone with a Fighting Style can use it as their fighting style pick).
That plus Tavern Brawler pretty much covers that Subclass anyway.
its gone because people didnt get it, and i was fairly certain it would be dropped.
but no, not really. They would be able to do +6 damage with improvised weapons, be able to apply two masteries at once, and were able to choose which mastery per hit out of 3. They also could add reach to 2 hand improvised, and light to 1 handers.
you would not be effective ignoring this. you would be doing -6 damage per hit, with less masteries.
they could also throw d12s and 2d6s at people.
Except this +6 damage comes online at 15th level, which is what most campaigns never even reach. But you could find a flame tongue or something like that much earlier. And where did you get that "two masteries at once" thing from? Also, given that you can sheathe or unsheathe weapons from your golf bag with every attack, applying different masteries on the same turn is possible for every class...
It was not necessarily hopeless, but it's reliant on a set of rules that are poorly described so at a minimum they'd need to go into a lot more detail about how improvised weapons actually work -- which they don't seem to want to do.
its gone because people didnt get it, and i was fairly certain it would be dropped.
but no, not really. They would be able to do +6 damage with improvised weapons, be able to apply two masteries at once, and were able to choose which mastery per hit out of 3. They also could add reach to 2 hand improvised, and light to 1 handers.
you would not be effective ignoring this. you would be doing -6 damage per hit, with less masteries.
they could also throw d12s and 2d6s at people.
Except this +6 damage comes online at 15th level, which is what most campaigns never even reach. But you could find a flame tongue or something like that much earlier. And where did you get that "two masteries at once" thing from? Also, given that you can sheathe or unsheathe weapons from your golf bag with every attack, applying different masteries on the same turn is possible for every class...
Not really, other than fighter and barbarian, no one can have more than 2 masteries per day.
also, normal masteries are specific to the weapon, IE you can only have two weapons with mastery, even if they have the same effect. If you want topple on a trident, and topple on polearm, thats both of your masteries.
the brawler at level 3 can use 3 masteries on any improvised weapon, decided at the time of attack
"In addition, whenever you attack with an Improvised Weapon, you can give it one of the following Mastery properties for that attack, depending on whether it can be wielded in one hand or two: One-Handed: Sap, Slow, or Vex Two-Handed: Cleave, Push, or Topple"
this is actually very big difference in actual play, and none of these consume your other masteries, so they can basically have access to every mastery at one time, even at low levels.
this means they cant do 3 different masteries for each attack.
as for the two masteries at one time;
"In addition, whenever you attack with an Improvised Weapon, you can use two Mastery properties from Improvised Expert, instead of one."
the level 15 feat.
yeah, they put most of the power into a level 15 feat, but that could easily have been remedied by having the same part of the feature given earlier, which would scale with PB. they could have given that at 3 7 or 10 easily.
Most people were thinking it was supposed to be a monk, when really that was just a ribbon, so that they would be effective with any type of martial attack. The actual unique facet is its improvised weapon buffs, and versatility.
the improvised weapon rules, are confusing in tandem with brawler for most people, which doesnt really matter much at 15, when the explictly say you can treat any two hander as a d12, but matter for low level play, when some people think every improvised weapon should be a d4.
Most people dont really fully grasp the limits, and play of the mastery system yet because they havent played it. the two weapon mastery most classes get doesnt really compare to what the fighter can pull off, and versatility wise, the Brawler could pull of things the regular fighter
also weapon swapping isnt free, you can equip one weapon, and unequip a weapon once per attack, so it takes two attacks to swap weapons. this means if you have 3 attacks, you can only use two weapons, unless one of them is throwing, or you take the dual wielder feat. But regardless, they can only have two masteries.
there brawler needed work, and the improvised rules need clarification, but it was far from unsalvageable. I could probably have made the brawler fine with a few extra words here, and slight tweaks.
better than nothing, which is what we are now getting. Copy paste from another book.
Not surprised, but not satisfied, either. I would have preferred revisions over dropping it.
Hopefully this means they'll at least bring back the Unarmed fighting style (with no pre-requisites for anyone to take it: anyone can take it as a Feat, anyone with a Fighting Style can use it as their fighting style pick).
That plus Tavern Brawler pretty much covers that Subclass anyway.
tavern brawler doesnt really cover it.
TAVERN BRAWLER 1st-Level Feat Prerequisite: None Repeatable: No Accustomed to brawling, you gain the following benefits:
Enhanced Unarmed Strike. When you hit with your Unarmed Strike* and deal damage, you can deal Bludgeoning Damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the normal damage of an Unarmed Strike.
Damage Rerolls. Whenever you roll a damage die for your Unarmed Strike, you can reroll the die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new roll.
Shove. When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack Action on your turn, you can deal damage to the target and also push it 5 feet away. You can use this benefit only once per turn.
