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

Improvised Weapons, Two-Handed

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

This theme is a work in progress. While playable, it needs more time at the gametable than this author can provide. Feedback is appreciated.

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“I fight better after I’ve had a few. Would ye care to put me to the test? Just need another drop o’ liquid courage and then ye’ll be spittin’ teeth!”

Drunkards can be found in every tavern and watering hole in civilized lands, and more than a few tents and huts in the less civilized areas. While most heavy drinkers are harmless alcoholics or sad individuals seeking the solution to life’s problems at the bottom of a glass, some rare few are adventurers.

There is an innate bond between adventurers and taverns: many heroes got their start adventuring being approached with a quest while in a bar or answering a call for aid tacked onto the wall. Many adventuring companies operate out of the local tap house, dividing their treasure between drinks and recuperating between quests over a pint. In some lands it is not an uncommon sight to see a group of retired adventurers comparing scars and reminiscing of old times. Many adventurers end their careers in a tavern. Some collapse into drink after repeated failure and death, while others end their wanderings through owning and operating a tavern: investing their fortunes in a place similar to the one that got them started on their heroic path.

Drunkard heroes come from all walks of life. Some unwittingly fall into the grasp of alcohol, others surrender to liquid temptation, and a rare few are skilled combatants able to augment their talents through drink.

Anyone can become a drunkard, and many adventurers have found themselves drawn to this path in the middle of their career. Responsibility can weigh heavily on heroes – especially those who have had greatness thrust onto them – driving them to drink. Failure often leads to depression and consumption, especially with the death of close comrades.
Common folk innately dislike drunkards, believing them to be wastrels or untrustworthy. There is the assumption that drunkards spend much of their money on alcohol and do not care about their responsibilities. There is also the belief that drunkards are wasting their talent and potential, that they would be more than they are if not for the drink. Sometimes this is not entirely untrue.

Building a Drunkard

Anyone who considers entering battle while not entirely sober might very well be a drunkard. You might naturally be a coward, and find alcohol allows you to risk your life in foolhardy yet exciting ways; you might be a troubled soul, seeking to forget the past and escape from some horrible deed; you might be haunted after an encounter with the unnatural, and trying erase what cannot be unseen; or you might even be a joyous reveller, and drink not to escape but to heighten your lively mood.

The drunkard theme works best with melee classes that use weapons such as the fighter, barbarian, or rogue. Classes that favour mobility or unpredictability are also good drunkards. Monks also often become drunkards, following an unusual school of fighting that emulates the movements of the intoxicated.

Someone does not need not be a melee warrior or a scoundrel to be a drunkard. A wizard seeking to forget a lost love, or a priest seeking to ease the pressure of always being the moral compass might be a drunkard.

Drunkard Powers

The following powers are available to characters with the drunkard theme.

Level 2 Utility

Level 3 Encounter Exploit

Level 5 Daily Exploit

Level 6 Utility Exploit

Level 7 Encounter Exploit

Level 9 Daily Exploit

Level 10 Utility Exploit

Paragon Path, Drunken Master

“Ah, good stuff! That last one really hit the spot. Now we can really begin the fight.”

Prerequisite: Drunkard theme or monk

You have mastered the technique of drunken boxing, a fighting style that specializes in staggering, unpredictable movements. Your enemies never know when you are going to strike or which way you will move. While sober you are a fearsome foe, and only become more deadly and agile after a few drinks. Care is needed: while you are skilled at fighting while tipsy it is easy to drink too much and risk passing out.

Drunken Master Path Features

Relaxed Limbs (11th level): Once per encounter, you can reroll an Acrobatics check but must use the second roll. While Intoxicated you instead use the higher of the two results.

Tipping Point (11th level): You ignore all penalties and negative effects from Intoxication and drinks until you reach the Hammered state. Additionally, every time you consume an alcoholic drink you gain +1 bonus to Athletics, Acrobatics, and Bluff checks until the end of your next turn. You can gain this bonus a number of times per day equal to your primary ability modifier.

Unexpected Precision (11th level): When you spend an Action Point to make an extra attack, enemies that you hit with that attack are weakened until the end of their next turn.

Clarity of Spirits (16th level): When you hit with a melee attack you gain a +2 bonus to your Reflex defence until the start of your next turn.

Drunken Master Exploits

Paragon Path, Unyielding Inebriate

“I feel no pain… or my legs.”

Prerequisite: Drunkard theme, barbarian, or fighter

While alcohol knocks most people on their back it keeps you on your feet. You are oblivious to most damage, shrugging off what would topple an ordinary person. Long after you should have fallen down you continue to stand and take blows. Nothing seems to phase you except and empty wineskin.

