Talk:Pugilist (5e Class)

uuuuugh, I can't stand it anymore! I enjoyed what I found when I first found this class through a link someone sent me, but it's slowly but surely being massacred by some rabid editor who isn't even asking permission to make these edits judging by the lack of conversation in here. I understand it's a wiki page and this is to be expected from time to time judging from the disclaimer, but it's HIGHLY disrespectful to the person/people who worked hard to make what I first viewed. To you, the crazy person messing things up, I would encourage you to stop and if possible, reverse things. To you, the original creator, if you're still out there, I hope you can come back and rescue this class from what it is slowly being corrupted into. Best regard, I'Zel.--IZelMorrow795 (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2024 (MDT)

Balancing against other martials and unique improvements

Hello, i have gained an extreme liking to this class but i have multiple ideas to improve. I would love discussion.

First the 13th level Slugger feature Goliaths might seems extremely broken, a PC with a strength score of 20 can't roll lower than 30 with this feature. This feature is a more powerful version of the level 18 Barbarian feature Indomitable Might. I suggest rebalancing this by granting: - You count as one size larger for determining carrying capacity, for grappling, shoving, pushing and pulling - You can spend one flow point to gain advantage on your strength check and when doing so you can add your proficiency bonus to the roll even if you are already proficient in the given check.

Second Flow points are gained fast and can be held for the entirety of a battle. It would be a nice touch if one would lose a Flow point if spending an entire round without attacking or moving closer to an enemy to punish cowardice.

Third and last the pugilist instincts are extremely cool but one unique feature could be added: Where are you?! After being hit by any harmful effect, be it damage or any other kind of effect, you can spend one flow point to momentarily know the direction needed to travel to get closer to the initiator of the effect. As this is rather strong for a level 7 feature this could also be added as an effect to the level 18 feature Bloodied but Unbroken without the need to spend a flow point.

What are your thoughts? I really love this class.

Kind regards --DrSloth (talk) 12:29, 3 July 2024 (MDT)

I think those are great ideas! -N

Then i will now go ahead and put these edits into place ::) --DrSloth (talk) 03:40, 9 July 2024 (MDT)

The Duck and Weave feature is currently restricted to a range of 5 feet. By using a whip or the lunge maneuver your range becomes 10 feet. Maybe it would make sense to make the duck and weave work for any enemy in your current melee attack range. --DrSloth (talk)

I went ahead and added that. Another interesting buff would be to give the lunge feature until the start of your next turn instead of till the end. This would make the pugilist a more potent tank which would be very interesting. Opinions on that? --DrSloth (talk)

Old vs New

I see someone is going through and changing alot of this class. Thats amazing!. Many of the the changes are nice, and feel more natural to the DND 5e gameplay. However, with the current rework, as compared to the "original" there is much less utility to use with the flow or rhythm points. Jack if you see this, I think the changes you are making are great, and I'm excited to see what you come up with. However, I think some of the changes you have made have taken the class too far from its original, and taken away too many of it's tools. As an player actively using this class, it's nice to see how it balances out among other classes in the campaign. That and not discussing about it at all is odd, It would be greatly appreciated if you would communicate here! -N

Oh sweet, the OG is here ^^. Now we can cook with some gas and see if we can't find a way to improve or course-correct what's been going on ^^. I'm an amateur designer, but I wouldn't mind lending my talent's to the project. A friend of mine was looking forward to playing the old version but dropped it after it got infected by "rabid-editor-itis." I know he may not go back to it, but I'd love the chance to collaborate and see if we can't build something together. Hopefully with things staying that way once we click save changes *insert nervous smile emoji here* --IZelMorrow795 (talk) 16:51, 25 April 2024 (MDT)

If I had possible design suggestion, we should maybe take a page out of Baulder's Gate 3 and try and keep some of the good features between levels 1 through 12. It's been noted for years, but most campaigns rarely get passed level 12 and we don't wanna force players to have to grind for something they may never get. Perhpas we could have the higher level features 13 and up be improvements on the already existing features at lower levels? --IZelMorrow795 (talk) 16:55, 25 April 2024 (MDT)

Hey IZel, i just want to clarify that I am not the original creator, but I am currently running this class, and was before Jack came in and changed everything. I dont think all of the changes he has made are that terrible, but I do agree that the original does something better, especially with the swarmer subclass. The changes I do like are the changes to the reaction when taking damage. Before you just resisted or completely negated all damage, which is crazy. Further morr, the old version was simply to strong with many of its abilities (such as that one) and the current version is very on par when it comes to raw damage output compared to a barbarian. I think the main challenge of this class as of right noe, is that it has very little utility for its main feature, the flow (formerly known as rhythm). Besides gaining advantage, or aditional damage, the points do nothing. I would love to see what you think zel. -N

Whoops, I guess my brain ran away with me on THAT assumption XD. I agree with your critiques, though I am slightly confused about the "not enough to do with flow" part. We have quite a few features that you spend points between base and subclass, they just need some better execution. In any case, I'm trying to come up with some ideas and one of the current things I'm trying on a copy-pasted doc is coming up with different subclasses. As things stand right now, this class should be called "The Boxer." All it's subclasses are just different styles of boxing instead of exploring a bit more for flavor. You got grapplers, showboaters, martial artists, a long list of things you can pull from. When I think of a pugilist, I think of a gritty, rough-n-tumble individual that makes good use of whatever is in arm's reach. Might not be as skilled with a weapon, but they can still knock your teeth out with a stray pipe or a plank of wood as well as anything else. Boxer could fit in the category, but I feel to really call it a pugilist, we need more diversity. I just wanna be careful not to plagarise more than Jack already kind of has. I thought some of the features seemed familiar and I was right. They were practically copy-pasted from another class of the same name I found on DMsGuild YEARS ago. Biggest offender of this is that Duck n' Swing feature which got ripped from one of the subclasses in that PDF.--IZelMorrow795 (talk) 12:43, 27 April 2024 (MDT)

I went ahead and changed Iron Body, because it was effectively useless. The added AC is also closer to the original than just reducing damage by 1 or 2. Also, I see what you mean by this class really could just be called the boxer, rather than a pugilist. The build I'm using in my campaign right now is using the swarmer subclass, and his purpose is really just to be a good boxer. I think all it would take is to reword some of the abilities to apply them to improvised weapon attacks. A normal improv weapon only deals 1d4, so increasing it with the pugilist die seems to make sense to me. I think really all that needs to be done if you want to make it include improvised weapons is reword each instance of "unarmed strikes" to "Unarmed strikes, and improvised weapon attacks". I'm totally okay with that if you want to do that IZel -N

Just chiming in on the discussion, the reason why this class has a lot of variation on the boxer concept is because that was my idea when i made a lot of edits on this class couple of years ago. I given up on editing this page and just made the "Boxer" subclass on this wiki, were you can see some similarities to the mechanics i brought to this page, as you can see when you compare my edits with those of Sepultra, the creator of this page. Just to clarify. Anastacio (talk) 13:28, 2 July 2024 (MDT)