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Martial Archetype
Comments from the Finger: Another archetype for the impending tavern book!

Barfighter

A veteran of taverns, bars, saloons, and other rough-and-tumble drinking establishments, you’ve seen enough barfights to consider yourself a expert in drunken melee. Every fight is different, every chaotic mess of fists and blood unique, but there are some constants: someone always swings a broken bottle at you, the guy in the back always throws a chair, and after you’ve rendered half a dozen people unconscious with whatever you find at arm’s length, the exacerbated bartender kicks everyone out and closes up for the night.

Anything Goes
Starting at 3rd level, you are proficient with improvised weapons. In your hands, such weapons deal a minimum amount of damage for melee attacks, as shown in the Improvised Damage table. Your unarmed strikes also bludgeoning damage as shown on the table.

     Additionally, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon on your turn, you can use a bonus action to do one of the following:

  • Make an attack with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon.
  • Grapple the target. If you successfully grapple the target, you can knock it prone.
  • Shove the target. If the target collides with another creature, that creature takes bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier.

     Starting at 6th level, your unarmed strikes and improvised weapon count as magical for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance and immunity.

 

Improvised Damage

Fighter Level  Improvised Weapon  Unarmed Strike
3rd 1d6 1d4
5th 1d8 1d6
11th 1d10 1d8
17th 1d12 1d10
 
Unarmored Defense

Also beginning at 3rd level, when you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Situational Awareness

By 7th level, you’ve developed the uncanny ability to sense when a brawl is about to break out, and in a brawl, when a bottle is careening toward the back of your skull. You can’t be surprised while you are conscious, and attacks made against you by creatures you can’t see don’t have advantage.

Quick, Duck!

At 10th level, as a reaction when a creature within 5 feet of you makes a melee attack against you, you can attempt to evade the strike such that it instead connects with someone nearby. Make a melee weapon attack. If your attack roll beats the attacker’s, the target for the attack becomes another hostile creature you choose within 5 feet of you.

Beat Down

Starting at 15th level, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you can choose to attack up to four additional times, as long as each attack you make targets a different creature.

Last Call

By 18th level, you’re always the last one standing in a brawl. When you reduce a hostile creature to 0 hit points, you can’t be knocked unconscious until the beginning of your next turn. If you would be reduced to 0 hit points during that time, you drop to 1 hit point instead.

 

Changelog: 3/21/19: Anything Goes: Improved damage for unarmed strikes, unarmed strikes and improvised weapons count as magical

 

 

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