Unyielding Inebriate Path Features

Accustomed to Disorientation (11th level): When you spend an Action Point while prone, slowed, or dazed you gain an additional move action.

For Medicinal Purposes (11th level): You ignore all penalties and negative effects from Intoxication and drinks until you reach the Hammered state. Additionally, every time you consume an alcoholic drink you gain 5 temporary hit points. You can gain this bonus a number of times per day equal to your primary ability modifier.

Slap to the Face (11th level): When you are critically hit you gain resist 10 to all damage until the end of your next turn.

I Get Up Again (16th level): When you succeed on a death saving throw you can spend your second wind.

Unyielding Inebriate Exploits

Epic Destiny, Innkeeper

“I remember back when I was your age, around when I first started hanging out in this smelly, dirty hole and began risking my life guarding caravans and delivering strange objects. Now look at me, I OWN the smelly, dirty hole!”

Prerequisite: 21st level, must own an inn, bar, or tavern

While your former companions have abandoned their small town roots to become lords or eternal champions or gods, you have remained true to your values. Like so many retired adventurers before, you decided give back to the community by purchasing and operating a drinking establishment.

Your path starts by purchasing an inn or tavern, possibly one in your old home town or current residence. Your establishment might in a small town, built on a crossroads connecting towns, in a larger city, or even a thriving metropolis. In fact, you might even decide to set-up shop in a plane other than the natural world. You might run a bar in the chaos of the elemental planes, a treetop tavern in the fey realms, or an Astral bar and grill atop the body of a hibernating god.

Despite the seeming simplicity of your destiny there are complications. The task falls to you to keep the peace in a potential ruckus tavern, and keep drunken adventurers from misbehaving. You have the unenviable task of telling the sloshed bugbear that he missed last call, and confiscating the weaponry from the halfling rogue, while collecting the bar tab from the drinker able to control minds, and ending bar fights between patrons who can summon fire elementals and call down celestial light.

Immortality

Innkeepers have one of the surest forms of immortality, living on in the stories and memories of their patrons.

A Quiet Life: You do not have a true Destiny Quest. Unlike your friends you choose to willingly give up the adventuring life and settle down. You make it your mission to raise and educate the next generation of heroes, steering them down the right path and offering both advice and cool drinks.

Instead of protecting the world you settle for protecting your establishment. While sometimes you feel you could be doing more you recognize the fact your young patrons will never learn if you help them out of every jam. Besides, keeping order in an bar for adventurers is an epic task all its own.

Sometimes a small quest is required. The current owner of an inn might require that you prove yourself before they will pass ownership. This is especially true if the inn is an existing haven for adventurers or the bar is in an unusual location.

Inkeeper Features

A Friendly Ear (21st level): Increase your Charisma and another ability score of your choice by 2.

A Place to Call Your Own (24th level): When you take an extended rest in your establishment you gain an extra action point. If this action point is not used by the start of your next extended rest it vanishes.

Everyone Knows Your Name (24th level): You have a reputation. Pick two skills out of Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Streetwise. You gain a +2 bonus to your chosen skills.

A Good Night’s Sleep (30th level): When a party member spends the night in your establishment all ailments and status effects are removed including blindness, deafness, disease, poison, petrification, and death.

Inkeeper Power

Feats

Improved Drunken Boxing

Prerequisite: Drunkard theme

Benefit: If you have combat advantage against the target of drunken boxing , on a hit the target is pushed 1 square.

Drunken Monk

Prerequisite: drunkard theme, monk, Flurry of Blows class feature

Benefit: When your Flurry of Blows power is triggered by drunken boxing, one target of your Flurry of Blows is dazed until the end of their next turn.

Drunken Barbarian

Prerequisite: drunkard theme, barbarian

Benefit: If you hit with drunken boxing while raging you knock the target prone.

Tavern Brawler

Prerequisite: Con 13

Benefit: You ignore all penalties from the Intoxication disease track until you reach the Hammered state. This does not apply to the additional penalties from drinks.

Additionally, you can pick up or retrieve a stowed beverage and consume it as a single minor action.

Violent Drunk

Prerequisite: Str 13

Benefit: While Intoxicated you gain a +2 feat bonus to weapon damage rolls.

Alcohol has a long history in the Dungeons & Dragons game; innumerable campaigns have started in a booze-serving tavern, heroes often relax with a cool ale at the local inn between delves, and every gamer should be familiar with the archetypal player calling-out that he’s “getting drunk” while at a bar.