Furniture as Weapons. You can wield furniture as a Weapon, using the rules of the Greatclub for Small or Medium furniture and the rules of the Club for Tiny furniture."
no improvised weapon proficiency.
no masteries selection on improvised weapons.
no light, thrown, or reach on improvised weapons
no PB plus damage with improvised weapons.
no grapple BA. or grapple advantage
unarmed dice is 3 steps lower
no two masteries at once on an attack
only can use furniture, and only d4 or d8
you may as well claim magic adept is basically eldricth knight.
The Brawler's no more 'gone' than any UA thing is. Homebrew is homebrew. Will it be in the One PHB? No. But then again it was a bad idea done badly. "The Master of Improvised Weapons" is certainly a niche, but it's a bad niche. To do it properly the thing would need to be more effective with chicken legs, beer steins, whoopee cushions and dead stirges than any other fighter is with actual-for-real weapons, and that's A.) not really possible, and B.) an outlandishly bad idea. To the extent that an Improvised Weapon Expert is/should be a thing it's a better fit for the barbarian anyways, and frankly even then you're asking a player to deliberately and permanently forsake ALL magical gear of any sort for the power to slap people with chickens for more than 1d4+STR damage. That is, and always will be, a Bad Trade. I mean, just look how far over they have to bend backwards simply to try and make the "Unarmed" monk even halfway competitive with regular martial characters. Why would making a character that forsakes unarmed attacks too and thus all the Unarmed Buffs coming in One in order to slap people with chickens be worthwhile?
The "furniture" clause is meant to cover that. You can grab a barstool and boom, you have a Greatclub, complete with proficiency and mastery (because it gets treated like the listed weapon.)
Other things like a kitchen knife or a pitchfork are both covered by the "DM finds the closest matching weapon on the table" clause.
I've always been of the opinion that all main "Martial Arts"-style characters belong in the Monk Class. The Brawler subclass, the Unarmed Fighting Style from Tasha's, and the Tavern Brawler feat have all been poor attempts to support the Pugilist/Wrestler archetype when the archetype should be supported by the class that revolves around Martial Arts. I would prefer if the next version of the Monk added a mechanically viable way to be a Strength-based Brawleresque Monk to the core of the class instead of turning the Brawler into a Barbarian subclass or whatever else WotC might have in mind. And it would also allow for Monks to have a broader theme than "Kung Fu fighters".
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
The Brawler's no more 'gone' than any UA thing is. Homebrew is homebrew. Will it be in the One PHB? No. But then again it was a bad idea done badly. "The Master of Improvised Weapons" is certainly a niche, but it's a bad niche. To do it properly the thing would need to be more effective with chicken legs, beer steins, whoopee cushions and dead stirges than any other fighter is with actual-for-real weapons, and that's A.) not really possible, and B.) an outlandishly bad idea. To the extent that an Improvised Weapon Expert is/should be a thing it's a better fit for the barbarian anyways, and frankly even then you're asking a player to deliberately and permanently forsake ALL magical gear of any sort for the power to slap people with chickens for more than 1d4+STR damage. That is, and always will be, a Bad Trade. I mean, just look how far over they have to bend backwards simply to try and make the "Unarmed" monk even halfway competitive with regular martial characters. Why would making a character that forsakes unarmed attacks too and thus all the Unarmed Buffs coming in One in order to slap people with chickens be worthwhile?
This can only work with monk's martial arts die, that way it can at least scale. And using improvised weapons is literally the most Jackie Chan thing you can do in combat, which fits the monk like a glove. Mesh it with the drunken master subclass and you got yourself a deal. But this idea is too complicated for WotC.
The "furniture" clause is meant to cover that. You can grab a barstool and boom, you have a Greatclub, complete with proficiency and mastery (because it gets treated like the listed weapon.)
Other things like a kitchen knife or a pitchfork are both covered by the "DM finds the closest matching weapon on the table" clause.
you may as well claim magic adept is basically eldricth knight.
I'd much rather be an Eldritch Knight, yeah.
first off, i am not saying brawler was perfect by far, i am saying it needed some tweaks.
1) furniture in no way covers improvised weapons. And its not meant to. Its meant to make it specifically the things you might pick up in a bar, not alchemicals, pots of oil, rocks, caltrops, ropes, a person's body. They specifically wanted to reduce the use cases of tavern brawler to be basically tavern brawling. They would not have changed it if they didnt want it to be a lot less useful. Improvised weapons have no natural properties, and no natural masteries, this means you cant use pole arm mastery with a broom, or the light property on a piece of glass. It means all furniture can use club masteries only, non furniture uses no mastery, and weapon like items use the weapons mastery, if the DM believes that your improvised weapon closely matches one of the weapons you chose to learn mastery for. If the DM rules your Broom is a staff, and not a trident, you cant use any mastery with it, unless you have staff mastery. Meanwhile, the Brawler can use any of 3 different masteries, on each hit, depending whether its two handed or one handed. Most other classes will never have access to 3 masteries in one day, much less on each attack, and these are mostly the better masteries.
