If you thought a Pugilist class would be just about punching, you’d be dread wrong, as an infernal subclass shows.
The Pugilist, on D&D Beyond, is a whole new class all about brawling with enemies. It’s a Strength-based unarmed strike class that revolves around resilience, making big wild swings, and a lot of things that sound like they could be overpowered until you actually sit and think about it for a second and you realize, “oh yeah it’s fine” and that the Fighter in your party can put out more damage per round with just a little bit of effort.
All that to say, I think even though it’s a 3rd Party class, it’s not busted. I think more people should use homebrewed and 3rd-party classes, even if it means that on occasion you might have to rethink your encounter design or tell your friend, “Hey, look, this is actually just busted though.” But that only works if you have the kinds of friends in your D&D group that you can have conversations like that with.
But it’s worth having friends, because a) community is the only thing that’s going to save us in this dystopic era. And b) if you can have conversations like that with your friends, you can use fun classes and have new experiences. Especially new experiences like playing as a Hand of Dread, which turns you into a font of eldritch power, a wellspring that pours up through the body and out through the fists. Let’s take a look.
The Hand Of Dread – Infernal Punches
The Hand of Dread is a Pugilist who was pushed to the point of desperation. They reached out, pleading from strength for whoever listened – and some eldritch, dread power answered. Now dark powers are at their disposal.
Essentially, you become a Fist Warlock. And I’m only being a little flippant here. Starting at level 3, you gain two core features that back me up: Black Magic and Dread Hand. Black Magic is the more Warlocky feature. It gives you two Warlock cantrips, a level 1 spell, and the ability to cast it. Not bad.
But Dread Hand is where the subclass really takes its shape. This is the “you’re kind of a chaos spawn/champion” feature. Whenever you take the Attack action on your turn, you can decide to let out your inner demons, which means one of your limbs becomes gribbly and evil, giving you a few different buffs.
You can make reaction attacks against people who hit you. You can have advantage on damage rolls, and you can sometimes reroll attacks. Of course, you can only fight with your Dread Hand once per rest, at least at first.
Higher Levels Of Dread
As you go further down this subclass, your powers and connection to the dread entity deepen. At level 6, Deal with the Devil gives you access to a partial list of a Warlock’s Eldritch Invocations. Fist Warlock, as I said. But honestly, it’s not a bad bit of design. I think more classes/subclasses should have features like that, where you get to kind of customize what you want. I don’t know that the Hand of Dread’s list of invocations is the best for what it does, but it’s not bad.
But then we’re back to the Chaos Champion and/or Spawn progression at level 11 with Grotesque Growth. This evolves your Dread Hand feature so that you can grow even bigger whenever you use it, per the Enlarge/Reduce spell. You can do it once per Long Rest for free; afterwards it costs you a level of Exhaustion, which seems harsh, but the core Pugilist has some ability to mitigate exhaustion. And I like that it’s encouraging you to use the core class features as well.
At level 17, the capstone is the well-named Fountain of Viscera. It is basically giving you your own fatality. You can take a Magic Action, spend 6 Moxie Points, and then try to burrow your hand into a creature;s body and rip out their innards. If your target fails a Dex save they take 100 points of Piercing damage (half if they succeed), and if that damage kills them, you turn your target into a fleshy AoE attack that Frightens everyone within 30 feet.
All in all, it’s pretty flavorful. I dunno if it’s as mechanically strong as some of the other classes, but subclasses don’t always have to be. It carves out a visceral niche for itself, and I think the Hand of Dread has a lot to offer the right player.
Check out the Pugilist and Hand of Dread at the link below!
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