Way of the Talon

Talon Monks evolved from the Way of the Open Hand monks, during the Last War of Eberron.  The wars were fierce, and the monk order worried of collateral damage to their temples.  In order to protect the temples, the Open Hand monk's of Eberron leveraged Artificer's who developed a technology to merge and augment the monk warriors.  Ki driven implants were engineered and developed to stay attached to the monk, but still strike at a distance, as well as augment the monk's movement.  These "talons" were placed in the Talon Monk.  This process usually is in the forearms, allowing for piercing blows to be sent hurtling 30 to 60 feet.  Each monk is armed with a talon in each forearm.  This allows the monk to strike at a distance and, if the monk so desires, then pull their opponent closer.  

The Talons proved vital during the Last War, especially against the Warforged whose armored bodies and sometimes titan sizes caused many traditional monks problems.  The talons allowed for new grappling and repelling techniques that allowed monks to pull themselves onto these massive beasts that threatened the temples and elders within.  For a century these implanted warriors harnessed ki for new and devastating attacks and superior movement such as allowing the Talon monks swinging and vertical movement, even catching a ride from an flying beast or in more recent days airships within range.  It was not uncommon for Talon Monks to swing under bridges, and catching enemies off guard as they swung into combat from beneath.

Talon monks had to endure the implanting of the ki driven constructs, but once a part of the Talon monks, always a part of the Talon monks, even regenerating if damaged.  Legends exist of complete regeneration of advanced students after it appeared their constructed had been ripped out in combat.  Talon Monks are deadly in combat and mobile in a pinch.  Talon monks have been both deadly assassins or formidable defenders.  All is the way of the Talon.

 

Talon Technique

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you can manipulate your ki energy and ki driven artificial implants built in when you entered the monastery.  Your talons can be launched up to 30 ft, striking an opponent, damaging them with your martial arts dice, then pulled back, with or without your opponent (your choice).

You gain a new attack option that you can use with the Attack action. This special attack is a attack with an initial range of 30 feet. You are proficient with the talons, and you add your Dexterity modifier to its attack and damage rolls. Its damage is piercing, and its damage die starts as 1d4. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.

When you take the Attack action on your turn and use this special attack as part of it, you can make the special attack twice as a bonus action.  As long as your opponent is your size (Medium) or smaller you can spend 1 ki point to pull your opponent towards you, up to 15 feet per ki point.  If you are smaller than your target, you can pull yourself towards the target.  If you decide to pull towards your impaled opponent, you are still subject to opportunity attacks at the beginning of that movement by opponents within melee ranges at the beginning of your movement.

When you gain the Extra Attack feature, this special attack can be used for any of the attacks you make as part of the Attack action.

Additionally, your talons can be used for latching to not just opponents but surfaces, allowing the monk to latch their talons to items that are not part of the ground.  This can be a ceiling, a wall, a building, under a bridge, a floating/flying vessel or more.  The movement and latch approach requires no successful attack or use of ki points on stationary objects.  The monk can pull themselves up to the ceiling or platform, effectively attaching themselves to the spot.  The monk can, alternatively, swing at their movement speed using this technique, but require at least one foot of talon be extended.

If attempting to latch/attach to a moving vehicle, object or creature, the Talon monk must spend 1 ki point and make a successful attack roll.  The ki point is spent with or without a successful attack.  Damage from the attack is normal.  Upon latching, a creature could unlatch the Talon monk.  This is done with an Athletics check against the Talon monk's Acrobatics or Athletics.  If both talons are latched/attached, an opponent can attempt to unlatch/detach both (at disadvantage) or one at a time.  Once attached, the monk can pull themselves up at 15 feet per action, but must make successful attacks to swing move while under a moving target.  No additional ki needs to be spent for swinging movement or subsequent movement related actions, just successful attacks made potentially while swinging.  Swinging movement can be performed at half the monk's movement speed at 3rd level, at full speed at 9th level.

If dislodged, but within range of the talons, the Talon monk can use their reaction to attempt to re-attach by using 2 ki points and making a successful attack.

Healing of the Talon

At 6th level, you gain the ability to heal yourself. As an action, you can regain hit points equal to three times your monk level. You must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.

Any damage to your Talon extensions is restored over the course of a long rest, as these can take wear and tear due.  Your ki smooths the metals and reforms.  If a talon is ripped out of a Monk, only a small portion needs to remain for it to grow back.  If no ki is applied, and the entire length is removed, it takes two months.  Ki points can be used, replacing 1 foot for each ki point applied until all 60 feet are replaced.  Even at 1 foot, the talons can be effective, and used in normal ways, but obviously limits the monks abilities.  They also have one talon placed in each arm, and if both are ripped out, it takes twice the ki points to heal faster, but still two months for both to grow back fully without ki points.

Ki Strikes and Talons

At 6th level, your unarmed attacks and Talons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage.

Hardened Talon

At 11th level, you can the ability to augment your Talons, adding up to an additional 30 feet of length for one turn.  You can spend 1 ki point to increase the length by 10 feet (up to 3 ki points), and then double your pull techniques based on those modifiers (if augmented 10 feet, add 10 feet to the pull from the Talon Technique).   Pull minimums are 5 feet, and in this case (with 3 ki points) up to 60 feet.  The ability is quite draining on your body, as it is pulling ki metal from all your reserves and thus only lasts the one round.  You can attempt every round using your available ki points.

Eviscerating Talon

At 17th level, you gain the ability to set up lethal talon shards left in someone’s body. When you hit a creature with the Eviscerating Talon technique, you can spend 5 ki points to leave talons shards in your opponent.  These begin to slice their way through an opponent's body for 5 rounds, doing 2d10 piercing per round, until the sixth round at which point the talon shards burst out of the opponent.  The opponent must make a Constitution savings throw, or take an additional 5d10 piercing damage.  This damage is halved on a save.

The opponent, under duress from the ki shards, must make a Wisdom saving throw, or make all attacks, savings throws and ability checks at disadvantage.  The Wisdom savings throw must be made each round, after the initial success, but once failed, no more savings throws can be made.  It is assumed the pain is too great to ignore.

After bursting out of the opponent, the talon shards spend a round flying back to the monk and merge back into the monk's own ki driven talon constructs.  The monk can only have one opponent under this attack at a time.

Magic can only affect the shards if the spell caster is of greater level than the monk.  Creatures who normally ignore piercing damage are also affected by this attack, as the attack is driven by the mystical ki power.