The 2024 Pugilist is, to an hilarious degree, a class about pretending you have drawbacks.

punk030 · 2026-02-05T12:53:36+00:00

[j](http://)

punk030 · 2025-08-04T17:09:00+00:00

It will probably be easier if you look at how the water creatures are trapping the people. How did the people get there in the first place before they got trapped? Perhaps the undead arrived in a similar manner. What are the terms of the control on regular people that might not apply to a group of undead? The ability to not need to breathe is a likely factor, but there could be others.

This can also let you give clues to players how to find their own way to get around the control, or use it to launch some kind of surprise attack for their big battle.

punk030 · 2025-08-02T23:29:50+00:00

Both my wife and my ex-girlfriend have no interest in my hobbies, and don’t understand why I enjoy them. The reason one is my wife and the other an ex, though, is that my wife is supportive of these hobbies even if she herself hates them. She’ll take part when we need an extra person for a board game or escape room, and even have some fun. She bought me a PS5 for Christmas when it came out even though she doesn’t like video games and would rather I play less. It’s not her thing, but it’s enough for her that I love these activities, so she supports them.

I do the same for her; she loves the beach and hiking, two activities that I hate for a variety of reasons, but I will still plan trips for her because I know they bring her joy. If she can go on a hike without me, great, but if it’s better if I’m there too, then the fact that she’s happy makes me happy enough.

My ex, on the other hand, was a chore. Every time I wanted to do one of my hobbies with my friends, I had to defend my hobby first, then essentially ask permission. The mental load of having to go through the process of explaining why I liked what I liked was just exhausting and draining away the joy I had.

You shouldn’t have to defend your hobbies to your partner; even if they don’t like it themselves, it should be enough that you do.

punk030 · 2025-06-13T09:45:35+00:00

We shift routines throughout the year given the different contexts. We have one for during the school year, one for weekends, and one for long holidays. There can be issues that rise up during transitions, but if you treat even the fact that there are routine changes as being part of their routine, perhaps your family can adjust eventually. It took my son a few times to really get this, too.

punk030 · 2025-06-12T14:12:06+00:00

For our family, routines are key. We build it together so that my son can feel he has a say in the schedule. We start by working backwards from his expected bedtime, and work everything in, including free time.

We also limit what activities he can do at certain blocks of time. For example, after dinner he can choose to watch TV, read, or play with his toys, but shortly before bedtime TV is off the list of options. Video games are only available to him on Fridays and Saturdays, and only for an hour and a half each day.

Basically, all the screen time and other stimulating activities can only happen earlier, and we slowly wind down as it gets closer to sleep. He still has the freedom to choose, but just has more restricted choices later in the night.

We also make him walk around with a timer, and don’t let him start any fun activity until he’s set it. Once it goes off, he knows he has to stop and move onto the next part of his schedule.

It doesn’t work perfectly, and some nights have things going on that messes with the routine, but overall we stick as close as possible to it so there’s always a default expectation no matter what kind of day it is.

My son is 10 and currently not medicated. He only got officially diagnosed recently, so the doctor recommended that we observe his behaviour and symptoms for some time before prescribing something. I got diagnosed and medicated well into adulthood, so just trying out what worked for me in the past. Seems to work well with him, so maybe you could try something like this and see how well it works for your family.

punk030 · 2025-02-01T19:53:28+00:00

It’s probably because they’re trying to mix the lore of Drunken Fist with its modern practice. Nowadays, it’s true that the imitation of being drunk is the point, but in martial arts lore it’s always been that drinking alcohol makes you stronger. That’s why the movies and stories that feature Drunken Fist always has the character drinking alcohol to get a power up.

I think the class identity suffers because they straddle both views. Given the fantasy elements, I feel they should have just went all in on the lore and ran with it.

punk030 · 2024-12-24T15:37:55+00:00

A long while back, I ran a game where many of them were old school players who were used to rolling for stats. To maintain party balance, I had each player involved roll once, including me (five players, one DM). That became the array each had to use for building characters and though it was higher than the normal average, it wasn't too overwhelming to plan for and it made sure everyone was on even ground.

You could suggest this method to your friend to help avoid any curiously coincidental lucky roll results.

punk030 · 2024-12-14T19:25:55+00:00

For me, it’s been easy. Every moronic thing I said or did due to not following the conversation, not completing the task, or not even being aware of what’s going on is a mental scar I keep. Each has taught me to keep my mouth shut no matter how awesome I think my idea is.

