Pugilist Class

[Jasder]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14rFPqtvDODG8acpCrHXL-3dR8n_1WTAa/view

What do people think of this Pugilist class I found for 5e? It looks fun and interesting, obviously it has similarities to the monk, I'd say it has more damage potential, but less mobility, defence, and status debuffs.

[Misterwhisper]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14rFPqtvDODG8acpCrHXL-3dR8n_1WTAa/view

What do people think of this Pugilist class I found for 5e? It looks fun and interesting, obviously it has similarities to the monk, I'd say it has more damage potential, but less mobility, defence, and status debuffs.

Played one from level 1 to 14.

For the most part your ac will suck.
It can take a massive beating though, especially as either a half orc, dwarf or warforged.

Your health, temp hp, and moxie will fluctuate like a yo-yo.

The subclasses are somewhat balanced.

Squared circle is amazing if you want to build a grappler.

Boxer subclass is very solid but moxie is so slight at below level 5 it is pretty costly.

Bloodhound brawler is amazing, especially if you arrr I. A social type game or in one that travels a lot. It is what I played in out of the abyss, worked amazingly.

The cha based masked one is wonky and not worth it.

Piss and vinegar kind of sucks.

The new one with a pet I did not play but it might work.

The patreon exclusive whiskey fist is absolutely crazy, thing frenzied barbarian drunken monks but it costs a ton on moxie and booze.

The magic items are ok but I never used them.

I never once used haymaker, not worth it.

The ability to get resistance but end up with exhaustion is. Dry handy in hard fights when you know a rest is coming.


Overall it is very fun and very well built.

I did not multi class because I just didn’t think it fit my theme.
However one level or barbarian if you want to be. Ore British and battering is good.

Build heavy str and con.
Enough dex to not suck at saves or initiative. (Made easier by bloodhound)
Cha and int don’t really matter.
I never dump wis, nothing sucks worse than missing an important perception check or failing a wis save.

Feats:

More stats are bettter.

If you build especially for it, maybe grappler, but even then probably not.

Sentinel is always great.

I just stuck to unarmed and a throwing things.

If you have any questions I will be glad to field them.

I played it for a long time, am on the creators patreon, and have talked to Ben many times, I am even helping out playteating his next build.

[Jasder]

Played one from level 1 to 14.

For the most part your ac will suck.
It can take a massive beating though, especially as either a half orc, dwarf or warforged.

Your health, temp hp, and moxie will fluctuate like a yo-yo.

The subclasses are somewhat balanced.

Squared circle is amazing if you want to build a grappler.

Boxer subclass is very solid but moxie is so slight at below level 5 it is pretty costly.

Bloodhound brawler is amazing, especially if you arrr I. A social type game or in one that travels a lot. It is what I played in out of the abyss, worked amazingly.

The cha based masked one is wonky and not worth it.

Piss and vinegar kind of sucks.

The new one with a pet I did not play but it might work.

The patreon exclusive whiskey fist is absolutely crazy, thing frenzied barbarian drunken monks but it costs a ton on moxie and booze.

The magic items are ok but I never used them.

I never once used haymaker, not worth it.

The ability to get resistance but end up with exhaustion is. Dry handy in hard fights when you know a rest is coming.


Overall it is very fun and very well built.

I did not multi class because I just didn’t think it fit my theme.
However one level or barbarian if you want to be. Ore British and battering is good.

Build heavy str and con.
Enough dex to not suck at saves or initiative. (Made easier by bloodhound)
Cha and int don’t really matter.
I never dump wis, nothing sucks worse than missing an important perception check or failing a wis save.

Feats:

More stats are bettter.

If you build especially for it, maybe grappler, but even then probably not.

Sentinel is always great.

I just stuck to unarmed and a throwing things.

If you have any questions I will be glad to field them.

I played it for a long time, am on the creators patreon, and have talked to Ben many times, I am even helping out playteating his next build.


That's pretty cool. Thanks for the run down. I didn't think haymaker was really worth it, maybe if you already had advantage so they'd cancel out and you'd do max damage, but otherwise pretty unlikely.

The masked charisma subclass only really seemed useful for more points to spend on abilities.

I'm probably going to try playing the Dog and Hound Subclass, because it looks pretty fun.

