Way of Elemental Balance

You follow a monastic tradition that teaches you to harness and balance the elements.  When you focus your ki, you can align yourself with the forces of creation and bend the four elements to your will, using them as an extension of your body.  While other monks may learn to focus the powers of various individual elements, monks dedicated to elemental balance strive to weave all four elements together.

Elemental Awakening: Disciple of the Elements

When you choose this tradition at 3 level, you learn magical disciplines that harness the power of the four elements: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water.  Some disciplines require you to spend ki points when you use them, but along the way you learn other disciplines that flow naturally from you.

You begin by knowing the Elemental Attunement discipline where you can use your action to briefly control elemental forces nearby, causing one of the following effects of your choice:

• Create a harmless, instantaneous sensory effect related to air, earth, fire, or water, such as a shower of sparks, a puff of wind, a spray of light mist, or a gentle rumbling of stone
• Instantaneously light or snuff out a candle, a torch, or a small campfire
• Chill or warm up to 1 pound of nonliving material for up to 1 hour
• Cause earth, fire, water, or mist that, as raw elemental material, can fit within a 1-foot cube to shape itself into a crude form (which can extend beyond the 1-foot cube) you designate for 1 minute
• Outside of combat, you can cause a number of these effects equal to your monk level to occur simultaneously, with each effect still requiring one action to produce

At 3 level you also learn how to manipulate the four elements in more powerful ways.  You learn a cantrip for each of the elements which you can cast as an action without using any ki points.  The cantrips you choose cannot be changed.  If the cantrip has an enhanced effect at a higher level, you use your monk level to determine access to these enhanced effects.  The cantrips you may choose from for each element are:

• Air: Gust or Thunderclap
• Earth: Magic Stone or Mold Earth
• Fire: Control flames or Produce flame
• Water: Frostbite or Shape Water

Elemental Awakening: Elemental Strike

During combat, as part of your attack action, a crude elemental form that you create with your Elemental Attunement discipline can be used as an elemental monk weapon and take the form of any simple or martial melee or ranged weapon that you have proficiency in.  This elemental monk weapon uses your Elemental Strike die for damage, plus your dexterity modifier.  A ranged weapon uses the weapons table properties to determine range.  Your Elemental Strike damage die changes as you gain monk levels as shown in the “Way of Elemental Balance Monk Table.”

This attack can be coupled with the bonus unarmed strike option from your Martial Arts abilities, as well as with your ki-fueled bonus action options learned at 2 level.  As you gain levels, your Elemental Strike gains additional enhancements, and can be used along with new abilities such as Extra Attack and Stunning Strike.

 

Way of Elemental Balance Monk Table
Monk Level	Proficiency Bonus	Martial Arts Die	Ki Points	Unarmored Movement	Elemental Strike Die	Max Ki Points for Elemental Discipline Spell (base ki +1pt/lvl)	Additional Class Features
1	+2	1d4	-	-	-	-	Unarmored Defense, Martial Arts
2	+2	1d4	2	+10ft	-	-	Ki, Ki Features (Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind), Unarmored Movement
3	+2	1d4	3	+10ft	1d6	-	Deflect Missiles; Monastic Tradition: Disciple of the Elements (Elemental Attunement, four elemental cantrips), Elemental Strike
4	+2	1d4	4	+10ft	1d6	-	Ability Score Improvement or Feat, Slow Fall
5	+3	1d6	5	+15ft	1d6	3	Extra Attack, Stunning Strike
6	+3	1d6	6	+15ft	1d8	3	Ki-empowered Strikes; Monastic Tradition: Elemental damage with Elemental Strike,  1 & 2 ki point Elemental Disciplines
7	+3	1d6	7	+15ft	1d8	3	Evasion, Stillness of Mind
8	+3	1d6	8	+15ft	1d8	3	Ability Score Improvement or Feat
9	+4	1d6	9	+15ft	1d8	4	Move along vertical surfaces & across liquid when unarmored; m 3 & 4 ki point Elemental Disciplines
10	+4	1d6	10	+20ft	1d8	4	Purity of Body
11	+4	1d8	11	+20ft	1d10	4	Monastic Tradition: Elemental Strike as bonus action, Elemental Resistance
12	+4	1d8	12	+20ft	1d10	4	Ability Score Improvement or Feat
13	+5	1d8	13	+20ft	1d10	5	Tongue of the Sun and Moon
14	+5	1d8	14	+25ft	1d10	5	Diamond Soul
15	+5	1d8	15	+25ft	1d10	5	Timeless Body
16	+5	1d8	16	+25ft	1d10	5	Ability Score Improvement or Feat
17	+6	1d10	17	+25ft	1d12	6	Monastic Tradition: Avatar of the Elements
18	+6	1d10	18	+30ft	1d12	6	Empty Body
19	+6	1d10	19	+30ft	1d12	6	Ability Score Improvement or Feat
20	+6	1d10	20	+30ft	1d12	6	Perfect Self

