Improvised Weapons

Sometimes characters don't have their weapons and need to attack with whatever is at hand. An improvised weapon is any item or object you can wield with either one or both hands (such as a broken bottle, a table leg, a frying pan, a dead goblin etc.) 

Often, an improvised weapon is similar enough to an actual weapon and can be treated as such (an example being the table leg resembling the function and make of a club). AT THE DUNGEON MASTER'S DISCRESSION, A character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were the weapon and still use their proficiency bonus.

An object that bears no resembelance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage and the dungeon master assigns an appropriate damage type. This is also the case for if a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack (such as an archer smacking a goblin with their bow) or throws a melee weapon that does not have the "thrown" property (such as a rapier, shortsword etc.) Ìn the Player's Handbook (p.141) An improvised thrown weapon has a normal range of 20ft and a long range of 60ft however in our games this will depend upon an athletics check.

Torches are usually weak (unlike what we usually see in movies and video games) and will usually just do 1 fire damage (Player's Handbook p.153) however in Bas-Lag many people use chymical lanterns which will fit into the above category of 1d4 damage and fire damage will follow the rulings listed in Fire Arrowswhen igniting an individual