Base Class: Monk
Far less mystical than most monks. Brawlers are brutal fist-fighters who honed their abilities in street-fights and bar-brawls. Brawlers focus more on physical perfection than spiritual perfection. They fight with more desperation and brutality, their techniques focused on violence rather than elegance.
Closed Fist Technique
The brawler monk focuses more on physical fitness and martial arts mastery than mystical energy. At 3rd level whenever you make a Flurry of Blows you may declare each unarmed attack in the flurry a Style Strike gaining an additional effect on a hit.
- Elbow Strike - Make an additional unarmed attack after this one. The additional attack cannot be declared a style strike, and the damage dice decrease by 1 size (1d10 becomes 1d8, 1d8 becomes 1d6, 1d6 becomes 1d4 and 1d4 changes to 1 damage)
- Hammerblow - The damage for this dice increases by 1 size (1d4 becomes 1d6, 1d6 becomes 1d8, 1d8 becomes 1d10, 1d10 becomes 1d12), you must have two hands free to declare an unarmed strike a hammerblow.
- Headbutt - The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC = 8 + Proficiency + Strength) or take a point of exhaustion. Creature must have a head to be susceptible to this effect.
Boxing Guard
At 6th level you can use your reaction to block a melee attack. When you do so, the damage you take from the attack is reduced by your unarmed strike damage + Strength modifier + Monk Level. If you reduce the damage to 0, you may spend 1 ki point to make a single unarmed strike against that opponent as part of the same reaction, if the target is within your reach.
Break Stuff
At 11th level, your fists count as adamantine. Whenever you make Strength checks to break an object you add your full proficiency bonus to the roll.
Knockout Punch
At 17th level, when you hit someone with an unarmed strike you may spend 3 ki points to attempt to immediately knock the opponent out. The target must make a Constitution Saving throw or fall unconscious if the target succeeds they instead take 10d10 bludgeoning damage.
I like the fact that if someone succeeds on the saving throw for knockout punch, they might just die instead of going unconcous.
The same problem that ViliganceV pointed out still exists. There is incorrect formatting on the character sheet.
I really like this. I'm going to use it for my grappler monk.
FYI: The snippet of the closed fist technique is still the default way of the open hand, and it uses the incorrect formatting for snippet placeholders {{savedc|wis}} instead of {{savedc:wis}}
I love this for my monk. I'll run it by my DM and let you know if she makes any changes.
only change i'd make is elbow strike. It either needs to be a later level ability, have limited uses. OR just cause a disadvantage to enemies attack rolls. which i think maybe a better compromise in general.
Yeah, my playtesting has found something similar with Hammerblow, and I might add a status rider to it of some kind to make it more attractive, or nerfing elbow strike to just be Strength mod only.
Headbutt might also see some changes too.
Hammerblow is a sucker's bet compared to Elbow Strike. Shifting damage dice is an average of +1 to damage, but an additional unarmed strike adds your ability score all over again. Even at 3rd level a monk with a +2 mod does more damage making two 3 damage hits than one for 3.5+2 (if only just). At 5th level that trade gets even more stark as the not only does the difference between the two-die-step shift get reduced, but the monk's attack ability tends to increase.
Headbutt isn't anything interesting at low level, but becomes a boss-killer as you drain through legendary saves by chasing Stunned with Exhaustion. Just using FoB every turn you're forcing two saves per round, and a serious opponent can't let more than 2 levels build up or they're basically done.