Way of the Black Dog

Followers of the Way of the Black Dog don’t belong to prestigious mountain monasteries or hidden temples. Their "dojos" are rain-slicked alleyways, and smoke-filled jazz clubs. It is a tradition born from the hard-boiled reality of a wanderer’s life, a philosophy of detached fluidity where the rhythm of a gunfight is the only music that matters.

While other Monks see firearms as clumsy or dishonorable, these practitioners treat them as extensions of their own Ki. They view a bullet’s trajectory as a line of intent and the percussion of a gunshot as the heartbeat of a duel. To them, combat is not a struggle, but a dance, an improvised performance where "being like water" means flowing through a hail of fire and coming out the other side with a dry cigarette.

Whether they are bounty hunters chasing a ghost from their past or drifters just looking for their next meal, Monks of this tradition move with a loose-limbed, effortless grace. They are the outcasts of the martial world. They live by a singular, cold comfort: Whatever happens, happens.

Rhythm of the Draw

When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, your training allows you to integrate firearms into your martial arts style. You gain the following benefits:

• Firearm Proficiency: You gain proficiency with pistols.

• Monk Weapons: Pistols are considered Monk Weapons for you.

• Point-Blank Shot: Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls with firearms.

• Steel Whirlwind: When you use Flurry of Blows, you can replace one unarmed strike with a shot from a loaded firearm you are wielding.

• Additionally, you can reload a firearm as part of an attack, and you ignore the loading property of firearms with which you are proficient.

Dead Air

You learn to fight in the moments between shots.

When you successfully make a firearm attack, you may immediately move up to 5 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. This movement does not require your reaction.

Additionally, when a creature misses you with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to make one firearm attack against that creature, provided it is within the weapon’s normal range.

You may use this reaction a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Advanced Ballistics

You learn to infuse your shots with focused ki.

Your firearm attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

When you hit a creature with a firearm attack, you may spend ki to apply one of the following effects (no more than one per attack):

• Armor-Piercing Shot (1 ki): The attack ignores resistance to the damage it deals.

• Staggering Shot (1 ki): The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

• Ricochet Shot (2 ki): Choose a second creature within 15 feet of the original target and make a firearm attack against it.

Grand Finale

You move with absolute clarity, each breath measured, each shot inevitable.

As a bonus action, you may spend 4 ki points to enter the Finale for 30 seconds. While this state is active, you gain the following benefits:

• Perfect Rhythm. When you take the Attack action, you may make two firearm attacks and one unarmed strike.

• Unbroken Flow. You may move up to 15 feet between attacks without provoking opportunity attacks.

• Lethal Precision. Once on each of your turns, when you hit a creature with a firearm attack, you may treat the attack roll as a natural 20.

• No Time to Miss. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points, you immediately regain 1 ki point and may make one firearm attack as part of the same action.

This state ends early if you are incapacitated. Once you use this feature, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you spend 5 ki points to use it again.