"In a shady back-alley two gangs face off. Wielding clubs, cudgels, rusty knives and brass knuckles they slowly approach each other, teeth gritted and hearts beating loudly; each member doing their best to look intimidating. 

For a few seconds, all is quiet. Then everything erupts into chaos. Kneecaps are broken, ribs are cracked, teeth are knocked out of mouths and organs are punctured. As the dust settles and the fighting dies down, one side is victorious. Injured and beaten beyond belief, but victorious."

Brawlers, hooligans, ruffians or troublemakers - whatever you may call them, most would agree that these roughnecks share very few similarities with spiritual and noble monks. Despite this, some street brawlers - whether through luck or sheer skill - learn to harness the same spiritual energy these noble monks do; the power of ki. Though exceptionally rare, the belief is that street brawlers substitute rigorous training and studying with their own desperation and extraordinary will to survive. As such, their way of channeling it isn't as refined and intricate as the monks taught in monasteries; they wield ki in a crude and brutal manner, with little thought about grace or honor.

Brawler's Talents

Beginning at 3rd level when you choose this tradition, you’ve become a strong, intimidating and cunning fighter. You gain proficiency in the Strength (Athletics) and Charisma (Intimidation) skills and can add your Wisdom modifier to any ability checks you make using these proficiencies. In addition, improvised weapons now count as monk weapons for you.

Successive Strikes

Also at 3rd level, your confidence swells with every blow you land. Once per turn when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can choose to mark that creature until the beginning of your next turn or until you successfully hit that creature with another unarmed strike. You have advantage on all unarmed strikes you make against a marked creature.

Reflexive Counter

At 6th level, you've learnt how to exploit every possible opportunity in combat. Whenever a creature within your reach makes a melee attack against you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. When you do so, you can spend 1 ki point to make an unarmed strike against the creature as part of the reaction.

Gritted Teeth

At 11th level, you can take stabs and beatings like they were nothing. Whenever you use your Patient Defense feature, you also gain the following benefits until the beginning of your next turn:

• Any damage you take is reduced by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.
• Whenever you suffer a critical hit, the attack becomes a normal hit. Any effects triggered by a critical hit are canceled.

Tenacious Bastard

At 17th level, your tenacious nature and will to survive is unmatched. Whenever you begin your turn with 0 hit points, you can choose to immediately become stabilized. Alternatively, you can spend 2 ki points to immediately regain 1 hit point and gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your monk level.

The cost of using this feature increases by 2 ki points every time you use it before you finish a long rest, at which point the number of ki points required resets.