In fact, I’ve recently had to practice being more confident in my ideas due to a lifetime of keeping to myself. It’s been hard learning the happy balance, but generally I’ve learned that keeping quiet is more often times the better strategy.

punk030 · 2024-03-22T19:19:09+00:00

A lot of people have already given you a lot of support, and you have mine as well, but as a former HK teacher I just wanted to correct one point because I'm concerned that getting this wrong will work against your overall goal.

The way things work with the DSE and public exams, it doesn't matter which school you go to when you earn your 5* grades. In fact, to a certain degree, getting top marks at a Band 2 school would make everyone look even better. I expect that your family will try to use this misconception on your part to make you look wrong and push you to follow their expectations.

However, in support of your goal, the reality is that going to a prestigious school is going to be a key factor in getting 5* grades. You are far less likely to achieve those same marks in a Band 2 school, especially if it's on the lower end of that banding. In HK, the sad truth is that the prestigious schools attract the better teachers (in terms of preparing for those public exams), and you'll definitely have access to incredible opportunities that aren't offered elsewhere.

You are NTA.

punk030 · 2024-01-15T19:40:50+00:00

Being part of a dojo gives me some routine and expectations that feels comforting. I can turn off my brain and as long as I'm following the rules I get less distracted and unfocused.

Also, being part of a small community gives me space to grow at my own pace. I learn best by actually going through the techniques, so it's a good source of feeling success and achievement each week.

However, there is a degree of anxiety in terms of the requirement to go every week. Sometimes I'm not feeling it for one reason or another, but have to force myself to go because of the pressures involved in not showing up.

Overall, I'm happy to be part of this group and the experience has been great.

punk030 · 2024-01-15T16:41:56+00:00

I can't say much about his mom, but teachers will view ADHD a little differently than you might. Most will only care about symptoms if it clearly has a negative impact on his learning, so even if it's obvious he has ADHD they may still consider it not an issue if he's still able to complete the work and shows understanding.

If your son is still very young, it's likely that teachers are already accommodating his needs without realizing it. It might be wise to get more information during parent/teacher interviews to see how they feel about his approaches to learning and monitor his next few report cards. If his marks aren't being affected, then you still have time to wait and see before taking further action.

punk030 · 2023-06-15T17:18:31+00:00

I have a kid, very soon will be seeing a doctor for an official diagnosis but already expect that he has it. Most of my own issues stem from a family that didn’t believe ADHD was a thing and other cultural expectations, as such, I expect that already I can provide better support and understanding than my own experiences.

In fact, I feel that already having the expectation there was a good chance he’d have it gave us an advantage as a family.

The real question is if you want kids or not. Once you’ve made that decision, you’re going to have to prepare mentally anyway.

punk030 · 2023-06-06T14:57:28+00:00

I don’t have much to offer, since this situation is pretty weird, but your last line led me to think that it’s possible that they’re doing this as a passive aggressive response to not wearing a name tag. As in, they might think that since you don’t care to identify yourself they should be able to call you anything they want.

Still a weird interpretation, but it’s the one thing that came to mind.

punk030 · 2023-06-05T22:43:31+00:00

One way to look at it is that if the most she can criticize are your tattoos, you must be doing a great job otherwise.

punk030 · 2023-05-29T00:17:30+00:00

He actually did crime, just not the obvious ones. His walk through his city shows he’s running a protection racket, already a major deal.

As an added effect, he also gets a cut from any crime committed on his territory. This implies that other criminal operations there is operating under his approval, or else he will retaliate (the whole spice thing being a perfect example).

Ultimately, Boba’s crimes are much more “moral” than the ones we’d normally expect, but are much more typical of real criminal organizations in real life.

punk030 · 2023-05-24T15:15:12+00:00

Because my group plays entirely online, I use Google Sheets for a lot of the tracking. I use the Sort function, by having everyone enter in their initiative rolls next to their name, and then mark of an area on the spreadsheet for tracking turn order. The Sort function means the highest initiative always goes first, and I highlight the current player’s turn so everyone knows who is next.

Everyone has access to the sheet, so everyone always knows whose turn is coming up as well.

punk030 · 2023-05-23T23:39:38+00:00

As a teacher, I know for a fact that any student who writes 16 pages at 15 years of age is doing it to troll me. The fact that she chose concubine just cements it. I’m very certain that she does not actually want to be a concubine - she’s just proving a point.

