Base Class: Monk
Monks of the way of the Boxer have forgone their temple training in search of challenge and fame. Fancy footwork, deft head movement, and flashy combinations separate the Boxer from the average brawler. They learn to control the fight and lead their opponent around the ring that is ever present in their mind's eye, never losing focus and constantly anticipating the opponent's next move.
Boxers do not use traditional weapons, their fists are dangerous enough. They are, however, capable of wearing gloves, knuckle dusters, and other types of fist covered weapons to augment their attack. An underground fighter might wear dusters with wicked spikes on the end while a mercenary may have weighted gloves with hardened knuckles. These gloves add 1 damage to your melee attack damage modifier (STR or DEX whichever is higher) and any damage type that makes sense with your character upon consulting your DM. (Piercing, bludgeoning, fire, radiant, etc.)
When adopting this style you now only have proficiency with Gloves and no other weapons Gloves as a weapon type include any hand covering that enhances your ability to punch while leaving your hands empty such as (brass knuckles, boxing gloves, hand-wraps, SAP gloves, and anything else you can imagine!), Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and Deflect Missiles will be replaced by: One, Two, Three!, Slip!, Waltz, and Parry! (Detailed below)
One, Two, Three! is a three punch combo that requires a Combo point (explained further in detail in the Feats section).
Slip! - As a reaction, spend one Combo point to cause an attacking creature to roll with disadvantage on their next melee attack (physical or magical, and does not include area of effect spells or attacks) if the creature misses you may take an attack of opportunity with the critical range expanded to 18-20.
Waltz - As a bonus action you may spend a Combo point take the disengage action, dancing away from your current opponent still in a fighting stance, and ready an attack, if a creature enters your threatened area you may make an attack of opportunity with advantage and the critical range expanded to 18-20.
Parry! - As a reaction you may deflect a melee attack and reduce the damage by 1d10 + Dexterity modifier, you may then make an unarmed attack with advantage.
- Starting at level three your Unarmored Defense converts from using Wisdom to Intelligence as your AC modifier. You may transfer your Wisdom points (if any) to your Intelligence stat.
- Starting at level 3 any Ki points previously earned or that you would earn in future levels convert to Combo points and fuel your Combo punches/abilities.
- Your Combo save DC becomes 8 + Proficiency + Intelligence modifier.
Iron Chin
At level 4, replace Slow Fall with Iron Chin - Whenever you would be afflicted with the Stunned or Unconscious effect you may use your reaction to ignore the effect.
Over Hand
At level 5 Stunning Strike becomes Over Hand - Starting at 5th level, you can finish any off any combination with a mighty right hand. Bringing your right hand up and over you slam it down on your opponent's head. Using a Combo point you may knock your opponent straight onto it's rear, knocking it Prone until the end of it's next turn.
Magical Contingency
At level 6, you've fought long enough to know that there wizards, elementals, gods, and all manner of magical creatures in this world and that your fists, your physical prowess may not be enough to break through their special defenses. Employing the work of other magic users, you've found a way (through tattoos, runes, spells, or any other imaginative way you can think of) to bolster your fists with magical energy. You may now add two elements (one for each fist) to the damage type you deal. Gloves with an augmented damage type override your Magical Contingency When you connect with more than one hit in a single turn you alternate the damage type and when landing a single hit you may choose which damage type it is.
Steel Body
At level 10 replace Purity of Body with Steel Body - you now have advantage on all Constitution saving throws. Increase your health by your current level + your Constitution Modifier.
Fighter's Connection
Starting at level 13, you are now a widely traveled and wise fighter, replacing Tongue of the Sun and Moon with Fighter's Connection - you've spent time learning from and trading skills with like minded fighters from all backgrounds and cultures, and in order to do that you picked up their language on the way. You now speak and understand any and all languages of the races that you have fought against.
Feint
At level 14 replace Diamond Soul with Feint - As a bonus action you may spend 2 Combo points, raising your hand in a quick motion as if to strike, you cause you opponent to flinch and your opponent's AC is lowered by 2 you also increase the critical range of that attack to 18-20.
