D&D 2024 Backgrounds - Pugilist
This is another background inspired by Dungeon Crawler Carl. There are several homebrew pugilist classes/subclasses out on the internet, but I was reading through the third book again, and even though Carl didn’t take the subclass, I love the AI’s description. It seems to me that it would make a great background now, given the importance of your character’s background in D&D 202. Yes, I know I sound like a broken record on this subject, but it’s true and worth repeating (over and over).
There’s nothing MMA involved with the pugilist. The pugilist is a boxer…period. If you wanted to create an MMA fighter background, you’d have to include various forms of martial arts and wrestling. That would make a better class/subclass since too many skills and abilities are involved.
Boxing is more than punching people over and over. There’s a lot of strategy involved, and great boxers and trainers spend a lot of time studying their opponents and devising a strategy to defeat them. That’s why it’s called the sweet science.
Pugilist
Ability Scores: Constitution, Strength, Dexterity
Feat: Float and Sting
Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Athletics
Tool Proficiencies: Healer’s Kit
Equipment: Choose A or B: (A) Healer’s Kit 5, Dungeoneer's Pack 12, Grappling Hook 2, Traveler’s Clothes 2, 29 gp, or (B) 50 gp
Description
The art of beating the shit out of your opponents with closed fists.
Sweaty, half-naked men circling each other in a ring, turning their faces into raw pulp as the crowd roars. The people in this audience don’t care who is fighting who, as long as one of them ends up a crumpled, bloody heap on the mat before the night is done. Prizefighters don’t do it for the glory, or for honor. They do it to put food on the table. It’s nothing personal.”
(Still relatively sane) AI
Carl's Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2
Forget duels with rapiers or elegant displays of martial discipline—this is the brutal ballet of broken noses and busted ribs: no swords, no spells, no mercy—just blood, sweat, and willpower. You learned to fight not in war or on the training grounds of knights, but in smoke-choked basements and dirt-ring arenas where the crowd's craved the blood that could only come from shattering someone’s nose. There's no honor in it, just survival. You got good at taking hits, and better at giving them.
You're not some idealistic warrior seeking justice. You're a scrapper, a prizefighter, a bare-knuckle bruiser who knows how to turn a crowd on its feet or end a fight in a single punch. Whether you fought for coin, revenge, or because you simply didn’t know how to do anything else, the pit became your proving ground. Now, you’ve taken those fists into the wider world, where your leathery skin and devastating punches can earn you a new type of glory.
Background Story Ideas:
1. Stepping into the ring is dangerous as some rich asshole found out when you killed them with a single punch. Now, you’re on the run, their family chasing you to enact their revenge.
2. You swore in your youth never to pick up a sword. It turns out you didn’t need one to become an adventurer, adding your boxing skills to what you learned from a sect of monks.
3. No matter how many fights you took, the money wasn’t enough to pay your rent, meals, and the medical care you needed after every fight. Dragon hoards have more gold you can spend in 3 lifetimes—right?
Origin Feat: Float and Sting
You move with grace and punch with power.
Float like a Butterfly. When you use the Dodge action, you can move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. This movement does not count against your movement for the turn.
Sting like a Bee. When you make an unarmed strike and roll a natural 20, you can deal additional damage equal to your Proficiency Bonus. This damage is of the same type as the unarmed strike.
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