2)Rage is not better than the things you mentioned, and neither is maneuvers.
Manuevers, at high level give you one d8 free per round, and you have 6 total dice for d12. High level fighters can make between 4 and 6 attacks per round including nick and BA attacks. this means if you tried to add superiority dice on every attack you would only last 1 to 2 rounds depending when you do it. Even assuming you will get a short rest after every 4 round fight, you cannot keep up with the brawler who gets +6 on every attack, every action surge, every Attack of opportunity. And, yeah, maneuvers have nice on hit effects, but brawler can do two masteries at the same time, they basically can do almost any mastery they want. So they are getting decent utility, an they can do it for every attack, not just their first 6 attacks.
Rage gives defense, thats why it competes, however they need rage+brutal crit to equal the +6 damage, and they wont have the two masteries per hit, or the selection of masteries available to the brawler. The brawler also allows unique combinations, like a d12 polearm for PAM, thrown d12/2d6s and light d8 weapons.
dual wielding is not multiple masteries per attack, dual wielding allows you to use two masteries in one turn. Any one can already use two masteries in one turn who has 2 attacks, its also limited to 1handed weapon masteries.
a level 15-20 brawler is fairly well balanced against a barbarian, battlemaster, etc in terms of damage and utility. The problem is that its very top heavy, and the backing features are slightly weaker versions of feats/fighting styles. If they were equal to those feats/fighting styles, with the wording, if you already have this feat/fs select another one it would solve that issue. Or they could just make new features that enhance the playstyle without being similar. But thats not a power level problem, thats just a correctable design flaw.
Its fine if you prefer eldritch knight, thats the point of subclasses, to appeal to different types of players. My comparison is that you claiming tavern brawler = brawler subclass, is like claiming magic initiate = eldritch knight subclass. Its a whole lot lesser than.
But yeah, no player has gained anything by them using a copy paste subclass from existing books, while some players might have enjoyed it.
The Brawler's no more 'gone' than any UA thing is. Homebrew is homebrew. Will it be in the One PHB? No. But then again it was a bad idea done badly. "The Master of Improvised Weapons" is certainly a niche, but it's a bad niche. To do it properly the thing would need to be more effective with chicken legs, beer steins, whoopee cushions and dead stirges than any other fighter is with actual-for-real weapons, and that's A.) not really possible, and B.) an outlandishly bad idea. To the extent that an Improvised Weapon Expert is/should be a thing it's a better fit for the barbarian anyways, and frankly even then you're asking a player to deliberately and permanently forsake ALL magical gear of any sort for the power to slap people with chickens for more than 1d4+STR damage. That is, and always will be, a Bad Trade. I mean, just look how far over they have to bend backwards simply to try and make the "Unarmed" monk even halfway competitive with regular martial characters. Why would making a character that forsakes unarmed attacks too and thus all the Unarmed Buffs coming in One in order to slap people with chickens be worthwhile?
yeah UAs are gone. homebrew is not in existence for all players. 5e monk(for example) is not fine just because i can homebrew a nice one. My homebrew is nice, 5e monk is not nice
and no, it doesnt need to be more effective than other SUBCLASSES it just needs to be as effective. It needs to be more effective than a fighter with no sublclasses, which it was.
as far as magical gear they specifically said they were going to have magical gear that effected improvised and unarmed attacks, so it wasnt going to be giving up magical gear for ever. Also there are magical items that you can use as improvised weapons. Using items incorrectly uses improvised weapon rules. Like throwing a flame tongue greatsword would be using it as an improvised weapon, which would give it the thrown property, if you selected that. fastening a Rakdos Riteknife to a broom, or staff would normally be considered an improvised weapon. And there are a number of magic items which dont need to be wielded, like belt fire giant strength, needle of mending, etc.
and the chicken wing could have been;
a thrown chicken wing that Slows+VEXes, after throwing your table knife as a dagger for nick/slow to another enemy d4+STR+PB+2 + d4+str+PB+2(thrown fighting style) damage
followed by a d12+str+PB+2(thrown fighting style) thrown rock the pushes + topples putting them next to an enemy,
followed by a run in and cleave/topple then cleave/push with a broom with magic dagger tied to it. 2d12+str+2pb per swng, or 4d12+2str+4PB
then cleave with the haft.d4+str+PB
doing massive damage, toppling, slowing two enemies, pushing them 30 to 20 feet away from the group, and doing a total of between 87 and 137 average damage(range based on how many hit, from 65% to 100% since some will be toppled or vexed) in one non action surge turn. at 20.
thats definitely competitive with BM or barbarian.
is it worthwhile? considering trip attack is manuever, that basically does topple+6.5, but is limited to 6 per short rest, yeah its probably worth it.
