Way of the middle finger monks have studied the nature of ki and how to channel the flow of it through their bodies just like other monks, but unlike other monks, monasteries which study the way of the middle finger work to find ways to manipulate ki in the most annoying way possible. On top of learning the art of aggravating and insulting people, these monks have learned to create offensive energy fueled by ki. Offensive energy is like the feeling of being annoyed or angry at someone but manifested and concentrated to be more potent. Way of the middle finger monks utilise this offensive energy in combat.

Offensiveness is not the best defence, but it is a good offence

Starting at 3rd level when you gain this subclass, through lots of training you have attained the secrets of how to piss someone off the most effectively, and have also begun learning to channel offensive energy into your insults for a more potent effect. On your turn when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike or one of your monk weapons you can choose to make a rude gesture or a mocking comment, or maybe just poke them in the eye or something. The point is you do something to make your opponent mad. Until the end of the creature’s next turn, it gains advantage on attack rolls against you and you gain disadvantage on saving throws against it, and while it is enraged, the creature will attempt to pursue you and attack you, because you pissed it off. However, the enraged creature takes a penalty to its armour class and all saving throws it makes while it is enraged, because in its anger it becomes a bit more reckless. The penalty is equal to half your proficiecy bonus(rounded down)+your wisdom modifier, with a minimum total of 1. When you activate this technique, you can expend ki points to fuel the effect with offensive energy. For every ki point spent, the effect’s duration increases by 1 round. If a creature begins its turn enraged it rolls a d20, on a 20 or a 1 the effect ends early. This feature doesn’t work on creatures considered to have no agency, or to be mindless. By have no agency I mean a creature like most constructs, created to obey orders and follow commands, which means that they have no free will to do other things and no emotions other than the need to complete an instruction. By “mindless” I mean creatures which have free will, but are function at such a basic level that they might as well not have free will. For example, slimes are not driven by emotions, but rather by a desire to consume, so they are doing essentially the same thing as a creature with no agency, blindly following the same base command or instinct, lacking in the things that make creatures have free will and therefore lacking in the ability to get really angry at you, the annoying monk.

Stones and sticks I’ll break your d—bones. Bones is what I meant

Starting at level 6, you have learned that you can take advantage of little openings for an attack which usually wouldn’t arise if your opponent was thinking straight. You can now use those openings as an opportunity to add more injury to the insult you added to their injury earlier in the fight. When a creature who is enraged by you misses an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature. Additionally, you can choose to add an extra insult in for good measure while you attack. While this does impede your fighting skills, it makes your attack sting all the more painfully if it hits, like, imagine if some annoying monk you were fighting called you an idiot, stepped on your toe and spat in your face, and then when you try to attack them they just dodge your of the way, perform a mocking little dance and then hit you over the head anyway, that would hurt much more than if you just got hit, because you just got made fun of and they are beating you anyway. You may spend 1 ki point to inflict a penalty to your attack roll. If your attack still hits, the target takes bonus psychic damage. The psychic damage is an amount of your martial arts dice equal to the penalty you inflicted on your own attack roll.

Cruel whispers

You are now able to psychically project your insults at enemies. Starting at level 11 you gain the cantrip vicious mockery, using wisdom as your spell casting modifier. Vicious mockery also becomes more dangerous, with all damage dice for vicious mockery becoming the same as your martial arts dice, and the spell does not require being heard because you use it psychically. When you successfully hit a creature with vicious mockery you may expend 2 ki points as a bonus action. If you do, the creature must make a wisdom saving throw or have a seed of negative emotions planted in their minds. A creature suffering this effect has their insecurities and doubts whispered straight into their mind, as well as being insulted and told they are useless, ugly e.t.c. At the start of a the turn of a creature who is affected by this, they take damage equal to your vicious mockery, and then must make a wisdom saving throw to clear their head, ending the effect. Someone can also take an action to encourage them or shake them out of it, ending the effect on a successful DC15 persuasion check. This effect lasts for up to 1 minute if it is not ended early. The same rules for who is unaffected apply from enraging strike.

Additionally, when you cause a creature to be enraged by you, it must make a wisdom saving throw or take damage equal to your vicious mockery. However, this only occurs when you initially enrage the creature, and does not occur while it is enraged after that, unless it is because you are using an ability to enrage it again.

Mocking performance

Starting at level 17, you have learned how to keep an audience captivated, by making them all really angry of course. As an action you can spend 3 ki points to put on some kind of little performance, shamelessly insulting the members of the audience. All creatures of your choice who can see or hear you must make a wisdom saving throw or suffer the effects of your enraging strike ability. The same rules for who is not affected and for spending ki points to lengthen the effect from your enraging strike ability apply to this feature. Keep in mind that affected creatures will try to pursue and attack you, as well as have advantage against you, so making an entire town mad at you might not be a great idea.