For the last week or so I'd been working on an Unarmed Fighting character. I'd made dozens of tweaks to multi-classing, feat selection timing, etc. This was fun and very strong. An excellent control character.
The BOOM! Out comes the Pugilist class. I had no idea it was coming and it arrived at the exact right moment for me. I paid the fee and started tinkering.
Well... I'm not going to say it's a waste of $15 because I had fun tinkering. But... no DM I talked to, and there are a lot of them in my local game store (20+ experienced DMs), will allow this class in their game. And with very good reason. It's is so radically over-powered it's laughable.
It essentially takes every strong ability from other favorite classes and subclasses, improves them, and gives them to the Pugilist class for free. In several cases much early than the original showcase class can acquire them. Need damage resistance? No need to dip into Barbarian. Like the Unarmed Fighting feat damage dice? Let's make it better. Like the Grapple feat Punch and Grab? Here it is for free. Like the monk bonus action attacks? No problem, free. The list goes on. Almost endlessly since the Pugilist gets new skills almost every level.
I'm not sure how this class can get fixed. If they removed half the skills from the base class it would still be too strong to let into a game.
Am I over-reacting here? Is this something the publishers will even attempt to make playable?
For the last week or so I'd been working on an Unarmed Fighting character. I'd made dozens of tweaks to multi-classing, feat selection timing, etc. This was fun and very strong. An excellent control character.
The BOOM! Out comes the Pugilist class. I had no idea it was coming and it arrived at the exact right moment for me. I paid the fee and started tinkering.
Well... I'm not going to say it's a waste of $15 because I had fun tinkering. But... no DM I talked to, and there are a lot of them in my local game store (20+ experienced DMs), will allow this class in their game. And with very good reason. It's is so radically over-powered it's laughable.
It essentially takes every strong ability from other favorite classes and subclasses, improves them, and gives them to the Pugilist class for free. In several cases much early than the original showcase class can acquire them. Need damage resistance? No need to dip into Barbarian. Like the Unarmed Fighting feat damage dice? Let's make it better. Like the Grapple feat Punch and Grab? Here it is for free. Like the monk bonus action attacks? No problem, free. The list goes on. Almost endlessly since the Pugilist gets new skills almost every level.
I'm not sure how this class can get fixed. If they removed half the skills from the base class it would still be too strong to let into a game.
Am I over-reacting here? Is this something the publishers will even attempt to make playable?
It's a new source book from a third-party. If you buy the source book for $15 from the DNDBeyond Marketplace then you can build a character with it in the Character Builder.
There is some great third party content on D&D Beyond. Griffon's Saddlebag. The Critical Role content. Flee Mortals! A bunch of terrifying, dynamic monsters from a number of sources that fill in the gaps left by the large number of lackluster, underpowered monsters in official content. There is also a lot of content, particularly player facing content, that is full of good ideas marred by poor execution and a clear need to edit. Pugilist falls into the secondary category - there is the core of an interesting class that fills a much-needed gap in official content.... but the apparent "let's throw the kitchen sink in there and not make edits after" build philosophy results in content that either is going to be disallowed or require heavy editing to make playable.
To answer your question of whether this editing will happen? Almost certainly no. D&D Beyond does not edit the content (frankly, given the power disparities and regular typographical errors found in a number of third party contents, I am not even sure they review the content all that carefully). The publishers may be able to edit the substance of the content after it is released if they want to balance things better - but that has not happened before, other than small errata to fix errors.
All told, buyer beware when getting third party content.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yeah I feel like most third party classes (not all there's some great ones out there) that i've run into a difficult as helllll to balance, good lukc with your custom class though sounds awesome.
There is some great third party content on D&D Beyond. Griffon's Saddlebag. The Critical Role content. Flee Mortals! A bunch of terrifying, dynamic monsters from a number of sources that fill in the gaps left by the large number of lackluster, underpowered monsters in official content. There is also a lot of content, particularly player facing content, that is full of good ideas marred by poor execution and a clear need to edit. Pugilist falls into the secondary category - there is the core of an interesting class that fills a much-needed gap in official content.... but the apparent "let's throw the kitchen sink in there and not make edits after" build philosophy results in content that either is going to be disallowed or require heavy editing to make playable.
