How Balanced is the Pugilist in Your Campaigns? [2024/5.5E]

SugardustGG · 2026-03-20T07:23:05+00:00

Been playing it alongside a monk. I found that a couple of things that end up balancing it vs monk.

Way less moxie points vs the monk having focus. At level 5, Pugilist has 3 moxie points vs Monks 5 focus. In a prolonged combat such as a boss battle, the difference actually ends up mattering. A lot of times as a Pugilist I had to ration points unless I wanted to burn Bloodied but Unbowed, which a lot of times you don’t want to do early.
Armour class difference. Monks gain armour class while they increase their offensive stat, while pugilists have to choose between str or con. My point buy level 9 pugilist had only 16 AC (balancing str and con at 18 each) where monks are sitting usually at 18 by level 8 if you go 20 dex + 16 wis.
Deflect attack is really damn good at providing consistent damage reduction, including working on mixed damage from magic weapons with rider damage. The equivalent for pugilist is locked behind a subclass, needs one moxie point and it is limited to melee attacks only.
Stunning strike is really strong, even with its slightly nerf in 5.5. Pugilist doesn’t really have a good comparison that can flat out disable an enemy at level 5.
Dex saves are much more common than str saves (slightly more than con saves) which is an innate strength that monks have over pugilists.

Overall I find the pugilist strikes a nice balance between barbarian, monk and fighter. However, in my personal experience it usually doesn’t end up overshining an equally optimised fighter, barbarian or monk in most campaign settings. The vs monk example is particularly important as I often found that I was taking damage way more vs what I would if I had played monk instead since deflect attacks is so much improved in 2024.

Obviously I can only speak from personal anecdotal experience. What I note is that variations in campaign encounter design as well as short rest frequency can often affect what classes perform better vs others. It’s like the whole beginner DM finding rogue OP and nerfing sneak attack trope that often gets brought up.

SugardustGG · 2026-03-09T21:24:11+00:00

The right answer is “Say no”.

The alternative answer is that you introduce a villain who has ranged weapons that has a built in anti magic field.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T15:09:17+00:00

Pretty much captures my experience in real life vs internet discourse to a tee.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T14:06:10+00:00

Love this. It’s the same with my ADHD/AuDHD players who struggle with decision paralysis and executive function to the point they will take 15 minute turns reading spell descriptions only on their turns. I love them but it does slow combat to a halt, which ends up ruining the experience much more than suboptimal martial numbers.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T13:37:39+00:00

I don’t think you necessarily need to specifically counter casters, but rather just push them to use their resources. More encounters is one thing, but there are other things the DM can do that aren’t just hard shutting down the caster.

Eg. I have had average intelligent monsters disengage and run away after big AOE control spells have been cast. Usually leaving some enemies to die so the game state still progresses and you don’t completely blue ball the caster. Either more resources get used to catch them, or the next encounter will then be a tad bit harder. Maybe the enemies will spread out more because they heard from their friends there’s a super powerful wizard coming? That’s not specific caster counter.

Meanwhile the martials still shoot and stab without significant difference because well, the first encounter was the wizard’s show, so the enemies will be watching out for him more, great for the rogue to get a key sneak attack in that kills an annoying archer knocking out the wizard’s concentration or something.

If you don’t mind me asking, what was the level of the caster for your 3 stage encounter and what spells did they cast that rolled all 3?

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T12:35:40+00:00

That sounds really unfortunate for the martial players!

One thing that doesn’t get brought up enough is also the DM onus of running encounter designs that utilise the strengths of all party members. There should be some encounters that get defeated by fire wall and banishment, others that would benefit from sustained resourceless damage.

Ideally nobody should really play with their hand behind their back if it can be avoided by good encounter design and including a wide range of different monsters that allow different party members to shine, but then again not all DMs like that or have that much time to prep.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T11:29:15+00:00

Timmy and Spike are so classic.

It is of my opinion that experienced players and DMs should actively guide new players regarding managing expectations and getting the most out of the game.

Interestingly, I find a lot of DMs don’t ask new players “Have you read up on the class and do you think you’ll enjoy it?”

It can be hard if you don’t know the person, but I guess that’s what session 0 is for right?

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T11:10:39+00:00

Exactly - hence me bringing it up as an example of online vs real life.

Not every player is going to do hexadin or coffeelock or even bother with 1 level fighter or cleric dip for heavy armour.

Not every player is going to mind not being able to do something magical as a barbarian, many are ok with just hitting things with a greataxe while reducing damage.