Liver Blow
At level 15 replace Timeless Body with Liver Blow - When you hit with a normal attack you may spend 1 Combo point to change that attack to a Liver Blow, adding the Incapacitated condition to the opponent and dealing the damage as normal.
Bloody Counter
At level 18 replace Empty Body with Bloody Counter - After fighting so long, you understand that no fight can be ended without taking your share of hits. When you take damage and your opponent is within 5 feet of you, using your reaction you may spend 4 Combo points and roll an attack with advantage, your critical range is increased to 15-20 and your damage die for this punch is 2d8.
The "Sweet Science"
Starting at level 20 replace Perfect Self with The "Sweet Science" - You now have proficiency in all saving throws. Also, anytime you would spend more than one Combo point for any ability, lower the cost of that ability by 1 Combo point.
One, Two, Three!
When you choose The Way of the Pugilist, Flurry of Blows converts to One, Two, Three!
Starting when you choose this training at 3rd level, you can build a 3 hit Combo by spending a Combo point.
Spend a Combo Point to make 3 unarmed attacks as a bonus action immediately after your attack action.
- First attack (Jab), +5 to hit, half damage.
- Second attack (Cross), if Jab hits roll an attack with advantage, if successful add an additional 1d4 to total damage.
- Third attack (Left Hook), if Cross hits roll an attack with advantage, additionally on a 18-20 this attack critically hits.
Clinch!
At 6th level, you understand the importance of controlling the pace of the fight. As an action, you can grapple an opponent and make an attack with advantage, heal yourself for twice the damage dealt + your monk level. While grappled, as long as the opponent has not pushed you off you may attack (without advantage) while still grappled and move the opponent half your movement speed in any direction. If you successfully hold the Clinch for 3 turns you may replenish 1 Combo point.
You may use this ability once and must take a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Outfighting/Infighting
Beginning at 11th level, you have mastered an advanced style of Boxing and you may choose from either Outfighting or Infighting.
- Outfighting - Constantly on your toes and able to judge your maximum reach with punches, your Jab becoming more advanced, you no longer provoke attacks of opportunity upon leaving a creature's threatened area and your Jab's damage is no longer halved.
- Infighting - You relish in close-quarters combat and focus on chopping your opponent down with heavy blows. Increase your AC by 2 while you are within 5 feet of an opponent also add Four! to your One, Two, Three! and increase your critical range for Three! and Four! to 15-20.
Final Round
At 17th level, your understanding of combinations and attack placement has allowed you string together 10 deadly punches in a single move. When you hit an opponent with an unarmed strike, you can spend 4 Combo points to begin a wild combination. A relentless rain of punches falls upon your opponent, you make 10 separate unarmed attacks with advantage. The critical range has been increased to 15-20 for each attack. If all 10 attacks hit and the opponent has not dropped to 0 they are stunned until the end of their turn.







-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Aug 30, 2024Question, if you're still looking at this, why is Way of the Pugilist mentioned after "Sweet Science"? Is that another subclass? Is that part of The Way of the Boxer?
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 23, 2022Damn I got alot to sort! Thank you! All of these make more sense. Got some tweaking to do!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 22, 2022With some polish this will be a really enjoyable subclass with actual class adjustments. So here are my thoughts on some features on what could be changed to make it more balanced.
3rd / 4th Level - Seems fine as it is.
5th Level - This might make sense for medium sized creatures or lower ones but would you actually knock a dragon prone if you hit one with the over hand? Sounds a bit weird if you think about the height difference. So either you keep Stunning Strike as it is or you have to put a restriction on Over Hand that you can only knock creatures the same sice or smaller as you are on their rear but everything larger recieves a different effect. Maybe halfed movement speed plus advantage on melee attack roles against them for one round as they are distracted?
6th level - Do you receive bonus damage to your bludeoning damage of your unarmed strikes or does the bludeoning damage just get swapped out by the new damage type? If it is a bonus to your normal unarmed damage how high is the dice for it? If it is a swap you should make it clear in the description of the feature.
10th Level - I would give this feature proficiency in constitution saving throws instead of advantage. The hp bonus is fine.
13th Level - I would give it a restriction as well. Since you most likely dont speak while fighting you would have to spend time with your rivals before or after a fight. Maybe spend one hour talking to them to understand their language.
