Way of Drunken Master

The Way of the Drunken Master is one of three Monk subclasses released in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.

Contrary to this Monastic Tradition’s name, these Monks don’t necessarily have to drink.

By mimicking the staggering and unpredictable movements of a drunkard, these Monks keep enemies guessing in combat. They have a knack for infuriating enemies with their antics all the while carefully keeping control

Disguising their athletic prowess as drunken swaying and tumbling, the Drunken Master is able to unleash barrages of attacks while moving effortlessly across the battlefield. Not only can they avoid enemy attacks, but they can even make their enemies attack each other in the confusion!

While most Monks may be famous for a stern and disciplined personality, the Drunken Master is instead a chaotic whirlwind. Just like such a force of nature, you simply can’t help but stare in awe of what it’s capable of.

Role in the party

Like all Monks, the Drunken Master Monk is primarily a melee striker. They’ll want to be right there on the party’s frontlines in combat.

But this is ultimately a very defensive Monastic Tradition. Your damage output isn’t necessarily going to stack up to the other Monk subclass options.

But that’s okay and is certainly no reason to discount the Way of the Drunken Master as just a gimmick! Just like the Drunken Master themselves, there’s more here than initially meets the eye!

Drunken Masters are especially suited to a skirmishing “hit and run” type of playstyle. They’re able to quickly close in on an enemy, unleash their Flurry of Blows, and safely move away. If they don’t drop the enemy, they might be able to get them angry enough to chase after them!

Get enough enemies distracted by your drunken antics, combine that with the Monk’s high Dexterity score and you’ve got a character that’s great at suckering enemies into making tactical mistakes.

Don’t underestimate this subclass’s defensive capabilities. You’re more of a tank than anyone might guess!

Yet even more clever deception from the Drunken Master!

Bonus Proficiencies

When you take the Way of the Drunken Master as your Monastic Tradition at level 3, you immediately get two subclass features.

We kick things off with some bonus proficiencies that add extra flavor to the Drunken Master Monk.

Specifically, you gain proficiency in the Performance (Charisma) skill as well as Brewer’s Supplies.

Performance makes sense considering that the Drunken Master relies heavily on others believing that they are too impaired to actually fight. Realistically, this blurs the line between Performance and Deception though.

Of course, you’re also able to put on a more traditional show if you’d like. The Drunken Master mixes comedy with grace and acrobatics in a way that might get a crowd to take an interest.

All in all, how much use you’ll get out of these proficiencies depends on what type of group you’re in.

If the group enjoys lots of roleplaying interactions with the NPCs in town, you are in a great position to put on some shows or maybe even sell your own craft beer to some local taverns. Otherwise, these features don’t really matter much.

Drunken Technique

Your second level 3 feature from the Way of the Drunken Master is a major part of how this subclass plays.

Drunken Technique adds two extra bonuses to the Monk’s Flurry of Blows ability:

• You gain the benefit of the Disengage action.
• Your speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the current turn.

 

Tipsy Sway

At level 6, the Drunken Master Monk gains the Tipsy Sway feature. This gives you two benefits that will also be very important as you continue on your adventure!

Leap To Your Feet

The first benefit you gain from the Tipsy Sway feature is Leap to Your Feet. This helps you remain nimble in a situation that could be much more dangerous for others!

When you’re prone, you can stand up by spending 5 feet of movement rather than spending half of your speed.

Getting knocked prone can be pretty rough for anyone. To get up, you typically have to spend half of your movement speed which can really mess up your turn. If you don’t get up quickly, enemies can dogpile you and will have advantage on their melee attacks against you!

Monks especially rely on having a ton of mobility, so the Drunken Master’s ability to get back up quickly with only 5 feet of movement is very useful in these situations!

Hopefully, you’re not getting knocked prone with any regularity. But in situations that you do, you’ll be glad you have this feature!

Redirect Attack

The main benefit you gain from Tipsy Sway is the ability to redirect an enemy’s attack. In true Drunken Master fashion, you are able to create even more chaos amongst your enemies by making their attacks hit each other!

When a creature misses you with a melee attack roll, you can spend 1 ki point as a reaction to cause that attack to hit one creature of your choice, other than the attacker, that you can see within 5 feet of you.

This benefit is flavorful, funny, and incredibly powerful in the right situation.

A staple of good encounter design is to have the big enemy fighting alongside several smaller enemies. For example, maybe a group of hobgoblins has a cyclops on their side as a type of heavy-hitting siege weapon.

Your ideal play is to keep the heaviest hitter focused on you. If you’re able to successfully dodge their attack, you can easily turn that against the smaller enemies by spending your reaction and a ki point.

Now the hobgoblins are getting scared as they see you baiting their cyclops to smash the wrong combatants.

As with all things that involve your ki points, the trick here is balance. To use this feature, you’re spending a ki point as well as your reaction (which means you won’t be taking any attacks of opportunity).

You have to determine if you think redirecting an enemy’s attack for a guaranteed hit will do more damage than spending that same ki point to unleash two extra attacks with your Flurry of Blows.

Drunkard's Luck

At level 11 you notice that things just seem to work out for you more often these days.

When you make an ability check, an attack roll, or a saving throw and have disadvantage, you can spend 2 ki points to cancel the disadvantage for that roll.

This may seem like a small feature, but it can very easily make the difference between life and death.

Intoxicated Frenzy

At level 17 we come to the Drunken Master Monk’s capstone ability: Intoxicated Frenzy.

When you use your Flurry of Blows, you can make up to three additional attacks with it (up to a total of five Flurry of Blows attacks), provided that each Flurry of Blows attack targets a different creature this turn.

In keeping with the Drunken Master’s role as a type of aggro-magnet, this works best if you are surrounded by enemies.

On the surface, the fact that you have to be surrounded by enemies THEN spread the attacks from your Flurry of Blows around might make this seem kind of “meh” at best. But don’t dismiss this so quickly!

Combining Intoxicated Frenzy with your Drunken Technique feature results in a powerful (and honestly kind of hilarious) tactic.

You have an extra 25 feet of movement when you gain Intoxicated Frenzy at level 17. From level 18 on, that turns into 30 feet of movement. Triggering the benefits of Drunken Technique with your Flurry of Blows, you gain ANOTHER 10 feet of movement as well as the benefit of the Disengage action.

So you can make two attacks with your Attack action then spend a ki point to use Flurry of Blows and gain up to five attacks with that. While the enemies are trying to figure out what just happened, you’ve successfully disengaged and moved well away.

This can be used to quickly get out of a very bad situation but can also be useful for baiting enemies around the battlefield.

With so much movement and the safety from your Drunken Technique, you don’t necessarily even need to be surrounded to use Intoxicated Frenzy. You’re perfectly capable of hitting enemies with your Flurry of Blows as you drunkenly stagger past them.

A NOTE ABOUT INTOXICATED FRENZY’S DAMAGE

As for the damage output, you’re spreading the love around but can still focus some of that damage on a particular enemy.

While each of the Flurry of Blows attacks (up to five) will need to be against a different enemy, you still have your two regular attacks as well.

It’s not a bad idea to hit one enemy with both of your regular attacks plus one of the Flurry of Blows strikes. This lets you still dish out damage with Intoxicated Frenzy without worrying about spreading your damage around too much.