Wizards of the Coast came in swinging for their newest D&D class, the Pugilist.
It’s like Monk in many ways, with a point resource system, a focus on unarmed combat and all that jazz. Except, this one is an edgy street fighter rather than a refined martial artist. Really, it does fill a role that was missing, as a rough-and-tumble brawler archetype character wouldn’t fit the flavor of Monk and would be painfully mediocre on any other class.
But enough about that, what is the Pugilist class, really?
19 features, not counting subclasses or ability score increases. That’s a lot, so for the sake of time, only the standout features will be highlighted.
Firstly, the Pugilist’s primary ability is Strength, they use D10 hit dice, can have proficiency in acrobatics, athletics, deception, intimidation, perception, sleight of hand, and stealth. They also get proficiency with simple and improvised weapons alongside light armor and one gaming set.
Pretty simple stuff, all things considered. And their first level feature, Fisticuffs, is like the Monk’s Martial Arts feature, with a bonus action unarmed strike and a special damage die for unarmed strike and Pugilist Weapons. Except the Pugilist starts with 1d8 for the die and ends with 2d6. Not only that, but all improvised weapons now have the Sap mastery, which makes the enemy have disadvantage on their next attack.
The level two feature is Moxie, which allows the Pugilist to do some wacky things with their Moxie points. Again, it parallels the Monk’s Ki points, or Focus points as they’re called in 2024. Moxie can be spent to get temp hp, making two unarmed strikes as a bonus action, and doing an unarmed strike and the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action. Moxie can be regained using another level two feature which lets them regain all of it after being sent to half health. All points recharge on a Short Rest.
Level three grants the Pugilist to use the Grapple or Shove option as well as the unarmed strike damage. Level four grants knockoff Barbarian Rage, where they get resistance to the physical damage types, and can uniquely recharge by gaining a point of exhaustion.
They get Extra Attack at level five, as well as Haymaker, where the Pugilist can deal the maximum amount of damage with an attack if they risk a Moxie point. And yes, it is “risk” and not “spend” because it’s only spent if the attack misses.
Level nine grants School of Hard Knocks, where the Pugilist can deal an extra 1d12 damage once per turn. The damage can get traded for one of two effects, one where the next attack a creature takes has them take the maximum damage, and the other where the creature has disadvantage on any attack rolls that aren’t made against the Pugilist.
Level ten features the ability to just end a condition at the start of a turn. Once per long rest or exhaustion point taken, they can just end the Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Restrained, or Stunned condition, or decrease their exhaustion by 1.
This is all very exciting, as expected, but everything from here is just more and more and more complex. The point is that you regain all your limited resources and are good at fighting and stuff.
So, what does this all mean? What does this all entail?
First and foremost, the flavor is great. An unarmed Barbarian has a max damage die of 1d8, which makes the unarmed rough-and-tumble brawler character nearly dead on arrival. But, the Pugilist makes that concept a viable reality, especially with that proficiency with improvised weapons. It’s a really cool character concept that the Pugilist allows.
As for mechanics, that’s where the answer is more mixed. This class has nine different resources to manage, some of them actually recharging your other abilities, not to mention juggling exhaustion levels with it all.
The Druid was considered to be a complicated class, and that was because of Wildshape. The Artificer was considered to be a complicated class, and that was because of Artificer Infusions. The Pugilist is complicated because of everything about them.
And even to the dedicated people who could manage all of those resources, the maximum damage that they could deal in a turn against a single target is 140. That is the average damage of Meteor Swarm, a spell that could be cast by a Wizard at the same level as the Pugilist using all of their resources.
The Pugilist is a strong martial, no doubt, but it still can’t bridge the gap between martials and spellcasters. But, then again, there’s not a ton of people who care for that.
All in all, the Pugilist does its purpose as filling in a gap in roleplay characters, but falters in terms of gameplay, being nigh-inaccessible to those who are inexperienced, and being difficult to the inclined.