I'd like to see them take the ideas & themes of Brawler and give it all to the Open Hand Monk. I've long wanted a (mechanically realized) version of Monk that fulfills the Brawler/Boxer/Bouncer/Street Thug type aesthetic.
@Gwar1: You keep chanting "two masteries!" and neglecting the fact that that was the only halfway worthwhile unique thing Brawlers got. At 15th level.All their other features are just to bring them within striking distance of the weapon-using subclasses, and they still fall short of a Champion, much less anything better. Out of combat utility, none. Defenses, none (hell, you lose damage by using a shield!) Magic weapon use, none. Overcoming physical damage resistances, none. Ranged builds, none (please, don't even bring up the hilarious 10/20ft thrown). And yeah, you can try arguing that this was just the first pass and they can be improved, but they're fighting the entire combat system uphill because Improvised Weapons have to suck baseline in order to reward weapon use, so there is limited space for said improvements.
Rage and Maneuvers are absolutely better than that. Trip Attack alone functions like that second mastery you're touting, except the BM gets it 12 levels earlier, and 11 levels earlier can combine it with Grappler to knock prone and pin the enemy for permanent Advantage the entire fight without blowing the rest of their dice. The Champion meanwhile can switch-hit between TWF and Archery style as early at 7th while also having exploration utility. Rage and Reckless Attack get you advantage and bonus damage without even knocking people prone first, and that's just the base class. I would take literally any barbarian over a Brawler for a strength-based unarmed build.
Lastly - we absolutely gain by "copy pasting subclasses" into core. Even if they pick a subclass that doesn't need any improvements, like both BM and Champion did - putting something like Psi Warrior or Rune Knight in core means a lot more people will get to try those classes out. Tashas was a popular book but there are still a lot of tables out there that never tried it.
@Gwar1: You keep chanting "two masteries!" and neglecting the fact that that was the only halfway worthwhile unique thing Brawlers got. At 15th level.All their other features are just to bring them within striking distance of the weapon-using subclasses, and they still fall short of a Champion, much less anything better. Out of combat utility, none. Defenses, none (hell, you lose damage by using a shield!) Magic weapon use, none. Overcoming physical damage resistances, none. Ranged builds, none (please, don't even bring up the hilarious 10/20ft thrown). And yeah, you can try arguing that this was just the first pass and they can be improved, but they're fighting the entire combat system uphill because Improvised Weapons have to suck baseline in order to reward weapon use, so there is limited space for said improvements.
Rage and Maneuvers are absolutely better than that. Trip Attack alone functions like that second mastery you're touting, except the BM gets it 12 levels earlier, and 11 levels earlier can combine it with Grappler to knock prone and pin the enemy for permanent Advantage the entire fight without blowing the rest of their dice. The Champion meanwhile can switch-hit between TWF and Archery style as early at 7th while also having exploration utility. Rage and Reckless Attack get you advantage and bonus damage without even knocking people prone first, and that's just the base class. I would take literally any barbarian over a Brawler for a strength-based unarmed build.
Lastly - we absolutely gain by "copy pasting subclasses" into core. Even if they pick a subclass that doesn't need any improvements, like both BM and Champion did - putting something like Psi Warrior or Rune Knight in core means a lot more people will get to try those classes out. Tashas was a popular book but there are still a lot of tables out there that never tried it.
Only one person needs access to book for you to have access to a subclass, (or realistically less than that, with reality of internet, libraries, info sharing).
You keep focusing on this as if my argument is that brawler was a well designed final draft, it was not. It is top heavy, as i said. But at the top, it competes with any other subclass of fighter in damage, utility, and flavor. This is a problem with how they designed when and how it gets its abilities, not fatal flaw with the class concept.
as simple as moving one sentence from level 15 to level 3 or 7. (you do PB extra damage with improvised weapons)
unarmed lacking synergy; simple fix your unarmed attacks count as improvised weapons. your minimum improvised weapon damage now scales as the unarmed dice used to scale. (d6 one hand d8 two hand)
the weaker copy feats;
= you get the unarmed fighting style, if you already have it, select another fighting style
=you get the grappler feat, if you already have it select another feat of your choice.
clarification of improvised rule: an improvised weapon that looks like a weapon has the properties of the weapon but is still considered improvised weapon. Whether a weapon resembles a cvertain weapon or not is approved by the GM.
you say they fall short of anything but champion, but i dont think you have run any numbers at all.
i will tell you right now, +PB damage per hit, on a class that has high hit rate, is huge.
a brawler is likely to use multiple weapons, as that its main strength. this means you can expect them to be doing the nick BA combo at almost all times.
that is 74 damage per turn, assuming no cleaves, no Aoo, no advantage and 65% hitrate etc. its highly unlikely they will have no advantage, since their 1h attacks can have vex, and their two handed attacks can topple. so likely they will be getting at least 80% hit rate from advantage, and will be averaging around 90 damage, that is competitive with BM and Champion. Eldritch might beat it. but thats probably some of the higher damage out of fighter sub classes. That also doesnt include action surge, which benefits from its strong bonus per hit. The brawlers defense is its abilities, it has easy access to many CCs and the ability to use it. a grappled and prone attacker has disadvantage to attacks, which they can do via punch and grab, and topple improvised.A throwing focused brawler can push the enemy out of range, and knock it down. The Brawler defends via its use of mastery.