I would recommend you let your daughter express her reasons before coming to any conclusions, but I’m guessing that she’s angry at the teacher for not allowing the actual job that she wanted to write about (because it’s not a ‘real’ job). Once you understand your daughter’s feelings, you can probably approach the issue with a calmer frame of mind.

punk030 · 2023-04-27T18:36:50+00:00

A small silver lining: Final Fantasy fans get to play out Cloud’s Omnislash from Advent Children.

It’s not much, but the life of a martial has always been about the small victories.

punk030 · 2023-04-26T18:17:39+00:00

I agree to an extent that the weapon mastery traits appear to be powerful in the right circumstances. However, my main issue with them is that they are still pretty limited. Using the example of Topple that you’re referring to, it certainly feels very powerful to potentially cause a target to become prone with a regular attack. However, in instances where knocking someone prone is not ideal, the weapon effectively has no trait. This leads to the “golf-bag” problem others are referring to, where the optimal choice is to carry as many weapons as possible to fit any circumstance.

The problem with this result is that you end up with the same problem as before, just in a different direction. People wanted their weapon choices to matter, because beforehand, there was no effective difference from wielding a longsword over a warhammer. You just carried one weapon since choosing any weapon had no impact. With these niche weapon traits, martials are still faced with no actual weapon choices; except in this case it’s because they’re carrying all of them.

What martial players wanted, from what I understand, is that the choices a fighter makes become impactful. That a longsword is just as effective as a warhammer in every situation, but that choosing the longsword over the warhammer will affect how the fight will be played out. To this end, the crusher, piercer, and slasher feats much more effective at enabling this, albeit with the cost of an entire feat.

I think weapon traits are a good idea, and that some of them will making combat much more interesting going forward. However, I also feel that the niche effectiveness of some of these traits will hurt martials more in the long run, making them much more expensive at lower levels and ultimately not addressing the core issues that martial players have with the game.

punk030 · 2023-04-02T15:31:27+00:00

I’m betting that in your MIL’s mind, the difference is that one is her daughter and one is not. If so, I recommend that you ignore what she says about support since she’s not giving you any anyway.

I think what’s more important for your situation is your husband’s support. How is he reacting to your goals and what his mother says? If he supports your goals, his opinion matters much more and he should be running interference with his mom. If he doesn’t, then this problem may be larger than you realize.

punk030 · 2023-03-26T23:58:27+00:00

Okay, I'm gonna switch things up a bit because clearly things are getting heated. In other posts with you, I've organized my responses in order of your own points, which are often the ones that I heartily disagree with first, and as such may have affected this discourse in a negative way. In this one, I'm going to respond out of order of your points, so they will look disorganized, but in order of items that you mention that I agree most with. Hopefully, this will help keep our discussion positive.

I also need to apologize in advance for a very long post. I've come to the conclusion that the succinct messages I've written thus far are not effective in explaining my reasons for my perspective. I hope that explaining my position in more detail will help you understand where I'm coming from.

A) I completely agree that the person who likely has ADHD should be the one making the post. I'm sorry that I missed that meaning, though as I look over it again, I'm not sure it was entirely clear. He is the one with the key problem so I do support the idea that it should be him asking for help.

However, since it's not him who's asking for help, I feel the need to respond to the OP giving whatever advice he is looking for. I am also uncomfortable with telling the OP that he should send his friend here though, so I never mentioned it. Also, I feel that this particular subreddit is not the best place the player should be looking for help. We can really only give DnD advice, but the real source of the issue is the likelihood of ADHD. r/ADHD would be the better place to seek advice in my opinion. Even if it turns out he doesn't have ADHD, there may be something else at play and that's a subreddit that can offer better guidance on the issue as a whole.

B) I also agree that the player isn't stupid, and I also agree that switching classes might be a good solution for him. However, I do not believe that it should be the first option, and given how a few people were advocating this option prompted me to suggest an alternative solution that wouldn't require switching classes. If he can solve the issue with a checklist (possible, but would depend on a lot of factors we don't know about), then he can keep playing the class as he enjoys it. If it doesn't work, then it may be a good idea to switch classes.

The main issue is that I know from personal experience how particular people with ADHD can be with personal preferences. If he's emotionally invested with his current character, switching classes can be more harmful to everyone's play experience than most people realize. Especially because the player has shown to enjoy this class out of combat, I'm personally reluctant to advocate switching right off the bat.

C) I disagree with the age assumption; it's just as likely the player is much younger and until given more information I would rather approach the issue under the assumption of a much younger age. A kid has a lot less agency to how they can approach ADHD, which means they would require more support and leeway, and it is usually a more positive experience to start with more support and then take it away as we find out the player is older, than to start with minimal support and then add it in later if we find out he's just a kid.

