Your study of martial arts has taught you how to use your body as a weapon, but your intuition has shown you that animals do it better. Starting when you choose this tradition at the 3rd level, you can enter Animal Forms. Your hand positioning and stances reflect the animal you are imitating, and you mentally emulate how they behave in combat. Animal Forms are not merely a set of techniques, but a mindset and style in themselves. To begin, you learn the Leopard Form, but as you grow as a monk, you will master more Animal Forms. You use your bonus action to enter an Animal Form, and you cannot be in more than one Animal Form at a time unless the Form states otherwise. You exit your chosen Form when you enter another Form, exit combat, are knocked Unconscious, die, or exit the Form voluntarily. You gain the following benefits for choosing this subclass:

+1 damage to all unarmed strikes

+1 ki the first time you enter an Animal Form on each of your turns

 

Leopard Form

At 3rd level, your early learnings of animals and their techniques has allowed you to master the clever movements of the Leopard. The leopard strikes from a low position with great skill. While in Leopard Form, your clenched fingers relax slightly, with fingertips resting against the upper part of your palm, while your thumb is pressed tightly against the bend in your fingers. While in Leopard Form, you cannot be knocked prone, and you gain the following benefits and abilities:

Sweeping Strike: Spending 1 ki point, you use your bonus action to perform a low, sweeping kick. All creatures within 5 feet of you that are Huge or smaller must make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.

Lowered Striking: When you take the Dodge action, you may use Flurry of Blows as if you had used the Attack action.

Leopard’s Intuition: Whenever you take the Dodge action on your turn, you may use your bonus action to enter a lowered Leopard stance, spending 1 ki point. If you do, your AC increases by 2, and any time you are attacked, you may use your reaction to make one unarmed strike against the opponent that attacked you, with advantage.

Crane Form

At 6th level, you master the grace of the Crane. The crane is a light, beautiful creature that strikes with extreme precision, and uses its large heavy wings to both bludgeon foes and easily turn away attacks made against it. While in Crane Form, one of your hands becomes the beak of the crane, with the thumb, ring and forefinger pressed together in a point, while the other two fingers press flat against the palm. The other hand becomes the wing, with all four fingers pressed together, thumb pressed to the side, and cupped slightly inward, while the wrist is bent slightly to increase the angle that the fingers are pointed downward at. While in Crane Form, all melee attacks made against you within 5 feet of you while in this form have disadvantage unless you are suffering from a condition that would give them advantage, in which case Crane Form does not give them disadvantage. You also gain the following benefits and abilities:

Crane's Finesse: When you spend a ki point to use the Step of the Wind action, you can now move over any terrain, including water, as if it were flat, normal terrain and do so without any penalties. You cannot move through, or fly over objects,  and if you finish your turn over a liquid such as water or lava, or over a hazard such as a hole, you fall in.

Wings of the Crane: When you take damage, you can spend 2 ki points to partially block the attack, taking only half damage.

Crane’s Counter: When attacked, you can spend 1 ki point to use your reaction to make an unarmed strike against the target.

Kingfisher: The first time you successfully hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows on your turn, you may spend 1 ki point to force it to make a Dexterity saving throw or be blinded.

Snake Form

At the 6th level, you master the unique movements of the snake. The snake is a lithe, agile animal with a dangerous strike and a profile that makes them extremely difficult to hit. When you enter Snake Form, your fingers come together and your thumb sits tightly to the side of them, with fingertips pointed towards your opponent, reflecting the head of the snake. While in Snake Form, you cannot be the target of attacks of opportunity, and cannot be grappled or restrained. You also gain the following benefits and abilities:

Fangs of the Snake: The first time you successfully deal damage to a target with an unarmed strike on your turn, the opponent must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, the target is blinded. If the target fails the saving throw by 10 or greater, it is paralyzed.

Cunning Strike: The first time you successfully deal damage to a target with an unarmed strike on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to force the opponent to make a Constitution saving throw or suffer from internal bleeding. If the target does not have anything that could be considered “blood” or internal fluids, this automatically fails.

Internal Bleeding: When bleeding internally, the target must make a Constitution saving throw on each of its turns. If it fails, it takes 1D6 bleeding damage. If it succeeds, it takes half as much, and is no longer bleeding internally.

At Higher Levels: The bleeding damage increases by 1d6 at 8th level, and again at 11th and 17th.

Snake’s Agility: Each time you deal damage to a target, you may spend 1 ki point to move up to half your normal movement without using an action and without drawing attacks of opportunity.

Tiger Form

At 11th level, you master the ferocity of the tiger. Tigers strike with brutality and persistence, utterly destroying their foes with a hail of heavy blows. When you enter Tiger Form, your fingers and thumbs clench inward, reflecting the large clawed hands of a Tiger. While in Tiger Form, you regain 1d4 health once per turn when you deal unarmed damage. You also gain the following benefits and abilities:

Roar of the Tiger: When you enter Tiger Form, you let out a tremendous roar. All creatures around you must make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened until the start of your next turn.

Rushing Tiger: When you spend a ki point to use Step of Wind, upon finishing your movement you may spend 1 more ki point and use your bonus action to make an unarmed attack against any number of creatures within 5 feet, of your choosing.

Tiger’s Fury: When you spend a ki point to use Flurry of Blows, you can spend 1 more ki point to do 1 more unarmed strike against the same opponent.

Relentlessness of the Tiger: When making an attack of opportunity against an opponent, you may spend 2 ki points to use Flurry of Blows instead of a normal melee attack. If you spend another ki point to use Tiger's Fury with this attack, you gain a point of exhaustion.

Dragon Form

Reflecting the hours and days of physical and mental training you have undertaken, at 17th level you may now enter the Dragon Form. Unlike the other stances, Dragon Form is not a physical set of movements or a style of striking but rather a wholly internal discipline. You may enter Dragon Form when rolling for initiative, but if you choose to you must state this out loud. If you have no ki points remaining upon entering this form, roll 2d4 and regain that many ki points. For 2 minutes, you may enter any one of the other animal forms you already know as well as Dragon Form, which then becomes "Dragon ____ Form", and you can do so without using your bonus action. You may not enter Dragon Form again until after you finish a long rest. When in both Dragon Form and another Animal Form, you gain the following benefits:

Eyes of the Dragon: A roll of 19 or 20 on an attack role is considered a critical hit for the duration of time you are in Dragon Form.

Dragon’s Resilience: Your AC is increased by half your current Dexterity modifier, rounded down.

Dragon’s  Tenacity: Any time you are reduced to 0 hit points and rendered unconscious, you instantly spring back to your feet with half your max HP restored. This can only happen once each time you enter Dragon Form.

Dragon’s Focus: You strike with such speed and precision that it appears to your enemy that you had not acted at all. Your Extra Attack Monk feature grants you a third attack for the duration of time you are in Dragon Form.

Fangs of the Dragon: All unarmed damage you deal does an extra 1d4 damage.