Fighter also has defenses built into the class, like second wind, imdomitable, etc.
Out of combat utility? fighter has built in out of combat utility now with tactical mind. subclasses of fighter are not known for giving much out of combat utility. not all classes are the same regardless. Its ok if another subclass has better out of combat use cases, or defenses.
Rage is +4 damage, and half BPS damage. That is not better than +6 damage, and 2 masteries per hit objectively. Its fine if you prefer that, but its not an objectively better.i'll tell you that brawler damage is competitive with barbarian damage, probably higher than most subclasses.
Maneuvers can do interesting things, but most of them are not objectively better than a 10 foot push, a topple, disadvantage to its next attack, slow, advantage on your next attack, or a cleave attack. they have different usecases, and thats good. The goal of the brawler isnt to become a BM, it offers a different way of fighting. Maneuvers are also limited to 6 per short rest, and 1 each round, whereas Brawler can do this stuff on every attack. assuming the fighter makes 4 attacks per turn, and the average fight lasts 4 rounds. I dont think maneuvers are better than two masteries and +6 damage, but even if i did, is twice as good? because 19(16+3 Action surge) attacks per short rest (assuming rest after ever fight) and you can only use manevurs for 10 of those attacks. Maybe you like BM better, but is that a competitive comparison? i would say it definitely is.
Brawler: you might not like its concept, thats fine, you might find the exeution of its progression, and some choices to be bleh, and thats fine. But you cant really say it was not competitive with other subclasses in damage and combat utility, because that can be measured, and its simply not true.
Its weak if you were planning to use unarmed damage mostly, but thats clearly not the design of the class.
Not surprised, but not satisfied, either. I would have preferred revisions over dropping it.
Hopefully this means they'll at least bring back the Unarmed fighting style (with no pre-requisites for anyone to take it: anyone can take it as a Feat, anyone with a Fighting Style can use it as their fighting style pick).
That plus Tavern Brawler pretty much covers that Subclass anyway.
If they give Unarmed fighting to everyone that can get a fighting style, then I'll accept it.
Except this +6 damage comes online at 15th level, which is what most campaigns never even reach. But you could find a flame tongue or something like that much earlier. And where did you get that "two masteries at once" thing from? Also, given that you can sheathe or unsheathe weapons from your golf bag with every attack, applying different masteries on the same turn is possible for every class...
It was not necessarily hopeless, but it's reliant on a set of rules that are poorly described so at a minimum they'd need to go into a lot more detail about how improvised weapons actually work -- which they don't seem to want to do.
Not really, other than fighter and barbarian, no one can have more than 2 masteries per day.
also, normal masteries are specific to the weapon, IE you can only have two weapons with mastery, even if they have the same effect. If you want topple on a trident, and topple on polearm, thats both of your masteries.
the brawler at level 3 can use 3 masteries on any improvised weapon, decided at the time of attack
"In addition, whenever you attack with an
Improvised Weapon, you can give it one of the
following Mastery properties for that attack,
depending on whether it can be wielded in one
hand or two:
One-Handed: Sap, Slow, or Vex
Two-Handed: Cleave, Push, or Topple"
this is actually very big difference in actual play, and none of these consume your other masteries, so they can basically have access to every mastery at one time, even at low levels.
this means they cant do 3 different masteries for each attack.
as for the two masteries at one time;
"In addition, whenever you attack with an
Improvised Weapon, you can use two Mastery
properties from Improvised Expert, instead of
one."
the level 15 feat.
yeah, they put most of the power into a level 15 feat, but that could easily have been remedied by having the same part of the feature given earlier, which would scale with PB. they could have given that at 3 7 or 10 easily.
Most people were thinking it was supposed to be a monk, when really that was just a ribbon, so that they would be effective with any type of martial attack. The actual unique facet is its improvised weapon buffs, and versatility.
the improvised weapon rules, are confusing in tandem with brawler for most people, which doesnt really matter much at 15, when the explictly say you can treat any two hander as a d12, but matter for low level play, when some people think every improvised weapon should be a d4.