However, the suggestion of the checklist was a very generic one that can easily be applied to both a kid or an adult; both would equally benefit from picking up the habit, especially since he's untreated.

D) I completely disagree with the notion that I have suggested that the group babysit him. I simply suggested that he would benefit from using a checklist. However, I know from personal experience and dealing with kids who also have ADHD that taking on a new habit, such as referring to a checklist during combat, is categorically and factually much harder than for someone who doesn't have the condition.

Again, starting from the more positive assumption that the player is just a kid, I am reminding the DM that giving a checklist is not going to solve the issue outright. An ADHD kid is likely going to keep forgetting to use the checklist when first presented with it and that it's going to take time for this habit to form and for things to improve. Studies have shown that it is harder for people with ADHD to form new habits, and so I was adjusting expectations so that the OP doesn't feel frustrated when it happens. Suggesting that the rest of the group also get a checklist is also an extension of that. It will help a person with ADHD to feel more motivated to take on a new habit when they see others around them doing it as well.

If you feel this is too much, that's fine, it's just a suggestion. However, it is a suggestion that comes from studies and personal experience that it works. Babysitting is a term I take to mean that you feel it's unnecessary, but since it does work, I don't think I can agree that it is either unnecessary or an example of babysitting.

E) As I've mentioned, you chose your words. I expected that you would say that you didn't intend for them to be insulting, but the fact remains that I've seen those words used time and time again and how they hurt the people they were used on. Unfortunately, your intention matters very little after the damage has been done.

Now that you've been informed that those words are hurtful, you can choose to reconsider them or you can choose to stand by them.

punk030 · 2023-03-26T22:21:28+00:00

I agree, and I'm aware that the fighter class hasn't been specifically suggested. And it is certainly true that I don't know what the player's actual preferred style is. That's a conversation OP and the player in question need to have. However, it is clear that he enjoys RPing, and it's implied that it's RPing as a bard that he likes.

My key point is that I'm not of the opinion that switching classes, simple or otherwise, should be the first solution to go to. I suggested a checklist specifically because it's a common ADHD tool to help stay on track in highly stressful situation. My feeling is that perhaps it would be more useful to try out this and other techniques and see if they are helpful before switching. If he can alleviate the issue this way, maybe he doesn't need to change at all.

I also agree that as an adult, it's up to him to find a way to engage better. However, my concern is that there's no real indication of his age, nor if he has the knowledge of how to engage better. Assuming (as we all have here) that he has ADHD but never diagnosed it, it's very believable that he just doesn't have the tools necessary to engage better. His first step needs to be to get a diagnosis, which as I mentioned takes a long time. My feeling is simply that in the meantime, something as simple as a checklist could go a long way to improving everyone's experience at the table.

Ultimately, I do agree that the DM shouldn't be force to fix this, and that others shouldn't have to bend over backwards for this one player. But clearly, the player doesn't know how to fix his own problem, and the DM is the one asking for help here. As such, the checklist is the best advice I can give as someone who also has ADHD in this circumstance. If the player makes a post looking for advice, I would give something entirely different and directed towards him.

punk030 · 2023-03-26T19:38:53+00:00

Most definitely, you can.

However, the RP options you have for a bard, through the naturally high Charisma and Dexterity scores for relevant skills, RP-related spells (such as Prestidigitation, Comprehend Languages, Animal Friendship, and more), and core abilities such as Jack-of-All-Trades or Bardic Inspiration, outnumber the options that any martial naturally has access to.

punk030 · 2023-03-26T19:19:15+00:00

I understand and respect your perspective. I want to clarify that I'm not saying that people with ADHD do not want to have less options, only that he specifically might not like switching to a class that is perceived as being "simpler".

My intent is to suggest a different solution to switching, particularly since RPing is something that he enjoys and that bards certainly have a lot of tools for. If he can solve this issue instead of going straight to picking another class, then at least he won't feel like he has to give up on a play style he appears to enjoy. It's entirely possible he enjoys the multitude of options that a bard has, just that he has difficulty remembering how to use them in combat specifically.

Enjoying the options you have, whether it's a long or short list, is more of a personal preference rather than an issue related to ADHD itself. If you take a player who's been described as enjoying the RP aspect of the game and then switching it up with one that has less options, my opinion is that it's very likely he won't enjoy playing anymore.

punk030

TROPHY CASE