Base Class: Monk
Monks of the Way of the Water Stream are masters of both martial arts combat and ki manipulation, flowing harmoniously with their surroundings as if they were a stream of water. They can use their knowledge to read their opponents stance and manipulate the flow of combat, deflecting their attacks and counterattacking when the timing is right.
Those who follow the Way of the Water Stream have spent most of their lives studying the flow of ki in the universe, sharpening their minds and pushing their bodies to perfection. They have keen senses for reading the energy streams around them and know how to masterfully lead its courses through both their bodies and minds and become one with the flow.
Bonus Proficiencies
When you choose this monastic tradition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Acrobatics and Perception skills.
Your martial arts technique and fluid body movement let you gracefully flow through the air while performing acrobatic maneuvers. Also, your understanding of ki and ability to perceive its flow allow your trained eyes to see what others cannot.
Water Stream Fist
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your reaction to deflect a melee attack when you are hit by one. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by your Martial Arts die + your Monk level.
Additionally, when you deflect an attack and you have at least one free hand, you can spend 1 ki point to make an unarmed strike as part of the same reaction. When you reach 6th level, you can instead make two unarmed strikes using this feature.
Awakened Water Stream Fist
At 6th level, you learn to let go of all distractions and subconscious restrictions. Your martial arts mastery allows you to heighten your senses and focus entirely on dodging and counterattacking:
Evasive Reaction
Whenever you take the Dodge action or use the Patient Defense feature, you also have advantage in any reaction you make until the start of your next turn.
Opportunistic Counterattack
When an enemy misses you with an attack, you can immediately use your reaction to make a melee attack against that enemy if it is within your reach.
Flurry of Streaming Blows
By 11th level, your mastery of the Water Stream is approaching perfection. When you use the Flurry of Blows feature, you can spend 1 additional ki point to make two extra unarmed strikes as part of the same bonus action.
Alternatively, if you use the Flurry of Blows feature and have advantage on attack rolls against a target, you can forgo the advantage for those rolls to make two extra unarmed strikes against that target as part of the same bonus action and without spending the additional ki point.
Abandonment
At 17th level, your mastery of the Water Stream Fist has reached its peak. You can perform a breathing technique that lets you flow in perfect harmony with your surroundings, with both the tranquility of a calm sea and the intensity of a raging river smashing the rocks that attempt to block its course.
As a bonus action, you can spend 10 ki points to add your proficiency bonus to your AC if you are not wearing armor and not wielding a shield. Any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see or hear the attacker, and you also have advantage in attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws.
This feature lasts for 1 minute and you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.
Previous Versions
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I really like the subclass and it feels very cool to be a deflecting monk. But spending 10 ki points for Abandoment feels a little bit too much, but I hope you will improve it later!
Absolutely loved the idea that you get the Water Stream Fist and next you improve it with the Awakened version.
It already seems pretty good, but I think you could still add a third feature to the Awakened version. It could be something a little bit different, maybe a ranged attack, a unique ability, or something that causes an effect or subjects the target to a condition.
Really cool subclass. Finally something to give some much needed flavor to the Monk. It seems very flexible and useful in combat. Have you already play tested?
That’s a very good point, thanks for sharing your thought process. I makes a lot of sense when you think about it too. You can’t throw back an arrow that is still stuck in your flesh, but you can take advantage of the opponents letting their guard down to attack. I like the flavor a lot too.
Thanks a lot for the reply!
When developing this subclass, I came to think about what you mentioned, about making an attack after deflecting only if the damage was reduced to 0, but then I thought that this would not happen very often, especially in lower levels, and so the feature would be somewhat underused.
Also, I think it makes more sense only for that Deflect Missiles feature to work when you reduce it to 0 hit points because then you would have actually caught the projectile. But in the case of the Water Stream Fist, I don't think it matters if you take damage or not because in both cases you would still be able to take advantage of your opponent when they let their guard down immediately after attacking you.
This is really really cool. I love the flavor and it seems like it achieves what cobalt soul tried to but came up short. If there is one small thing that I would maybe consider changing it would be for the reaction attack of water stream fist to trigger only if you reduce it to zero, that would make it a direct parallel to deflect missiles, which is what it seems to be playing off of. However, once again, this is only something to potentially consider, and all around a really cool subclass that I would love to play if I get the chance.
I took inspiration from the Way of Mercy, the Way of the Drunken Master and the Way of the Cobalt Soul to create this homebrew subclass for the Monk. I aslo took inspiration from the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist martial art from the One Punch Man series.
It is still the 4th version and I pretend to improve and to create better versions of it eventually.
I am open to ideas and feel free to give some feedback. Any criticism is welcome and I would find it much helpful.