Most people dont really fully grasp the limits, and play of the mastery system yet because they havent played it. the two weapon mastery most classes get doesnt really compare to what the fighter can pull off, and versatility wise, the Brawler could pull of things the regular fighter
also weapon swapping isnt free, you can equip one weapon, and unequip a weapon once per attack, so it takes two attacks to swap weapons. this means if you have 3 attacks, you can only use two weapons, unless one of them is throwing, or you take the dual wielder feat. But regardless, they can only have two masteries.
there brawler needed work, and the improvised rules need clarification, but it was far from unsalvageable. I could probably have made the brawler fine with a few extra words here, and slight tweaks.
better than nothing, which is what we are now getting. Copy paste from another book.
tavern brawler doesnt really cover it.
TAVERN BRAWLER
1st-Level Feat
Prerequisite: None
Repeatable: No
Accustomed to brawling, you gain the following
benefits:
Enhanced Unarmed Strike. When you hit with
your Unarmed Strike* and deal damage, you
can deal Bludgeoning Damage equal to 1d4 +
your Strength modifier, instead of the normal
damage of an Unarmed Strike.
Damage Rerolls. Whenever you roll a damage
die for your Unarmed Strike, you can reroll
the die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new
roll.
Shove. When you hit a creature with an
Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack Action
on your turn, you can deal damage to the
target and also push it 5 feet away. You can
use this benefit only once per turn.
Furniture as Weapons. You can wield
furniture as a Weapon, using the rules of the
Greatclub for Small or Medium furniture and
the rules of the Club for Tiny furniture."
no improvised weapon proficiency.
no masteries selection on improvised weapons.
no light, thrown, or reach on improvised weapons
no PB plus damage with improvised weapons.
no grapple BA. or grapple advantage
unarmed dice is 3 steps lower
no two masteries at once on an attack
only can use furniture, and only d4 or d8
you may as well claim magic adept is basically eldricth knight.
The Brawler's no more 'gone' than any UA thing is. Homebrew is homebrew. Will it be in the One PHB? No. But then again it was a bad idea done badly. "The Master of Improvised Weapons" is certainly a niche, but it's a bad niche. To do it properly the thing would need to be more effective with chicken legs, beer steins, whoopee cushions and dead stirges than any other fighter is with actual-for-real weapons, and that's A.) not really possible, and B.) an outlandishly bad idea. To the extent that an Improvised Weapon Expert is/should be a thing it's a better fit for the barbarian anyways, and frankly even then you're asking a player to deliberately and permanently forsake ALL magical gear of any sort for the power to slap people with chickens for more than 1d4+STR damage. That is, and always will be, a Bad Trade. I mean, just look how far over they have to bend backwards simply to try and make the "Unarmed" monk even halfway competitive with regular martial characters. Why would making a character that forsakes unarmed attacks too and thus all the Unarmed Buffs coming in One in order to slap people with chickens be worthwhile?
Please do not contact or message me.
The "furniture" clause is meant to cover that. You can grab a barstool and boom, you have a Greatclub, complete with proficiency and mastery (because it gets treated like the listed weapon.)
Other things like a kitchen knife or a pitchfork are both covered by the "DM finds the closest matching weapon on the table" clause.
In exchange for these, you get actual subclass features that don't suck. BM maneuvers get you pretty much all this and much more, as does Rage.
In exchange, you can use actual weapons (including magic weapons.) Also, if you really want multiple masteries that's what dual-wielding is for.
I'd much rather be an Eldritch Knight, yeah.
I've always been of the opinion that all main "Martial Arts"-style characters belong in the Monk Class. The Brawler subclass, the Unarmed Fighting Style from Tasha's, and the Tavern Brawler feat have all been poor attempts to support the Pugilist/Wrestler archetype when the archetype should be supported by the class that revolves around Martial Arts. I would prefer if the next version of the Monk added a mechanically viable way to be a Strength-based Brawleresque Monk to the core of the class instead of turning the Brawler into a Barbarian subclass or whatever else WotC might have in mind. And it would also allow for Monks to have a broader theme than "Kung Fu fighters".
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
This can only work with monk's martial arts die, that way it can at least scale. And using improvised weapons is literally the most Jackie Chan thing you can do in combat, which fits the monk like a glove. Mesh it with the drunken master subclass and you got yourself a deal. But this idea is too complicated for WotC.
first off, i am not saying brawler was perfect by far, i am saying it needed some tweaks.
1) furniture in no way covers improvised weapons. And its not meant to. Its meant to make it specifically the things you might pick up in a bar, not alchemicals, pots of oil, rocks, caltrops, ropes, a person's body. They specifically wanted to reduce the use cases of tavern brawler to be basically tavern brawling. They would not have changed it if they didnt want it to be a lot less useful. Improvised weapons have no natural properties, and no natural masteries, this means you cant use pole arm mastery with a broom, or the light property on a piece of glass. It means all furniture can use club masteries only, non furniture uses no mastery, and weapon like items use the weapons mastery, if the DM believes that your improvised weapon closely matches one of the weapons you chose to learn mastery for. If the DM rules your Broom is a staff, and not a trident, you cant use any mastery with it, unless you have staff mastery. Meanwhile, the Brawler can use any of 3 different masteries, on each hit, depending whether its two handed or one handed. Most other classes will never have access to 3 masteries in one day, much less on each attack, and these are mostly the better masteries.