Elemental Enlightenment: Elemental Strike Enhancement

At 6 level your elemental strikes take on additional properties.  When you use your elemental monk weapon, the form you choose continues to deal damage according to your Elemental Strike die plus you’re your dexterity modifier, but now also deals elemental damage according to the elemental form you use for that weapon (fire, cold, thunder, lightning, bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing).

Elemental Enlightenment: Elemental Control

At 6level you also gain access to more powerful elemental disciplines which require you to expend ki points in order to cast that discipline/spell.  You now know all elemental disciplines that cost 1 or 2 ki points to cast and can cast these as an action or attack on your turn for the amount of ki points described for each elemental discipline later in this section.  At 9 level you learn the remaining elemental disciplines that cost 3 or 4 ki points to cast.

Casting Elemental Spells. Some elemental disciplines allow you to cast spells.  See chapter 10 of the Player’s Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting.  To cast one of these spells, you use its casting time and other rules, but you don’t need to provide material components for it.

When spending ki points to cast a spell, you spend the number of ki points required to cast the spell at its lowest level unless otherwise specified.  Once you reach 5 level in this class, you can spend additional ki points to increase the level of an Elemental Discipline spell that you cast, provided that the spell has an enhanced effect at a higher level, as burning hands does.  The spell’s level increases by 1 for each additional ki point you spend.  For example, if you are a 5-level monk and use Sweeping Cinder Strike to cast burning hands, you can spend 2 ki points to cast it as a 2-level spell (the discipline’s base cost of 1 ki point plus 1). 

The maximum total ki points allowed to be used to cast a spell at a higher level increases at 9 level, 13 level, and 17 level.  To take the earlier example further, if you are a 9-level monk, you can spend 3 ki points to cast burning hands as a 3-level spell (the discipline’s base cost of 1 ki point plus 2).  The maximum number of ki points you can spend to cast a spell in this way (including its base ki point cost and any additional ki points you use to increase its level) as determined by your monk level is shown in the “Way of Elemental Balance Monk Table.”

Elemental Mastery: Elemental Strike Enhancement

At 11 level you gain increased mastery over your elemental strikes.  You are now able to replace the unarmed strikes you make as bonus actions or with your Flurry of Blows with strikes using your elemental monk weapons.  These bonus elemental strikes use the Elemental Strike die and continue to deal the elemental damage according to the elemental form you use for that weapon.

Elemental Mastery: Elemental Resistance

At 11th level you also learn to absorb and reflect some of the elemental damage that is dealt to you by learning the Become the Teapot elemental discipline.  This discipline allows you to, as a reaction—which you take when you take cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage—spend 1 ki point to capture some of the incoming energy from an attack, lessening its effect on you and allowing you to either return that energy back at a foe or absorb that energy and regain some hit points. You have resistance to the triggering damage type for the current attack and until the start of your next turn.  If you use this discipline at higher levels by spending additional ki points, the damage dealt or hit points regained increase according to the type of die used.

Elemental Balance: Avatar of the Elements

As an ultimate display of your mastery of the elements, at 17th level, you can spend 10 ki points as an action to simultaneously manifest the elements of air, earth, fire, and water and form a protective sphere around your body, gaining multiple benefits for 1 minute.  While this ability is active, you have immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire, lightning, and thunder damage. 

You also gain a burrow, fly, and swim speed equal to your movement speed. Lastly, you can use any of the following abilities as a bonus action for as long as this Discipline is active:

• You create a small earthquake on the ground in a 15-foot radius around you. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone.
• You create a line of fire 15 feet long and 5 feet wide extending from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 3d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
• You create a 15-foot cube of swirling wind centered on a point you can see within 60 feet of you. Each creature in that area must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If a Large or smaller creature fails the save, that creature is also pushed up to 10 feet away from the center of the cube.
• You create a 15-foot cone of ice shards extending from your outstretched hand in a direction you choose. Each creature in the cone must make a Constitution save throw. A creature takes 3d6 cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that fails its save against this effect has its speed halved until the start of your next turn.