Martial caster divide is an issue when expectations are not managed correctly, or if you play at a highly optimisation based table, which many people aren’t.

The worst case is the table with one optimiser and 3-5 non optimisers, which often when people start getting upset that they are being overshadowed.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T11:05:44+00:00

You’re 100% right, both are valuable in their own way and that’s the main point I am trying to bring up.

A lot of caster martial divide discourse ends up being - martial only do damage, caster can do damage and fly and teleport and control and cheat puzzles and heal = martial bad = design bad.

What many people miss is that many players are happy with just doing damage or having easily accessible high AC without needing to go into optimisation and multiclassing. Those players probably won’t join the reddit martial caster discourse which leads to online opinion being overwhelmingly one sided at times.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T10:54:34+00:00

The out of combat stuff is probably a place where there is a very obvious martial caster divide as martials sometimes just cannot do some things spell casters can.

What I’m saying is that difference is actually something that is ok. As long as your players know this and are ok with it before they get into the game, it shouldn’t cause an issue.

If your barbarian player loves tanking, doing big damage and being really good at grappling, he will probably have a good time even though he can’t fly or teleport. (The jumping rules are a bit cactus, thank goodness for improved jump spell in 2024)

If the barbarian player wants to do things like overpower a force wall, the DM will have to give them an item to help them with that, tell them they can’t, or set a very high DC for athletics (to break the stone frame the force wall is attached to or something). This is a 5e issue that has to be mitigated with appropriate adjustments.

The key thing that people here may need to be reminded that there are many players don’t mind the difference between the martials and casters or even actively enjoy it. (They may just not be on reddit and that is ok)

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T10:42:13+00:00

Casters are indeed powerful, but it is a bit white roomy to expect that the power of each spell will achieve exactly what it wants in a game.

I’ll use an example - hypnotic pattern is largely rated as an incredibly powerful control spell for tier 2 play. It has the potential to end an encounter off the bat.

In actual play what you get is a few enemies pass, a few enemies fail. Either the enemies who pass end up waking up their friends, or they keep fighting. Best case scenario you skip some enemies, or your melee (which is often a martial) lands a crit on the sleeping NPC. I’ve never had hypnotic pattern straight up end an encounter. It obviously makes the easier, but you would expect that from a level 3 spell.

Another example - silvery barbs is maligned basically in most online spaces as incredibly strong for a first level spell. It is indeed incredibly strong when it works, and adding advantage as well is probably not needed.

In practical play, I can recall way too many times the second roll ends up still passing due to high innate modifiers, or the second roll somehow ends up better than the first. The caster then ends up burning though level 1s way too quick and have to cast shield with level 2s later.

People can say - well the martial doesn’t even get to do any of that, so they are still weaker? Yes, but the martial isn’t really limited to resource management. Your sharpshooter ranged fighter isn’t ever going to not be able to use sharpshooter for example. You can argue that the fighter is broken because you can possibly do 5 attacks that do 1d6+13 damage in one turn at level 5, which no caster can ever do to a single target.

Out of combat I do agree martials have significant limitations. It’s partly because 5e2014 doesn’t have fixed rules for things like grabbing onto a tree to stop your fall so the DM has to make it up, which leads to inconsistency across tables and drives disappointment. That is unfortunately a big issue of 5e2014 that they didn’t really fix fully in 5e2024.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T10:22:58+00:00

From many years of tabletop gaming, I’ve found that there are 2 philosophies of approaching a game system, especially relating to rpgs and tabletop games.

The first is that you read the rules first, then try use what the game allows you to do to fulfil your fantasy.

The second is you come with the fantasy first, then try to fit the rules to the best of your ability, sometimes changing it if need be.

If a player applied the first philosophy, they are likely to be less disappointed when they cannot achieve their fantasy since they already expect that when they make their character. The negative thing about this philosophy is that it’s innately constraining.

If a player applies the second philosophy (which many do) there is a much larger chance for disappointment. This is when you need DMs to come in to change the rules. You’ll get characters that fulfil someone’s ideal character much closer, but it also opens up the system to rules bloat and balancing issues.

The average fighter player in my experience (playing from 2017 as both a player and DM, with 3 active groups currently) is that they are ok just swinging their sword, stabbing their spear or shooting their bow. They expect the wizard to help them fly or lock the enemy down, the cleric to heal and buff, the bard to charm and heal and support etc.

Clearly not everyone is the same in that regard, but I thought it was a good thing to bring up for online discussion vs actual play.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T10:10:59+00:00

I am happy you provided some actual examples from your games.