2)Rage is not better than the things you mentioned, and neither is maneuvers.
Manuevers, at high level give you one d8 free per round, and you have 6 total dice for d12. High level fighters can make between 4 and 6 attacks per round including nick and BA attacks. this means if you tried to add superiority dice on every attack you would only last 1 to 2 rounds depending when you do it. Even assuming you will get a short rest after every 4 round fight, you cannot keep up with the brawler who gets +6 on every attack, every action surge, every Attack of opportunity. And, yeah, maneuvers have nice on hit effects, but brawler can do two masteries at the same time, they basically can do almost any mastery they want. So they are getting decent utility, an they can do it for every attack, not just their first 6 attacks.
Rage gives defense, thats why it competes, however they need rage+brutal crit to equal the +6 damage, and they wont have the two masteries per hit, or the selection of masteries available to the brawler. The brawler also allows unique combinations, like a d12 polearm for PAM, thrown d12/2d6s and light d8 weapons.
dual wielding is not multiple masteries per attack, dual wielding allows you to use two masteries in one turn. Any one can already use two masteries in one turn who has 2 attacks, its also limited to 1handed weapon masteries.
a level 15-20 brawler is fairly well balanced against a barbarian, battlemaster, etc in terms of damage and utility. The problem is that its very top heavy, and the backing features are slightly weaker versions of feats/fighting styles. If they were equal to those feats/fighting styles, with the wording, if you already have this feat/fs select another one it would solve that issue. Or they could just make new features that enhance the playstyle without being similar. But thats not a power level problem, thats just a correctable design flaw.
Its fine if you prefer eldritch knight, thats the point of subclasses, to appeal to different types of players. My comparison is that you claiming tavern brawler = brawler subclass, is like claiming magic initiate = eldritch knight subclass. Its a whole lot lesser than.
But yeah, no player has gained anything by them using a copy paste subclass from existing books, while some players might have enjoyed it.
yeah UAs are gone. homebrew is not in existence for all players. 5e monk(for example) is not fine just because i can homebrew a nice one. My homebrew is nice, 5e monk is not nice
and no, it doesnt need to be more effective than other SUBCLASSES it just needs to be as effective. It needs to be more effective than a fighter with no sublclasses, which it was.
as far as magical gear they specifically said they were going to have magical gear that effected improvised and unarmed attacks, so it wasnt going to be giving up magical gear for ever. Also there are magical items that you can use as improvised weapons. Using items incorrectly uses improvised weapon rules. Like throwing a flame tongue greatsword would be using it as an improvised weapon, which would give it the thrown property, if you selected that. fastening a Rakdos Riteknife to a broom, or staff would normally be considered an improvised weapon. And there are a number of magic items which dont need to be wielded, like belt fire giant strength, needle of mending, etc.
and the chicken wing could have been;
a thrown chicken wing that Slows+VEXes, after throwing your table knife as a dagger for nick/slow to another enemy d4+STR+PB+2 + d4+str+PB+2(thrown fighting style) damage
followed by a d12+str+PB+2(thrown fighting style) thrown rock the pushes + topples putting them next to an enemy,
followed by a run in and cleave/topple then cleave/push with a broom with magic dagger tied to it. 2d12+str+2pb per swng, or 4d12+2str+4PB
then cleave with the haft.d4+str+PB
doing massive damage, toppling, slowing two enemies, pushing them 30 to 20 feet away from the group, and doing a total of between 87 and 137 average damage(range based on how many hit, from 65% to 100% since some will be toppled or vexed) in one non action surge turn. at 20.
thats definitely competitive with BM or barbarian.
is it worthwhile? considering trip attack is manuever, that basically does topple+6.5, but is limited to 6 per short rest, yeah its probably worth it.
I'd like to see them take the ideas & themes of Brawler and give it all to the Open Hand Monk. I've long wanted a (mechanically realized) version of Monk that fulfills the Brawler/Boxer/Bouncer/Street Thug type aesthetic.
@Gwar1: You keep chanting "two masteries!" and neglecting the fact that that was the only halfway worthwhile unique thing Brawlers got. At 15th level. All their other features are just to bring them within striking distance of the weapon-using subclasses, and they still fall short of a Champion, much less anything better. Out of combat utility, none. Defenses, none (hell, you lose damage by using a shield!) Magic weapon use, none. Overcoming physical damage resistances, none. Ranged builds, none (please, don't even bring up the hilarious 10/20ft thrown). And yeah, you can try arguing that this was just the first pass and they can be improved, but they're fighting the entire combat system uphill because Improvised Weapons have to suck baseline in order to reward weapon use, so there is limited space for said improvements.
