Way of Hard Knocks

Monks of the Way of Hard Knocks hail from Noughttown, a rough city district where disputes are settled through honorable fistfights. These brawlers shun agility in favor of raw power and endurance, settling conflicts with their bodies rather than blades or spells. A Hard Knocks monk fights unarmored and unarmed, using immense Strength where other monks rely on Dexterity. They draw on their inner reserves of Grit to fuel their techniques. The style emphasizes dealing and absorbing damage: you shrug off blows and strike back harder.

The School of Hard Knocks

When you adopt this tradition at 3rd level, your unarmed fighting style is fundamentally altered. You now use Strength instead of Dexterity for your core monk abilities. Specifically: Powerful Unarmed Strikes: Your Martial Arts attacks use Strength in place of Dexterity. When you make an unarmed strike or attack with a monk weapon, add your Strength modifier to the attack and damage rolls. Your unarmed strikes deal damage equal to your Martial Arts die + Str mod.

• Stalwart Defense. Your Unarmored Defense formula becomes 10 + Strength + Wisdom. Your strong core now bolsters your AC. You still gain this benefit only when unarmored and unshielded.

• Grit. Instead of Ki, you gain a pool of Grit points equal to your Monk level. Spend Grit exactly as you would spend Ki, to fuel Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, and other monk features, and regain all expended Grit on a short or long rest.

• Athletic Prowess. The Hard Knocks training emphasizes grappling and toughness. You gain proficiency in the Athletics skill if you don’t already have it, reflecting your ability to pin foes and endure rough play.

Rough and Ready

Also at 3rd level, you’ve been in more brawls than you can count, and you know how to keep your footing and pressure an opponent. You gain the following benefits:

• Street Clinch. When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike on your turn, you can choose to grapple the target as part of the same action. You do not need a free hand to initiate this grapple, as your whole body and technique are used to subdue them.

• Honorable Beatdown. You have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that are grappled if they have not attacked you since the start of your last turn.

Chin-Check Parry

At 6th level, you become exceptionally hard to injure. When a melee attack hits you, you can use your reaction and spend 1 Grit to partially deflect it. Roll 1d10 and add your Strength modifier and Monk level; reduce the damage you take from that hit by the total.

If this reduction drops the damage to 0, you have completely negated the strike, and you immediately make one unarmed strike against the attacker as part of the same reaction. That retaliatory strike uses your Martial Arts die and your Strength modifier for attack and damage.

What Goes Around

By 11th level, your counterattacks become instinctive. If a creature within 5 feet hits you with a melee attack, you can spend 1 Grit to make one unarmed strike against it as a reaction.

I Can Do This All Day

At 17th level you achieve near-superhuman toughness. You gain two capstone abilities:

• Battle-Hardened Resilience. While you have at least 1 Grit point left, you have resistance to magical and non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. As long as you have grit to spare, physical blows inflict half damage on you. This reflects Noughttown’s teaching that the more you endure, the harder you become.

• Up and At ‘Em. Once per long rest, if you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you drop to 1 hit point instead. Your indomitable spirit lets you hang on even when gravely wounded.