How does it compare to other classes you've played? Like I said, it's got a lot of monk, but it lacks that mobility that lets monks reach ranged enemies quickly.

[dragoeniex]

One of my teammates is 4 lvs ancestors barbarian, 8 lvs sweet science pugilist in our current game. He loves using barbarian's reckless attack option in conjunction with haymaker, and he gets a lot of mileage out of it. He also likes being able to sock someone in the face and give them disadvantage on anyone but him for a round- mitigated some by that spring of pugilist temp hp- to make sure enemies don't just walk past our tank.

He is also an absolute hp boat. This is because he's accepted the fact he'll always be the lowest AC member in the party, and he just assumes things will hit him when they want to. He's also using the thunder knuckles item reflavored as hand wraps.

Not sure how high your party is likely to play, but he's made repeated comments about pugilist 9's "down but not out" feature being crazy effective. So much so he's delayed it with the last couple barb levels because he wants to develop his "turns red" boss monster mode in a more climactic story point.

He hurts for options outside of close-range combat, and he's not the heaviest DPR consistently, but he does single-target nova better than the rest of the party and is hecka hard to knock down. Relentless endurance from being a half-orc is the cherry on top of all that temp hp, making it feel like he's got two health bars.

I would know, because I'm the idiot who keeps challenging him to 1v1 matches with my full caster. Somehow that never ends as fast as either of us expect.

[Ganymede]

Conceptually, this is a monk re-imagining that refluffs Ki as something more mundane.

From a fluff perspective, there is absolutely nothing to distinguish this class from a fighter archetype; there is no reason for this to be its own class.

[Misterwhisper]

That's pretty cool. Thanks for the run down. I didn't think haymaker was really worth it, maybe if you already had advantage so they'd cancel out and you'd do max damage, but otherwise pretty unlikely.

The masked charisma subclass only really seemed useful for more points to spend on abilities.

I'm probably going to try playing the Dog and Hound Subclass, because it looks pretty fun.

How does it compare to other classes you've played? Like I said, it's got a lot of monk, but it lacks that mobility that lets monks reach ranged enemies quickly.

Other than the love of unarmed and the moxie compared to ki, that is about all it has with monk in common.

I have played just about everything, I will break it down by class. I will not really compare them to full casters because that is apples and oranges.

Barbarian:

Barbarians will have a ton more staying power due to plenty of rages, and their hp max will be much better. However a pugilist has enough temporary hp to pull close. For the one big combat a day you will be about the same due to you being able to get resistance too. You will be able to outdamage them unless they go PAM/GWM zealot. You can keep it close, maybe eve. Still pull ahead considering you have more reliability. Out of combat utility is much better for you. Also the sheer variety of flavor you can pull off is much better in my opinion at least.

Fighter:

You are just plain better than a champion for the most part. Battlemaster maneuvers are hard to beat but to be blunt, fighters are dull. You have so much more going on. You will. It have the ac of the fighter, or really any front line build, but you are made to take a beating. Action sure is solid pure gold. You don’t have something to compare to that but you do get free and easy bonus attacks.

Moon Druid:

They are just crazy, crazy good. They can throw down a mountain of HP, go toe to toe, take a beating and then still be a full hp full caster with all their spells after you are done.

Monk:

A monk can ha e a better ac, and probably will later in the game. You will have some extra hp due to better con. They will leave you in the dust in mobility, and one thing you will lack is mobility. They can bonus attack just like you, and moxie evens out with ki for the most part when you take damage. If you can somehow keep them still you should be ok. Stunning strike is amazing and you don’t have an equivalent for that. You can take a much bigger beating, your ac will be close, they are much better debuffer, you are just as good with shutting down if you go grappler or hound but you do it with skills and attacks they do it with stunning.

Paladin:

You will not out nova them, but then again almost nobody can. They will have better ac. They will have slightly better hp. They however run out of juice pretty fast where you don’t. You are a short rest class, use it. Paladins are just plain amazing, even when they are out of juice their defense is still great.

Ranger:

They have better skills, better out of combat utility, but currently in combat other than gloomstalker they are. It too great. They can pick you off and stay mobile though. You are all melee, they can be melee but more than likely won’t be.

