Way of Stormgrip

A glimpse. A flash. The prowess of many warriors comes from fine training in martial arts, but your monastic path already granted such feats. By adopting the techniques of Stormgrip, you become a master in controlling your opponents, locking them into close combat and causing pain by twisting arms and legs. You dominate your foes with fast movements, quick defenses and overwhelming strength.

Creator note: Reflavor and personal variant of the Way of Glima subclass from Journey to Ragnarok with other custom features. Subclass is focused on a kickboxing/wrestling style nordic monk with some storm influence. Concept inspired by Baldur from God of War and muy thai legends like Buakaw.

Martial Conditioning

At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Athletics and gain +2 to your AC. You can also use your Strength score, instead of your Dexterity score, when calculating Armor Class with the Unarmored Defense feature.

Overwhelming Grip

You are an expert at close combat. Entering in a clinch means ruin for your foes, as your grip on them is painful and hampers their movement.

At 3rd level, you gain the following features:

• Creatures you are grappling have disadvantage on all attack rolls.
• When you successfully grapple a creature, or when that creature escapes your grapple, you can spend 1 ki point to deal damage equal to your martial art die + your Strength or Dexterity modifier.

Storm Strikes

At 6th level, you gain the ability to infuse your unarmed strikes with surges of lightning. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 lightning damage to the target. When you reach 12th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

In addition, whenever you make an unarmed attack with a kick you may channel in thunderous energy, causing a shockwave that pushes a creature of size Large or smaller, back 20 feet.

Iron Submission

Starting at 11th level, if a creature that is grappled by you fails to break out by the start of your next turn you can position yourself in a way to cripple them by targeting joints and vital spots. If by the start of your next turn the creature stays grappled, you can spend ki points to either:

• (1 ki) Target an arm with an arm-lock. You make a contested strength check against the creature. On a success you hyperextend the arm, causing the creature to have disadvantage on melee attack rolls for its next two turns. Once a creature is effected by an arm-lock the grapple is broken right afterwards and the creature has disadvantage on future strength checks for 5 minutes.
• (1 ki) Target a leg with a leg-lock. You make a contested strength check against the creature. On a success you twist the leg in a way that damages crucial ligaments, causing the creature to have its speed reduced to 10 feet and they have disadvantage on dexterity saving throws for two turns. Once a creature is effected by a leg-lock the grapple is broken right afterwards and the creature has disadvantage on future strength checks for 5 minutes.
• (2 ki) Target the neck with a choke-hold. You make a contested strength check against the creature. On a success you manage to lock your arms into position around their neck, forcing the creature to make a constitution saving throw with disadvantage. On a fail, the creature is knocked unconscious for 10 minutes unless woken up with an action. On a success, the choke-hold is broken but the creature remains grappled.

A creature must possess the relevant appendages in order to use this feature. At 17th level, the disadvantage imposed by arm-locks and leg-locks is increased to 10 minutes.

Knockout Blow

At 17th level, when you hit someone with an unarmed strike you may spend 3 ki points to attempt to immediately knock the opponent out. The target must make a Constitution Saving throw or fall unconscious. If the target succeeds they instead take 10d10 bludgeoning damage.