To answer your question of whether this editing will happen? Almost certainly no. D&D Beyond does not edit the content (frankly, given the power disparities and regular typographical errors found in a number of third party contents, I am not even sure they review the content all that carefully). The publishers may be able to edit the substance of the content after it is released if they want to balance things better - but that has not happened before, other than small errata to fix errors.
All told, buyer beware when getting third party content.
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
So there is a check against & risk in picking Pugilist, & Monk has more ranged options that sync w/the base class by comparison.
Haymaker doesn't mean anything if the opponent stays out of punch range.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
So there is a check against & risk in picking Pugilist, & Monk has more ranged options that sync w/the base class by comparison.
Haymaker doesn't mean anything if the opponent stays out of punch range.
"The balance is they are overpowered sometimes, and miserable others because they do not get to participate in the game and have to twiddle their thumbs doing nothing" is not really a counterpoint - it is further proof that this class is poorly designed as published.
Insight Check on YouTube did a good review video where he points out just what a nightmare of nesting and contradictory skills the Pugilist has, to the point it almost becomes self balancing because you’ll never remember what happens or resets when and you’ll miss half of them. I was quite looking forward to this release because I know it’s a well loved class but frankly it’s a mess
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
So there is a check against & risk in picking Pugilist, & Monk has more ranged options that sync w/the base class by comparison.
Haymaker doesn't mean anything if the opponent stays out of punch range.
"The balance is they are overpowered sometimes, and miserable others because they do not get to participate in the game and have to twiddle their thumbs doing nothing" is not really a counterpoint - it is further proof that this class is poorly designed as published.
I notice also that your definition of "balanced" Partnered Content always seems to apply to works that make fights mechanically more complex in a way DND Beyond doesn't support, & the rest of the content in the books you like just...exists.
Maybe confront your bias & test stuff in actual play instead of prematurely slapping the epithet "unbalanced" on everything that isn't milquetoast or DM option-centric?
Not everyone plays the way you do.
From my PoV, the Pugilist is playable as is. But it's not compatible w/every table's house rules on 3PP, & that's perfectly fine.
The only way this class is balanced is making everyone in the campaign play as Pugilists. Then the DM throws in every creature with flight at them. Dm wins. Time to roll new characters and start a real campaign. only way of balancing in my opinion. But I’m just me.
You know, the "should I ban Pugilist" talk reminds me of similar talk from another fighting-related thing, & the same language pops up...
I will never forgive Capcom for making Street Fighter 2, badly programming the glitch that combos were initially, & thus giving birth to the competitive fighting game scene that bleeds into EVERYTHING IT CAN.
Because phrases like "balance" "tiers" & other metagamey talk results in everyone playing the same things over & over, & banning things w/o trying them because someone influenced them to do things that way.
This is why, when I DM, I have a hard rule against metagame builds. You're going to play a character at my table, not compete for the high score or win the Melee competition with no items+Final Destination+Fox Only, metaphorically speaking.
But you know what? That's my way of playing & DMing. & no one is the vox populi of the DND fandom.
It's why I make sure to check to see if alarmism is justified by experiencing things, not just repeating people like Pack Tactics, Insight Check(The YouTuber, don't know if they're the account by the same name here) or other town criers(not someone who cries tears, someone who loudly repeats buzz). It's how I found out the Mizzmage isn't all it's cracked up to be in actual play.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
Neither do most barbarians or monks, which is why they end up chucking javelins or handaxes or whatever. Something Pugilists can do as well, since they get simple weapon proficiencies
Does Pugilist seem remotely balanced against those two? We're talking about a class that gets a feature in addition to an ASI at 4th level. That's just nonsense
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
Neither do most barbarians or monks, which is why they end up chucking javelins or handaxes or whatever. Something Pugilists can do as well, since they get simple weapon proficiencies
Does Pugilist seem remotely balanced against those two? We're talking about a class that gets a feature in addition an ASI at 4th level. That's just nonsense
Why is that nonsense? 2014 Rangers get a feature and ASI at 8th level. Of course, if it's a combat feature, that is definitely a problem.