Rogue:

One attack a round for them is bad, it hurts plenty but they more than make up for it with skills. If you can get on one you will be fine. The issue is their mobility and archery. Not a lot you can do to counter them if they go hiding and shooting. You are a brute they are precision.

Bladelocks or hexblade:

They have much better ranged options, spell backup and easier stats on top of shield use options. However they can’t take a beating like you, and unless they cast for it their mobility is the same. They also have little in the way of variables, they will use eldritch blast and have a shield more than likely.


Your pros:

More temp hp, and ways to get them
Short rest mechanics
1/day resistance
Free bonus attack
Great out of combat abilities, even more so with bloodhound
A whip is a pugilist weapon, lots of options there.
You can grapple as a bonus action, that can be key if you build for it.
You have great out of combat skills and abilities nobody else can copy.

Cons:

Crap ac. Not much of a way around that but there is a way to make it easier. See notes.

Ranged options are very limited, you are proficient with hand crossbows but won’t have the dex to be good with it. You can throw things just fine but that is a backup.

Little feat support, while others can use PAM/SS/GWM/SM/CBE you can’t really use any of those very well. Resilient wis is not bad, sentinel is good. I assume is fine if this class is, if so Brawny is good for a grappler build.

Multi class is tempting for barbarian rage, or expertise in athletics, but the class is so nice I would t.

Notes:

Warforged juggernaut is great for you.
2 str and 1 con is perfect
The no rest and sleep is great for the carousing, but their built in armor is By far the best feature.
You use con instead of dex with light armor. Which is not an alternate ac so it works with everything else.
Their built in light armor is 11 + con for you + proficiency.
You should start with a 16 and then it goes up for free as your
Proficiency increases.

If not a warforged, a mountain dwarf or Minotaur is also great.

Even if not primary carry a whip. Scales with your unarmed and has reach. Also carry some kind of thrown weapo , spear, daggers, whatever.

You need almost nothing if you go warforged, no food, no water, no camping gear, no armor and really only backup weapons like daggers. You are super cheap to keep going so you can have lots of gold around for other gear.

Even if it is not your main schtick read up on grapple tactics. If you can’t hit the person due to high ac or disadvantage grapple can save you. Brawny alone makes you great.


I played a warforged bloodhound, the bonus skills and adv on initiative of bloodhound more than made up for my bad dex.
Note this was before the new published warforged which are even better.

I would charge, grapple shove and beat tho ha to death, there was not much anything could do about it, most things suck at athletics, the only thing that saved a lot of critters was them being too big. But even with no grappling available just throwing out great unarmed damage is just as good.

Street smarts of amazing flavor and RP.



The level 6 bloodhound ability Scrap like a sleuth is so powerful that it made some fights a cakewalk.

Being able to spend an action to stop charm or frightened can save. It only you but also the party.

Heart of the city is god level good if you are in a stable game in one place or at least stay somewhere for a few days.


The class is amazing and a blast to play, go for it.

Also excuse spelling errors, I typed this on my phone.

[Arcangel4774]

After a quick read of the pet subclass i now understand the pokemon Arcanine's name. Hadnt put a second thought into the name since i was 6

[PureZero]

Conceptually, this is a monk re-imagining that refluffs Ki as something more mundane.

From a fluff perspective, there is absolutely nothing to distinguish this class from a fighter archetype; there is no reason for this to be its own class.

Well, that's not true. First of all, it's an unarmored defense class (by necessity of being a pugilist look up the definition for that one. Boxers don't wear plate mail.) so tacking that onto fighter (who can wear plate) would make literally no sense. that'd be the first major distinguishable feature between a fighter archetype, and a pit fighter. Secondly, a fighter is a martial class, and very strictly so. When's the last time you heard of a group of military soldiers in any era charging enemies with their bare fists? The flavor difference between someone who has military training and someone who does bar fights or underground pit fights might not be mutually exclusive, but they sure aren't the same thing either. Not to mention all of these feats added in this class wouldn't fit in an archetype, especially with the different fight clubs and their abilities.

[Krobar]

I read it over previously, and it just didn't seem to be what I was looking for. I ended up homebrewing a fighter archetype (I specifically wanted the extra attacks and the action surge), and a couple of feats, and went with that.