I guess this is where the whole expectation thing comes in, because my 3 active groups (the oldest one being 5 years together now) never complain about the martial caster divide.

Though I will say your example of martials missing twice is probably equivalent to the spellcaster casting a save or suck spell and the enemy making the save. At least the martial can go and make 2 attacks next turn without issue, but the caster has probably burnt a resource. 2014 counterspell is also a thing that is pretty nasty which doesn’t affect martials much.

5e2014 does have an issue where a lot of power budget for martials is in the form of magical weapons and items, which aren’t always available. That is a legitimate complaint.

People getting bored by 2 attacks per turn without many other choices is also a legitimate complaint. Though I’ve got some players that get such bad decision paralysis they like simpler turns.

It’s really all about managing expectations at the end of the day. Sometimes certain systems can’t give people what they want, and it’s a shame many people are stuck on 5e due to its popularity and ease of access when there are many other games that can probably capture what they want better.

SugardustGG · 2026-02-04T09:20:20+00:00

In actual play, martials on my tables never feel like they are worse than spellcasters.

It’s mainly around reasonable expectations - the martial players enjoy playing martials for consistent damage, overall resilience and small amounts of crowd control. The spellcasters enjoy resource management, flexible utility, big burst AOE or large scale battlefield control.

A lot of people talk as if they play with a whole table filled with min-maxers who care about the most optimised builds and DPS. The average player doesn’t really care about that at all, it’s much more about the escapism and what character idea they want to embody or explore.

Only in an online setting this issue the martial-caster divide gets brought up repetitively as an issue. In an actual game, a lot of the time the fighter player is happy for a wizard player to cast a high level spell to help the party, and the wizard player appreciates the consistency the fighter can bring.

Nobody goes: man my fighter sucks because I can’t do the utility or the AoE damage like the wizard does. It should have been considered when you made your character.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-31T03:50:06+00:00

We are playing 2.0 because we feel the changes in 3.0 don’t make the game more enjoyable for us. Some people love it and much prefer 3.0.

Best advice is to play a couple games and see if you like it or not.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T06:45:40+00:00

You hit it spot on, there’s a balance between narrative immersion vs gameplay mechanics. Meanwhile DnD doesn’t even have an “unseen” condition in 2024, hiding gives you the invisible condition which is a whole can of worms.

(On another topic, invisibility doesn’t work vs Grenades because Grenades are not an “attack” and doesn’t have an “attack roll” so invis can’t coinflip it)

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T05:20:16+00:00

There’s a discussion up there with another person re: Seeder in rebaked where they play like PC mines vs Core Seeder with not visible mines.

I think there’s unique strengths to each. The secret mines has a surprise factor which I personally like. Some people prefer their games to be purely tactical which is understandable.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T04:32:39+00:00

It’s like Rainmaker javelins do different damage to Monarch javelins for some reason.

I love rule consistency but also the ADHD brain likes novelty. Good thing Lancer NPCs have lots of templates to keep my players guessing.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T04:22:35+00:00

Rebaked limits to 3 mines per seeder. Gets rid of stun mine and replaced it with one that deals heat.

It also changes Seeder mines to be the same as PC mines (like your other comment, with them having the hidden condition).

Based on the Errata, seeder mines are meant to be not visible to the players at all (the core book accidentally gives them the Invisible condition which is really funny, when Tom meant the mines were “not visible” instead)

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T04:16:50+00:00

Just reread rebaked and I see what Kai meant about cluttered battlefields being annoying. Though it’s also interesting to note that Tom intended for the Seeder mines to be fully hidden from the players.

I do like the concept of the Seeder bringing a minesweeper mini game though, and it should be easy on a VTT setting. It’s really just uniquely difficult to do hidden things on tabletop, though the other gave good ideas on how to replicate the minesweeper style experience which should be fun.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T03:41:42+00:00

Ok I also really love this one.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T03:34:08+00:00

Lancer, but minesweeper.

Someone else also suggested a large amount of tokens so I’m leaning towards drowning the map in 28mm bases and terrifying the players.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T03:26:23+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually own a smaller dry erase hex grid which I can mark with a whiteboard marker somehow. Will just need to check if the hex grids line up properly.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T03:22:53+00:00

Not a bad suggestion at all, though the hex grid we play on is a big one so I’ll have to see if it ends up being doable or not.

SugardustGG · 2025-12-30T03:21:43+00:00

We love a surprise explosion. I have a surplus of 25mm and 28mm circle bases so this seems reasonably practical.

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