Rage and Maneuvers are absolutely better than that. Trip Attack alone functions like that second mastery you're touting, except the BM gets it 12 levels earlier, and 11 levels earlier can combine it with Grappler to knock prone and pin the enemy for permanent Advantage the entire fight without blowing the rest of their dice. The Champion meanwhile can switch-hit between TWF and Archery style as early at 7th while also having exploration utility. Rage and Reckless Attack get you advantage and bonus damage without even knocking people prone first, and that's just the base class. I would take literally any barbarian over a Brawler for a strength-based unarmed build.
Lastly - we absolutely gain by "copy pasting subclasses" into core. Even if they pick a subclass that doesn't need any improvements, like both BM and Champion did - putting something like Psi Warrior or Rune Knight in core means a lot more people will get to try those classes out. Tashas was a popular book but there are still a lot of tables out there that never tried it.
Only one person needs access to book for you to have access to a subclass, (or realistically less than that, with reality of internet, libraries, info sharing).
You keep focusing on this as if my argument is that brawler was a well designed final draft, it was not. It is top heavy, as i said. But at the top, it competes with any other subclass of fighter in damage, utility, and flavor. This is a problem with how they designed when and how it gets its abilities, not fatal flaw with the class concept.
as simple as moving one sentence from level 15 to level 3 or 7. (you do PB extra damage with improvised weapons)
unarmed lacking synergy; simple fix your unarmed attacks count as improvised weapons. your minimum improvised weapon damage now scales as the unarmed dice used to scale. (d6 one hand d8 two hand)
the weaker copy feats;
= you get the unarmed fighting style, if you already have it, select another fighting style
=you get the grappler feat, if you already have it select another feat of your choice.
clarification of improvised rule: an improvised weapon that looks like a weapon has the properties of the weapon but is still considered improvised weapon. Whether a weapon resembles a cvertain weapon or not is approved by the GM.
you say they fall short of anything but champion, but i dont think you have run any numbers at all.
i will tell you right now, +PB damage per hit, on a class that has high hit rate, is huge.
a brawler is likely to use multiple weapons, as that its main strength. this means you can expect them to be doing the nick BA combo at almost all times.
a basic brawler just focused on throwing weapons;
d6+6(str)+6(pB)+2(throwingfighting style) x2 (nick+ free action attack)
(d12+6+6+2)x3 thrown 2 hander weapons
d4+6+6 haft attack
that is 74 damage per turn, assuming no cleaves, no Aoo, no advantage and 65% hitrate etc. its highly unlikely they will have no advantage, since their 1h attacks can have vex, and their two handed attacks can topple. so likely they will be getting at least 80% hit rate from advantage, and will be averaging around 90 damage, that is competitive with BM and Champion. Eldritch might beat it. but thats probably some of the higher damage out of fighter sub classes. That also doesnt include action surge, which benefits from its strong bonus per hit. The brawlers defense is its abilities, it has easy access to many CCs and the ability to use it. a grappled and prone attacker has disadvantage to attacks, which they can do via punch and grab, and topple improvised.A throwing focused brawler can push the enemy out of range, and knock it down. The Brawler defends via its use of mastery.
Fighter also has defenses built into the class, like second wind, imdomitable, etc.
Out of combat utility? fighter has built in out of combat utility now with tactical mind. subclasses of fighter are not known for giving much out of combat utility. not all classes are the same regardless. Its ok if another subclass has better out of combat use cases, or defenses.
Rage is +4 damage, and half BPS damage. That is not better than +6 damage, and 2 masteries per hit objectively. Its fine if you prefer that, but its not an objectively better.i'll tell you that brawler damage is competitive with barbarian damage, probably higher than most subclasses.
Maneuvers can do interesting things, but most of them are not objectively better than a 10 foot push, a topple, disadvantage to its next attack, slow, advantage on your next attack, or a cleave attack. they have different usecases, and thats good. The goal of the brawler isnt to become a BM, it offers a different way of fighting. Maneuvers are also limited to 6 per short rest, and 1 each round, whereas Brawler can do this stuff on every attack. assuming the fighter makes 4 attacks per turn, and the average fight lasts 4 rounds. I dont think maneuvers are better than two masteries and +6 damage, but even if i did, is twice as good? because 19(16+3 Action surge) attacks per short rest (assuming rest after ever fight) and you can only use manevurs for 10 of those attacks. Maybe you like BM better, but is that a competitive comparison? i would say it definitely is.
Brawler: you might not like its concept, thats fine, you might find the exeution of its progression, and some choices to be bleh, and thats fine. But you cant really say it was not competitive with other subclasses in damage and combat utility, because that can be measured, and its simply not true.
Its weak if you were planning to use unarmed damage mostly, but thats clearly not the design of the class.