A hush fell over the bar. Everyone turned to watch, tensing for the likely outcome. Hands slowly, nonchalantly, moved to grip bottles and tankards. A single voice hacked through the heavy silence, “Say that again. Say it to my face!” Any second now the tavern would descend into a flurry of shattered furniture and brawling figures. All it would take was one punch…
The scene is familiar: the heroes are in a seedy bar, drinking so copiously one would think their liver personally offended them. An offhand comment is made, perhaps by the adventurers or perhaps at their expense. Suddenly there are chairs flying and bottles being broken over heads as a bar brawl erupts. Bar brawls are iconic, but can be tricky in Dungeons & Dragons. Most bars that cater to adventurers should realistically require weaponry to be checked at the door, which would restricting the use of powers and class features. Choosing appropriate monsters on the fly for a bar fight can be awkward; enemies cannot be so potent as to seriously threaten the lives of the weaponless PCs – especially if they have been drinking – but neither can they be paper tigers to be casually brushed aside by the adventurers. And if the bar brawl was unplanned there might be an uncomfortable delay while the GM finds statblocks or responds to improvised actions. The aim of this article is to provide a handful of simple options to turn your next bar brawl into an exciting diversion or full-fledged combat.
Revised Chart
With the changes to diseases and DCs in the Rules Compendium the Intoxication track also needed to be revised.
Weapons & Powers
Any innkeeper worth his apron knows that when the humanoid tin can with the six-foot length of sharpened metal or the man in the dress covered in stars with a matching pointy hat tries to walk through the door of your inn you look gruff and point to the “no spells, no swords” sign. But a good adventurer is never truly unarmed.
Improvised Weapons, One-Handed
| Weapon | Prof. | Damage | Range | Weight | Group | Properties |
| Bottle, full | n/a | 1d4 | 5/10 | 1 lb. | Mace | Light thrown |
| Bottle, broken | n/a | 1d4 | – | 1/2 lb. | Light blade | Off-hand |
| Cooking knife | n/a | 1d4 | 4/8 | 1 lb. | Light blade | Light thrown |
| Dart | n/a | 1d3 | 10/20 | – | Blowgun | Light thrown |
| Skillet | n/a | 1d6 | – | 2 lb. | Mace | – |
| Tankard | n/a | 1d4 | – | 1 lb. | Hammer | Off-hand |
Improvised Weapons, Two-Handed
| Weapon | Prof. | Damage | Range | Weight | Group | Properties |
| Billiards cue | n/a | 1d8 | – | 1 lb. | Mace, Spear | – |
| Chair | n/a | 1d6 | 4/8 | 7 lb. | Mace | Heavy thrown |
| Mounted antlers | n/a | 1d8 | – | 5 lbs. | Heavy blade | High crit |
Powers
In addition to improvised weaponry, there are a number of special attacks characters can employ while in a bar brawl. Most require specific improvised weapons, terrain, or situation. These are designed to compensate for the lack of standard weaponry in a bar fight.
Terrain Powers
Not every attack in a bar brawl can be repeated attempted. Some attacks depend on the environment and have a limited number of uses.
New Monsters, Bar Brawlers
A bar brawl is nothing without people to attack. These foes are designed for tavern brawls, with fewer than average hit points to reduce grind and make for a faster brawl.
Barmaid
Bottle Hurler
Bouncer
Pickled Brawler
Rabble Rouser
Raging Drunk
David aka Jester has contributed to the Powersource Podcast, Goodman Game's "Book of Rituals", and has been a longtime member of the Ravenloft fan-community the "Fraternity of Shadows". His semi-regular blog can be read on the Wizards of the Coast community site. Follow him on Twitter at: twitter.com/DnDJester 
I’ve not been drinking but all I can think to say is…
Nice work. Thanks. Hick!
This, this is awesome. I’m totally digging this Dungeons and Flagons’ Series. Keep up the amazing work. This will totally be used in my next bar scene.
I love these. I think I will be using these in a home campaign as soon as possible.
Damage looks too high on those At-Will powers.
As it stands, there’s no reason to bother taking the characters weapons because they’ll drop them on the floor and grab a chair or a pool cue anyway.
All three of the Break X powers are both significantly better than a melee basic attack and better than most at will powers.
