Hey everyone, this is a project I’ve been working on called “Pugilism”.
The goal was to create a fun but simple sparring minigame, since one-on-one fist fights in 5e can be somewhat dull if you’re just rolling to hit and applying unarmed strikes. More so than being uninteresting, however, they don’t take into account specific restrictions that would be in a controlled fight: using only (sometimes padded) fists, no hitting below the belt, etc.
Pugilism was an attempt to add some strategic play into fistfighting that loosely emulated these special conditions – like trying to read your opponent, aiming for specific parts of the body and not tiring yourself out. There are definitely some other theories on how to achieve this that can be found out there, but I didn’t find anything quite to my liking – so I made my own!
An important note – while they do get an advantage as outlined in the rules, I acknowledge that the martial classes (Monk, Fighter, Barbarian, etc.) probably don’t have as much of a leg up as you’d expect in a fight against a bookish Wizard. You’re welcome to tweak the numbers or add special conditions that widen the skill gap, but I set out to make Pugilism more fair by acknowledging a couple key concepts:
Your combat stats (in my opinion) reflect your character’s ability to kill or seriously injure a creature with no restrictions. A fighter might be trained to use a sword to stab at any available weak spot in their enemy’s armor, but when placed within the confines of a regulated boxing match, a lot of their training isn’t necessarily as applicable.
There is an assumed level of general competency with most adventurers. Even a low-level Wizard, who might have an AC of 10 or 11, can still dodge formidable creature attacks if they roll poorly. Our heroes are meant to be more skilled than your average person, so they have a reasonable floor on their athleticism.
I’m linking to a drive where you can download the cards and the full rules, but the extremely boiled down version is as follows:
Players take turns attacking each other and defending against attacks.
You are knocked down if your “composure” reaches 0.
The base game includes only 13 cards per deck (6 attacks, 6 defenses and a x2 card that indicates using the same attack twice), so it’s really easy to pick up and understand. Also included, however, are optional class-specific cards that give the game another layer of complexity. Disclaimer: the class-specific cards have not been as rigorously playtested and may significantly alter the balance of the game. If you want to use the optional class-specific cards, find the cards that belong to your class and add one copy of each to your deck (giving you a total of 15 cards in your deck).
What I also like about Pugilism is that it retains the opportunities for roleplay – while the DM could play every hand to the best of their ability, they can also incorporate advantages and disadvantages based on the adventurers’ opponents. A big, beefy Half-Orc may favor heavy and head strikes, while a more lithe and crafty fighter will opt for jabs and body blows. You can also make it less obvious and allow your players to discover fighting patterns as the fight goes on.
Enjoy and feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
A special thank-you to DM Paul Weber – the backgrounds for the cards were made using a modified version of his freely available 5e equipment cards.
The rest of the icons and graphics were designed by me, usually by cutting together free clip art found online. Everything is free for your personal use.
Hey everyone, this is a project I’ve been working on called “Pugilism”.
The goal was to create a fun but simple sparring minigame, since one-on-one fist fights in 5e can be somewhat dull if you’re just rolling to hit and applying unarmed strikes. More so than being uninteresting, however, they don’t take into account specific restrictions that would be in a controlled fight: using only (sometimes padded) fists, no hitting below the belt, etc.
Pugilism was an attempt to add some strategic play into fistfighting that loosely emulated these special conditions – like trying to read your opponent, aiming for specific parts of the body and not tiring yourself out. There are definitely some other theories on how to achieve this that can be found out there, but I didn’t find anything quite to my liking – so I made my own!
An important note – while they do get an advantage as outlined in the rules, I acknowledge that the martial classes (Monk, Fighter, Barbarian, etc.) probably don’t have as much of a leg up as you’d expect in a fight against a bookish Wizard. You’re welcome to tweak the numbers or add special conditions that widen the skill gap, but I set out to make Pugilism more fair by acknowledging a couple key concepts:
Your combat stats (in my opinion) reflect your character’s ability to kill or seriously injure a creature with no restrictions. A fighter might be trained to use a sword to stab at any available weak spot in their enemy’s armor, but when placed within the confines of a regulated boxing match, a lot of their training isn’t necessarily as applicable.
There is an assumed level of general competency with most adventurers. Even a low-level Wizard, who might have an AC of 10 or 11, can still dodge formidable creature attacks if they roll poorly. Our heroes are meant to be more skilled than your average person, so they have a reasonable floor on their athleticism.
I’m linking to a drive where you can download the cards and the full rules, but the extremely boiled down version is as follows:
Players take turns attacking each other and defending against attacks.
You are knocked down if your “composure” reaches 0.
The first player to be knocked down twice, loses.
Here is the link to the printable PDFs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bmBbo4Cp3xBgbp4jQ8Wgj50-t4SF4dd_?usp=sharing
The base game includes only 13 cards per deck (6 attacks, 6 defenses and a x2 card that indicates using the same attack twice), so it’s really easy to pick up and understand. Also included, however, are optional class-specific cards that give the game another layer of complexity. Disclaimer: the class-specific cards have not been as rigorously playtested and may significantly alter the balance of the game. If you want to use the optional class-specific cards, find the cards that belong to your class and add one copy of each to your deck (giving you a total of 15 cards in your deck).
What I also like about Pugilism is that it retains the opportunities for roleplay – while the DM could play every hand to the best of their ability, they can also incorporate advantages and disadvantages based on the adventurers’ opponents. A big, beefy Half-Orc may favor heavy and head strikes, while a more lithe and crafty fighter will opt for jabs and body blows. You can also make it less obvious and allow your players to discover fighting patterns as the fight goes on.
Enjoy and feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
A special thank-you to DM Paul Weber – the backgrounds for the cards were made using a modified version of his freely available 5e equipment cards.
The rest of the icons and graphics were designed by me, usually by cutting together free clip art found online. Everything is free for your personal use.
This is really cool and seems like a fun way to handle this.
I love this idea and i want more information if you have it.