Way of the Flowing Water

The Way of the Flowing Water teaches its students that life is not about one’s strength or power. It teaches that one must be fluid, like water. One who follows the way of the flowing water learns to be calm when their opposition is tense, to control forces that are directed towards them, and redirect those forces back. When one’s body is calm, it can react to danger without resistance or thought, keeping one’s mind at peace, even in dire circumstances. Like water, a flowing water monk can, in one moment, drift without effort, and in the next they can become a torrent.

Redirecting Flow

When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to redirect that attack towards one creature of your choice that is within 5 ft. of you. The creature making the attack rerolls the attack roll against the new target’s armor class. If you choose the creature that made the attack as the new target, then they have resistance to any damage the attack deals.

Waterfall Strike

Beginning when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you learn how to take advantage of a defensive opponent in order to more easily land additional blows. When you deal damage to a target with a melee attack, you can spend 1 ki point to reduce the target’s armor class by 2 until the next time the target is dealt damage by an attack.

You can use this feature multiple times against a target in a single turn, however you may only spend 1 ki point on this feature per hit. At 8th level, the armor class reduction increases to 3, and at 13th level, it increases again to 4.

Steady Presence

At 6th level, your ability to stay calm and control the situation around you puts your allies at ease. As a bonus action on your turn, you may spend 2 ki points to end a condition affecting a creature that can hear or see you. Additionally, that creature gains a bonus to the next attack roll or ability check that it would make, equal to your martial arts die.

Steady Speech

At 11th level, your way of speaking and your attitude in social situations carries a wisdom with it that makes you more believable and convincing. When you make a deception, intimidation, performance, or persuasion ability check, your wisdom modifier is added to the result of the roll. If the ability check is successful, you regain 1 ki point.

Eroding Strike

When you reach 17th level, you have mastered the art of patience and wearing your enemies down over time with devastating damage. At the end of your turn in combat, you can spend 3 ki points to make one additional melee attack against a target. This attack uses your martial arts damage, and deals a number of damage dice equal to the number of attacks you’ve successfully landed against that target this turn plus your normal modifiers for damage rolls. If the attack misses then the ki points are not expended.