14th Level - Here I would change the minus to AC of the oppenent to a +2 to your next attack. Same effect but easier to use. As it is using up a bonus action to cause the effect the crit improvement is fine here. Maybe even drop the costs of two points to one?
15th Level - The cost of using this feature has to go up as you cancel the creatures entire turn with this. 2 points seem fair. Restriction on how long this condition lasts is important as well. One round like Over Hand or Stunning Strike is fair. The question here is also again the size difference as it is quite hard to make a liver punch against a creature which has his liver like 4m up in the air.
18th Level - Looks like a fair risk - reward situation. Can be untouched for now.
20th Level - The proficiency to all saving throws seems a bit unfitting here so I would ditch it. Make it instead so that your dexterity or strength and intelligence score increases by 2 to a maximum of 22. Futhermore you reduce the costs of all combinations by one to a minimum of one. Spending no points on some features would be really busted.
One, Two, Three! - Seems fine even tho I am not sure about the advantage on the rolls.
6th Level (Clinch) - I would actually ditch this feature entirely as it is overloaded in an already overloaded subclass. You can punch real good. But to heal yourself good aswell and all seems over the top.
11th Level - Outfighting: Instead of ignoring attacks of opportunity automatically you could give the player the oppotunity to use the disengage action as a bonus action. The no longer halved jab is fine.
Infighting: The AC is fine. I would only give the crit chance increase of 15-20 only to the fourth hit of the combo so it is something special to reach it.
17th Level - Outright overpowered. You already have enough attacks in one round. So maybe you should ditch the idea of 10 extra attacks and swap it to something different. Or atleast reduce the number of attacks and give it an restriction. Maybe just 5 extra attacks and you can use this feature by spending 4 points and only once per long rest. Maybe even giving you exhaustion especially when you want to keep the crit chance on these attacks. Also the crit chance should not be under 18. Dont add the stunning effect.
As an idea: Instead of extra attacks how about a knock out? If the targeted creature has less then 25% of its maximum hp you can expend 4 points to try to knock it unconscious. It has to make a constitution saving throw or is unconscious. It would have to make con saves at the end of its turns. If you do something like this you could swap it to the 18th Level and put the current 18th level to the 17th level.
Those are my ideas. Do what you want with it xD I am open for discussions
PS Sorry for the rather underwhelming english skills
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 20, 2022I do genuinely need help testing it. It doesn't have caveats for the attacks so, any advice or suggestions for changes are welcome!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 20, 2022Aww thanks so much, and let me know how it feels in game. I don't want it to be OP but I do want that "Punch good" feeling.
Thank you for the kind words!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jun 20, 2022It seems like a lot of fun but extremely overpowered. Especially because of those crit chances.
And sometimes the wording is a bit iffy. Like the 17th level feature. You can take 10 attacks after you hit an attack. So you could get at least 12 attacks with crazy crit chance without any downside to it. And as it reads there is no limitations either. So with some adjustments this could be a really enjoyable subclass.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Mar 26, 2022Man, I absolutely love this. I'm DMing my first ever campaign and my friend wants to swap their subclass to this because they just want to punch really good, and they asked if they could swap to this despite having already picked a subclass.
I was always going to let them swap, but after reading this all the way through? I'm actively pushing them to swap! It's so damn cool! You're doin' god's work with this stuff.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Oct 23, 2020The swap to intelligence is for flavor.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Oct 22, 2020This subclass seems amazing! The two thing I would change if I got the chance to play it is the crit range because though it would be awesome, it just seems a bit much. Second, I don't really see the point of switching from wisdom to intelligence if it's not going to grant you any specific boon. Other than that, I hope my DM allows me to run this subclass in our upcoming campaign!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Sep 25, 2020Yeah i thought it was too many as well now that I'm play testing it. I tried my best to exemplify the nature of a modern boxer but I'm going to limit the critical range to 18-20 instead of 15-20. It is sooooo much fun though. Seeing the punches set each other up really made me feel like I was fighting. (I actually box by the way haha)
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Jul 2, 2020That's a lot of critical hits, but over all it seems really nice, I might just use this myself in a campaign soon.