2W damage? Most At-wills do 1W. This makes a bottle essentially a 2d4 weapon and a chair a 2d6 weapon by comparison. And a Pool Cue becomes a 2d8 weapon. Then you allow, essentially, a proficiency bonus in an attack versus Dexterity. And finally, a status effect on top of the damage.
Frankly, if my DM uses these rules my fighter might have to start carrying pool cues around with him – even if its only once per encounter, a Str+2 versus Dex attack for 2d8 plus target grants CA is better than many encounter powers.
To be inline with other powers, I’d make two changes. FIrst, either make them attack AC rather than Dex OR take away the +2 bonus, and second I’d reduce them to 1[W] damage (2[W] at 21st level).
Carl
They were designed to be higher damage for two reasons.
First, a bar brawl should be a quick and fast diversion. It’s a mini-game. You don’t want grind so the more damage the better (hence the traits in the monsters).
Secondly, the damage of most improvised weapons being so low, 2[W] is needed to keep pace with actual weapons. And beyond first level, improvised weapons lack a magic weapon’s property even if inherent bonuses are used.
(I would have dipped lower if I felt I could get away with d3s for damage, but 4e doesn’t really use them).
A pool cue does becomes a 2d8 weapon (if you’re breaking it every round and continually blowing a minor action to pick another up) but it’s mechanically equal to a simple weapon (spear, greatclub) so inherently less appealing than a greatsword or a long sword (which a PC might also have feats that benefit) and especially less interesting than a superior weapon.
And really, in a bar fight, you WANT players choosing the fun things like chairs and pool cues. It’s a licence to be *slightly* less tight about balance given the more limited potential for abuse.
I think that the 2W damage is a mistake and a bad precedent although I understand where you are coming from. Instead, I would focus on the fact that barroom brawls are not to the death and have opponents stop fighting when they become bloodied. Same general effect (instead of doubling damage you are halving experience) and you don’t have to make a hash of the game mechanics to do it.
But YMMV.
Look at it this way: I have a character who has intentionally built her character to be a survivor in situaitions like this. For example she has gloves of storing which would allow her to sneak a small weapon in despite the best intentions of the bartender/ bouncer.
But this system means that her weapon is useless as a simple bottle is going to do more damage, hit better and add a status effect than her weapon. In essence, this invalidates her build (and the actions of any character who works to find a way around the prohibition on weapons).
People should be grabbing bottles and hitting others over the head with them because that is a) cool and fun and b) better than the other non-weapon options (say, a mug). Not because a poolcue outdamages a greatsword.
IMHO, of course.
Carl
“are halving hit points” not “halving experience”, obviously. You can do whatever you want with experience, that was a mistype.
Carl
Okay, one last reply against my better judgement.
I didn’t design the rules to not exclude individual characters and builds; that way leads madness, there’s simply just too many options to take everything into account.
When trying to design a campaign or rule that will see play every encounter or every session it makes sense to work a little harder to not exclude a class of feature. But when designing optional rules to be seen once or twice in a campaign you can afford to not favour a particular class.
Yes, it would be nice if classes optimized for situations like a bar brawl should shine, but I can’t design based on corner cases or wondering “what if X or Y”. There are always unintended side effects. If I halve hit points for a single fight every player suddenly has to recalculate their bloodied and surge values. If the fight lasts until bloodied suddenly every player with powers optimized to hurt bloodied creatures is hurt while builds that work best against unbloodied foes are superior (pacifist healers rejoice).
I knew when designing the rules it would likely impact rogues, as they often rely on 1[W] At-Wills using weaponry dealing 1d4. And yet, from experience, a rogue’s weapon is usually insignificant and the presence or absence of combat advantage determines if they’re dealing damage. The sneaky character who smuggles in a short sword or dagger has the advantage of a weapon with a proficiency bonus and is blessed with the ability to connect with opportunity attacks.
Is a pool cue better than a greatsword? Well, in a bar brawl yes. But the situation where a fighter has to choose between a greatsword and a pool cue was not intended to come up. In a bar brawl you’re essentially taking away all the player’s toys so you need to replace it with something better. If the pool cue is nerfed so the fighter is incentivised to default to their greatsword then they feel even worse when they’re fighting without their chosen weapon.
But not as bad as the archery ranger.