Warrior of the Blade (2024)

Warriors of the Blade train relentlessly with their weapons, to the point where the weapon becomes an extension of the body. Founded on a mastery of sword fighting, the tradition has expanded to include many different weapons. They see a weapon in much the same way a calligrapher or painter regards a pen or brush,  as a tool used to express the beauty and precision of the martial arts. That such mastery makes such monks peerless warriors is but a side effect of intense devotion, practice, and study.

Level 3: One with the Blade

When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, your special martial arts training leads you to master the use of certain weapons. You gain the following benefits.

Mastered Weapons. You gain proficiency with all martial weapons and can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for attack and damage rolls for these weapons. You can use the mastery property of two kinds of Simple or Martial weapon of your choice. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change the kind of weapon to another eligible kind. You gain mastery in another weapon 6th, 11th, and 17th level. 

Agile Parry. When you use your Deflect Attacks ability while holding a weapon,  you gain a +2 bonus to AC until the start of your next turn (including against the triggering attack), while the weapon is in your hand and you aren’t incapacitated.

Deadly Shot. You can use a bonus action on your turn to make your ranged attacks with a monk weapon more deadly. When you do so, any target you hit with a ranged attack using a monk weapon takes an extra damage equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die of the weapon’s type and any thrown weapon immediately returns to your hand after being thrown. You retain this benefit until the end of the current turn, or you can spend 2 Focus Points to extend the duration to 1 minute.

Level 6: Arcing Blades

Starting at 6th level, when you make an attack with a weapon, you can spend 1 Focus Point to empower it for 1 minute. This effect ends early if you stop holding the weapon.

Magic Weapon.  While empowered the weapon can deal force or radiant damage rather than its normal damage type. You can replace the damage dice of your empowered weapon with one roll of your martial arts die.

Rapid Strikes. You can make one attack with your empowered weapon as a Bonus Action.

Focused Strike. Whenever you spend one or more Focus Points on your turn, the next time on this turn that you hit a creature with your empowered weapon, it deals extra damage equal to one roll of your martial arts die.

Level 11: Legendary Skill

You gain the following abilities:

Precise Strikes. You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls with weapons.

Flurry of Blades. When you use your Flurry of Blows, you can replace the unarmed strikes with attacks with your Empowered weapon from your Arcing Strikes feature.

Acrobatic Strike. You can use an Acrobatics check (DC 15) to move through the space of any hostile creature as if it was Difficult Terrain, on a failure you must stop moving without entering the target's space. On a success, you move through the space of that creature and can spend 1 Focus Point to make one attack as part of that movement, a creature can only take damage from this ability once per turn.

Level 17: Precise Strikes

At 17th level, your mastery of weapons grants you extraordinary accuracy and tactical flexibility. If you miss with an attack roll using a monk weapon on your turn, you can reroll it. You can use this feature only once on each of your turns. In addition, you when you make an attack with a weapon that you know the weapon mastery of, you can replace the weapon mastery property with Graze, Vex, or Sap for that attack.