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
Neither do most barbarians or monks, which is why they end up chucking javelins or handaxes or whatever. Something Pugilists can do as well, since they get simple weapon proficiencies
Does Pugilist seem remotely balanced against those two? We're talking about a class that gets a feature in addition an ASI at 4th level. That's just nonsense
Why is that nonsense? 2014 Rangers get a feature and ASI at 8th level. Of course, if it's a combat feature, that is definitely a problem.
Rangers got to ignore difficult terrain, something pretty situational and not of huge impact to most fights. The Pugilist gets to take half damage from bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage, so essentially gaining a key barbarian feature in addition to their ASI
It really depends on their other features. If they're getting mediocre features each level, then getting ones consistently each level is fine. I'm not willing to spend the money to look at the class features though.
As for banning them, it would be nice if we could afford to give third party classes etc a chance to show what they're like in practice. It doesn't work like that though. To try it, you have to play it for several levels (ideally, a full campaign), which means significant investment...then it's really awkward when you have to turn around to the player and tell them they have to get a new character...plus all the damage that's been done that persuaded you to ban it. It's far better to nip it in the bud and just not allow it if it's going to get banned.
And yes, balance really does matter. Story time - when I was first DMing, I had a player complain that I was KO'ing him all the time. I paid attention to what I was doing, and realised I was buffing the statblocks. Why? Because every fight was going to be pathetic, finishing in Round or so. To prevent that, I was buffing the HP to keep them in the fight for longer, and buffing the attacks to make them more impactful while they were up. That meant the up close and personal Barbarian was getting creamed.
Why were the monsters folding too soon? I noticed on player was doing a ton of damage that far outstripped everyone else. So my RAW monsters were being smashed before the fight got interesting. Once I had a word (because I noticed they weren't exactly following the rules), damage output went down, I could rely on encounters as they were written more, and they Barbarian got to have more fun.
Balance matters a lot. As DM, my biggest responsibility revolves around balance.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It really depends on their other features. If they're getting mediocre features each level, then getting ones consistently each level is fine. I'm not willing to spend the money to look at the class features though.
As for banning them, it would be nice if we could afford to give third party classes etc a chance to show what they're like in practice. It doesn't work like that though. To try it, you have to play it for several levels (ideally, a full campaign), which means significant investment...then it's really awkward when you have to turn around to the player and tell them they have to get a new character...plus all the damage that's been done that persuaded you to ban it. It's far better to nip it in the bud and just not allow it if it's going to get banned.
And yes, balance really does matter. Story time - when I was first DMing, I had a player complain that I was KO'ing him all the time. I paid attention to what I was doing, and realised I was buffing the statblocks. Why? Because every fight was going to be pathetic, finishing in Round or so. To prevent that, I was buffing the HP to keep them in the fight for longer, and buffing the attacks to make them more impactful while they were up. That meant the up close and personal Barbarian was getting creamed.
Why were the monsters folding too soon? I noticed on player was doing a ton of damage that far outstripped everyone else. So my RAW monsters were being smashed before the fight got interesting. Once I had a word (because I noticed they weren't exactly following the rules), damage output went down, I could rely on encounters as they were written more, and they Barbarian got to have more fun.
Balance matters a lot. As DM, my biggest responsibility revolves around balance.
Like I said, my way of circumventing all of this is to ban bringing metagamey builds.
& it's worked ever since.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
It really depends on their other features. If they're getting mediocre features each level, then getting ones consistently each level is fine. I'm not willing to spend the money to look at the class features though.
As for banning them, it would be nice if we could afford to give third party classes etc a chance to show what they're like in practice. It doesn't work like that though. To try it, you have to play it for several levels (ideally, a full campaign), which means significant investment...then it's really awkward when you have to turn around to the player and tell them they have to get a new character...plus all the damage that's been done that persuaded you to ban it. It's far better to nip it in the bud and just not allow it if it's going to get banned.
