Flesh proved weak. We had to harden ourselves by any means necessary. Now our flesh is iron. Our hearts like stone. Our souls, unbreakable, like diamonds.

In the crumbling ruins of the old world, where mutation spreads like wildfire and bones are brittle beneath the weight of radiation and rust, some monks turned not to the spirit or the self — but to steel.

The Way of the Iron Frame is a martial path born not of serenity, but survival. Practitioners reinforce their bodies with scrap-forged exoskeletons, welding rusted plating to their limbs, bracing spines with scavenged rebar, and installing crude piston-like mechanisms to support devastating strikes. Their discipline is not fluid or graceful — it is mechanical, methodical, and brutal. Every movement clicks into place with the precision of a machine that refuses to break.

These monks are walking remnants of a dead age, animated not by magic but by relentless training and iron resolve. They do not mutate, they do not falter, and they do not bend. In the chaos of the apocalypse, they are living constructs of discipline — a final rebuttal to the world’s collapse.

Reinforced Plating

Your scrap exoskeleton isn't the best protection in the world, but it's better than most.

You gain a +1 bonus to AC.

Scrapgrip Hands

The hands of your exoskeleton are made in such a way that gripping things is much easier.

You gain advantage on ability checks to grapple opponents, and you gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.

Grasp of the Iron Frame

Your exoskeleton enhances your ability to control the battlefield with brute force and relentless grip. When you grapple a creature, your reinforced plating anchors you in place and your scrapgrip fingers hold tight with mechanical strength.

Iron Grip: When grappling a creature, you can drag or carry them at full movement speed, not half. They have disadvantage on ability checks to escape your grapple. Disengaging does not free them from your grasp.

Overdrive Core

Deep in the center of your Iron Frame lies a volatile cluster of pistons, pressure coils, and cracked capacitors. You've learned how to regulate its surge — for a time.

As a bonus action, you can spend2 ki points to activate your Overdrive Core for 1 minute. While active, you gain the following benefits:

• Your movement speed increases an additional 10 ft. Difficult Terrain does not effect you
• When you move at least 10 ft. straight forward toward a creature, you can make an unarmed strike against them. This attack, if it hits, deals an extra 2 damage die from your Martial Arts die, and they must make a Strength saving throw or be thrown back 10 ft. and knocked prone.
• When a creature within 5 feet of you makes a melee attack against you, you can use your reaction to deal bludgeoning damage equal to your Martial Arts die as your exoskeleton vents force back at the attacker.

Once you activate Overdrive, you can't do so again until you finish a Short or Long Rest, or you spend 4 ki points to activate it again early.

The Wasteland Brawler

They see a machine. They don't realize you built it to become more human.

Your Iron Frame has reached perfection: not just a tool of survival, but an instrument of dominion. Augmented by scavenged tech, instinctual mastery, and years of combat experience, you move with lethal precision and implacable strength. In this final form, you become the apex predator of the post-collapse world.

Reinforced Structure: You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical attacks. You cannot be paralyzed or stunned unless you are incapacitated.

Dominating Grasp: You can grapple Huge creatures. You can grapple two creatures at once so long as you have free hands to do so. Creatures you grapple take two of your Martial Arts die in damage at the start of their turn, as your reinforced grip crushes them.