I have a variant human character with shield master as the feat. Now that I have advanced to 4th level Paladin, it makes me wonder if adding the Tavern Brawler feat is worthwhile. With shield master I can bash someone as my bonus action to try and knock them down. Would having the Tavern Brawler feat give me the 1d4 damage to it since it's basically an improvised weapon when trying to knock someone down?
No. The Shield Master says "you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield". That is specifically a 'shove' activity (push away or knock prone), not an attack with an improvised weapon. If you chose to use your regular action to attack with your shield instead of a real weapon then it would use the Tavern Brawler damage. But no, the mechanism does not add damage to a shove, nor add knock-down to an improvised weapon attack.
Hey there,
I have a variant human character with shield master as the feat. Now that I have advanced to 4th level Paladin, it makes me wonder if adding the Tavern Brawler feat is worthwhile. With shield master I can bash someone as my bonus action to try and knock them down. Would having the Tavern Brawler feat give me the 1d4 damage to it since it's basically an improvised weapon when trying to knock someone down?
No. The Shield Master says "you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield". That is specifically a 'shove' activity (push away or knock prone), not an attack with an improvised weapon. If you chose to use your regular action to attack with your shield instead of a real weapon then it would use the Tavern Brawler damage. But no, the mechanism does not add damage to a shove, nor add knock-down to an improvised weapon attack.
Ok, cool, thanks for clearing that up!