And yes, balance really does matter. Story time - when I was first DMing, I had a player complain that I was KO'ing him all the time. I paid attention to what I was doing, and realised I was buffing the statblocks. Why? Because every fight was going to be pathetic, finishing in Round or so. To prevent that, I was buffing the HP to keep them in the fight for longer, and buffing the attacks to make them more impactful while they were up. That meant the up close and personal Barbarian was getting creamed.
Why were the monsters folding too soon? I noticed on player was doing a ton of damage that far outstripped everyone else. So my RAW monsters were being smashed before the fight got interesting. Once I had a word (because I noticed they weren't exactly following the rules), damage output went down, I could rely on encounters as they were written more, and they Barbarian got to have more fun.
Balance matters a lot. As DM, my biggest responsibility revolves around balance.
Like I said, my way of circumventing all of this is to ban bringing metagamey builds.
& it's worked ever since.
But it’s not a “metagamey build” if you choose a class and play it exactly as written and it’s totally broken
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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For the last week or so I'd been working on an Unarmed Fighting character. I'd made dozens of tweaks to multi-classing, feat selection timing, etc. This was fun and very strong. An excellent control character.
The BOOM! Out comes the Pugilist class. I had no idea it was coming and it arrived at the exact right moment for me. I paid the fee and started tinkering.
Well... I'm not going to say it's a waste of $15 because I had fun tinkering. But... no DM I talked to, and there are a lot of them in my local game store (20+ experienced DMs), will allow this class in their game. And with very good reason. It's is so radically over-powered it's laughable.
It essentially takes every strong ability from other favorite classes and subclasses, improves them, and gives them to the Pugilist class for free. In several cases much early than the original showcase class can acquire them. Need damage resistance? No need to dip into Barbarian. Like the Unarmed Fighting feat damage dice? Let's make it better. Like the Grapple feat Punch and Grab? Here it is for free. Like the monk bonus action attacks? No problem, free. The list goes on. Almost endlessly since the Pugilist gets new skills almost every level.
I'm not sure how this class can get fixed. If they removed half the skills from the base class it would still be too strong to let into a game.
Am I over-reacting here? Is this something the publishers will even attempt to make playable?
Where do you find this Pugilist class?
It's a new source book from a third-party. If you buy the source book for $15 from the DNDBeyond Marketplace then you can build a character with it in the Character Builder.
What is the name of the source book?
There is some great third party content on D&D Beyond. Griffon's Saddlebag. The Critical Role content. Flee Mortals! A bunch of terrifying, dynamic monsters from a number of sources that fill in the gaps left by the large number of lackluster, underpowered monsters in official content. There is also a lot of content, particularly player facing content, that is full of good ideas marred by poor execution and a clear need to edit. Pugilist falls into the secondary category - there is the core of an interesting class that fills a much-needed gap in official content.... but the apparent "let's throw the kitchen sink in there and not make edits after" build philosophy results in content that either is going to be disallowed or require heavy editing to make playable.
To answer your question of whether this editing will happen? Almost certainly no. D&D Beyond does not edit the content (frankly, given the power disparities and regular typographical errors found in a number of third party contents, I am not even sure they review the content all that carefully). The publishers may be able to edit the substance of the content after it is released if they want to balance things better - but that has not happened before, other than small errata to fix errors.
All told, buyer beware when getting third party content.
https://marketplace.dndbeyond.com/BB-3RDPARTY-2025/Q4AXQ3W?pid=DBQ4AXQ3W
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The Pugilist Class
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Yeah I feel like most third party classes (not all there's some great ones out there) that i've run into a difficult as helllll to balance, good lukc with your custom class though sounds awesome.
Counterpoint:Pugilist doesn't have any consistent ranged options unless you pick Dread Hand as your subclass. & said ranged options don't sync with the base class.
So there is a check against & risk in picking Pugilist, & Monk has more ranged options that sync w/the base class by comparison.
Haymaker doesn't mean anything if the opponent stays out of punch range.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
"The balance is they are overpowered sometimes, and miserable others because they do not get to participate in the game and have to twiddle their thumbs doing nothing" is not really a counterpoint - it is further proof that this class is poorly designed as published.
