The Way of the Drunken Master teaches its students to move with the jerky, unpredictable movements of a drunkard. A drunken master sways, tottering on unsteady feet, to present what seems like an incompetent combatant who proves frustrating to engage. The drunken master’s erratic stumbles conceal a carefully executed dance of blocks, parries, advances, attacks, and retreats.

A drunken master often enjoys playing the fool to bring gladness to the despondent or to demonstrate humility to the arrogant, but when battle is joined, the drunken master can be a maddening, masterful foe.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Performance skill if you don’t already have it. Your martial arts technique mixes combat training with the precision of a dancer and the antics of a jester. You also gain proficiency with brewer’s supplies if you don’t already have it.

Monkey Technique

At 3rd level, you learn how to twist and turn quickly as part of your Flurry of Blows. Whenever you use Flurry of Blows, you gain the benefit of the Disengage action, and your walking speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the current turn.

Monkey Movement

Starting at 6th level, you can move in sudden, swaying ways. You gain the following benefits.

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

Redirect Attack. When a creature misses you with a melee attack roll, you can spend 1 Focus 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.

Cloud Walker

Beginning at 11th level, you are familiar with how ghosts and creatures of the Border Ethereal meld into the Material Plane. You can choose to partially slip into the Ethereal Plane, granting you the following benefits:

Etherstep. You can spend 1 ki point as a bonus action to turn invisible until the end of your next turn, or until you make an attack or cast a spell.

Alternatively, you can spend an extra ki point as part of your Step of the Wind to gain this benefit. When you do, you can also move through hostile creatures and solid objects no more than 4 inches thick for as long as you remain invisible.

Phase. When you are hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the attack’s damage against you by an amount equal to your monk level as you partially slip into the Border Ethereal. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Victorious Fighting Monk

At 17th level, you gain the ability to make an overwhelming number of attacks against a group of enemies. 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.