Curiously, there have not been many hard rules for actually getting drunk. Gygax had rules for intoxication back in the 1st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, but these were excised in the more family-friendly years of 2nd Edition. This article aims to restoring the drunkenness to D&D, easy to remember and easy to use rules, which follow the design of 4e.

Getting Drunk

Being intoxicated is treated like a disease. It uses the standard disease track with the following additions:

• Checks: Endurance checks are used to improve or maintain your condition. You cannot worsen through failed Endurance checks.
• Short Rest: Endurance checks are made after each short rest and not after extended rests.
• Cured: A successful check at the Hung-over state removes the disease.
• Good Night’s Sleep: Taking an extended rest moves you to the Hung-over state.
• Sober-up: As normal, a Heal check can be used in place of an Endurance check.

Types of Booze

Different types of alcohol are not identical, there are subtleties created from the material the drink is created from, and through different methods of fermentation and brewing. Regardless of the variety, all drinks lead to intoxication.

After finishing a drink, the character makes an attack roll against their Fortitude defence. The attack bonus varies depending on the variety of alcohol and the character’s level. Consuming a drink uses the following rules:

• Being Hit: Successful attacks impose the associated penalties and the character is intoxicated.
• Penalties Do Not Stack: Penalties suffered from being hit by identical drinks do not stack.
• Effects Stack: Penalties from the Effect line are cumulative.
• Intoxicated: Being hit moves the character to the initial effect on the Intoxication disease track.
• Worsen: If the character is already intoxicated they move down a state on the disease track.
• Ends When ‘Cured’: Unless otherwise noted, penalties last until the character reaches the Hung-over state.

Additionally, some drinks have an extra effects dependant on the state of Intoxication. The character only suffers the effect of the drink consumed to reach that state, even if different types of drink had been consumed earlier. This effect lasts until the character moves up the disease track.

Competitive Drinking

Many adventurers engage in alcohol-related challenges, each attempting to out-drink the other. These drinking games either involve seeing who can drink the most before passing-out or seeing who can drink faster.

For the first variety of drinking game, the standard rules presented above are used. The loser is the first to be “drunk under the table”, which is the first to reach the falling-down state and fail a saving throw. It can be played as a party, with the winner being the only person who doesn’t pass-out.

Instead of rolling attacks against themselves, in a drinking competition characters can roll attacks against their opponent’s defence. Applicable powers – such as Utility powers – can be used normally, but outside assistance is generally discouraged or seen as cheating (but does not always prevent help from allies).

Contests of speed require additional rules, and can be played as a simple Skill Challenge paired with the above drinking rules. This adds an additional layer of difficulty to the Skill Challenge: succeeding before falling unconscious.

Speed Drinking

Drinking in Combat

Significantly intoxicated PCs are at a disadvantage in combat. They might be dazed and suffering penalties to skills making encounters more difficult without an equivalent bonus to experience.

If combat is taking place in a bar or similar location, DMs should consider applying similar penalties to monsters. If the PCs are inebriated it makes sense that their opponents might also be somewhat drunk. If the majority of the part is hammered and thus dazed, instead of denying actions and reducing combat to a crawl, it’s possible to award addition Move actions each round to any sober creature.

If a character drinks to excess knowing or suspecting they may be involved in an encounter then intoxication was their choice and the DM is under no obligation to adjust the encounter. However, if the player did not suspect an encounter was likely, the Dungeon Master can treat the intoxicating effect as terrain and adjust the level and difficulty of the encounter accordingly.

Including something from yours truly

I’ll post an excerpt here, but really you should check out Allgeektout’s Dungeoncraft series in general.  Being a hardcore DM, I always get into what people are cooking up for their individual campaign worlds.

Herai’s father worked in the mines.  Peaceful and diligent, he never missed a day, rising early with a quick prayer to the gods, arriving home late covered in in black from the mines.  Gustalf raised his boy to be just like him.  Herai was to carry on in the the dirty and noble profession of mining, and that was that.  Gustalf heard no nonsense of schooling, and certainly no heretical talk of the arcane.  A devout, hard-working miner.  That’s what the Ironblack men where raised to be.

On my end, I just love making characters and character backgrounds, as you may have noticed with The New Breed series or my previous posts on villains.  I was all too happy to make a character fitting into the world of Allein.

This got me to thinking: How could I come up with a skill challenge to mediate their escape from the city without sacrificing some good roleplaying?

Then I started thinking: What sort of skill challenges in 4E would need to be created for war-time campaigns?

Definitely worth a thorough reading -we’ve got some great stuff in there, and my skill challenges are coming on Thursday.