Insight Check on YouTube did a good review video where he points out just what a nightmare of nesting and contradictory skills the Pugilist has, to the point it almost becomes self balancing because you’ll never remember what happens or resets when and you’ll miss half of them. I was quite looking forward to this release because I know it’s a well loved class but frankly it’s a mess
I notice also that your definition of "balanced" Partnered Content always seems to apply to works that make fights mechanically more complex in a way DND Beyond doesn't support, & the rest of the content in the books you like just...exists.
Maybe confront your bias & test stuff in actual play instead of prematurely slapping the epithet "unbalanced" on everything that isn't milquetoast or DM option-centric?
Not everyone plays the way you do.
From my PoV, the Pugilist is playable as is. But it's not compatible w/every table's house rules on 3PP, & that's perfectly fine.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
The only way this class is balanced is making everyone in the campaign play as Pugilists. Then the DM throws in every creature with flight at them. Dm wins. Time to roll new characters and start a real campaign.
only way of balancing in my opinion. But I’m just me.
You know, the "should I ban Pugilist" talk reminds me of similar talk from another fighting-related thing, & the same language pops up...
I will never forgive Capcom for making Street Fighter 2, badly programming the glitch that combos were initially, & thus giving birth to the competitive fighting game scene that bleeds into EVERYTHING IT CAN.
Because phrases like "balance" "tiers" & other metagamey talk results in everyone playing the same things over & over, & banning things w/o trying them because someone influenced them to do things that way.
This is why, when I DM, I have a hard rule against metagame builds. You're going to play a character at my table, not compete for the high score or win the Melee competition with no items+Final Destination+Fox Only, metaphorically speaking.
But you know what? That's my way of playing & DMing. & no one is the vox populi of the DND fandom.
It's why I make sure to check to see if alarmism is justified by experiencing things, not just repeating people like Pack Tactics, Insight Check(The YouTuber, don't know if they're the account by the same name here) or other town criers(not someone who cries tears, someone who loudly repeats buzz). It's how I found out the Mizzmage isn't all it's cracked up to be in actual play.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Neither do most barbarians or monks, which is why they end up chucking javelins or handaxes or whatever. Something Pugilists can do as well, since they get simple weapon proficiencies
Does Pugilist seem remotely balanced against those two? We're talking about a class that gets a feature in addition to an ASI at 4th level. That's just nonsense
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Why is that nonsense? 2014 Rangers get a feature and ASI at 8th level. Of course, if it's a combat feature, that is definitely a problem.
Rangers got to ignore difficult terrain, something pretty situational and not of huge impact to most fights. The Pugilist gets to take half damage from bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage, so essentially gaining a key barbarian feature in addition to their ASI
It really depends on their other features. If they're getting mediocre features each level, then getting ones consistently each level is fine. I'm not willing to spend the money to look at the class features though.
As for banning them, it would be nice if we could afford to give third party classes etc a chance to show what they're like in practice. It doesn't work like that though. To try it, you have to play it for several levels (ideally, a full campaign), which means significant investment...then it's really awkward when you have to turn around to the player and tell them they have to get a new character...plus all the damage that's been done that persuaded you to ban it. It's far better to nip it in the bud and just not allow it if it's going to get banned.
And yes, balance really does matter. Story time - when I was first DMing, I had a player complain that I was KO'ing him all the time. I paid attention to what I was doing, and realised I was buffing the statblocks. Why? Because every fight was going to be pathetic, finishing in Round or so. To prevent that, I was buffing the HP to keep them in the fight for longer, and buffing the attacks to make them more impactful while they were up. That meant the up close and personal Barbarian was getting creamed.
Why were the monsters folding too soon? I noticed on player was doing a ton of damage that far outstripped everyone else. So my RAW monsters were being smashed before the fight got interesting. Once I had a word (because I noticed they weren't exactly following the rules), damage output went down, I could rely on encounters as they were written more, and they Barbarian got to have more fun.
Balance matters a lot. As DM, my biggest responsibility revolves around balance.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Like I said, my way of circumventing all of this is to ban bringing metagamey builds.
& it's worked ever since.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
But it’s not a “metagamey build” if you choose a class and play it exactly as written and it’s totally broken