Class Options for the Discerning

Adventurer

To include the "Way of the Unmastered" for the Monk, "Oath of the People" for the
Paladin, "Enforcer" for the Rogue, and "School of Battle" for the Wizard, as well as
a host of Warlock Invocations and Fighting Styles for martial classes

Presented by Pixel and the Pen

Monk - Way of the

Unmastered
"Unmastered" is technically a misnomer; what matters for
an unmastered monk is not that they are unschooled, but
that they act according to their own code rather than
pledging themselves to a school, a lord, or a code of honor.
These monks often end up itinerant problem-solvers,
becoming the stuff of legend due to their combination of
peerless skill and uncompromising ideals. (That's not to
say that those ideals are always good, mind you; many
choose to act solely for themselves.)
An unmastered monk may have a personal or cultural
name for the path she follows, such as a drifter or a ronin.
Some monasteries have their own names for those who
choose to become outcasts in this manner as well.

Tread Down the Sword

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you
gain proficiency with two additional one-handed or
versatile weapons of your choice, and can use these
weapons with your Martial Arts class feature. In addition,
when you successfully hit a creature with a monk weapon
(but not an unarmed strike), you can spend 1 ki point to
impose one of the following effects:
It must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be
disarmed.
It must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or
receive disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls
for two rounds.
It must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be
subject to the effects of a hunter's mark spell for 5
rounds, on which you do not need to concentrate.

Waiting for the Initiative

At 6th level, you can seize the initiative from the enemy on a
failed strike. When an enemy's attack misses, you may
spend 1 ki point as a reaction to make an attack with a
monk weapon. If you took the Dodge action this turn, you
may instead use your reaction to make an attack with a
monk weapon under these circumstances at no cost.

No Master, No Name
Beginning at 11th level, you can't be unwillingly recognized
unless a creature uses its action to inspect your appearance
in detail. The creature must succeed on an Intelligence
(Investigation) check against your ki save DC. You can
spend a ki point to increase the difficulty of this check by 5
as a reaction to the check.
In addition, you can't be the subject of divination spells
and can't be perceived by magical sensors unless the caster
has a piece of your body or a highly personal possession,
such as a piece of well-worn jewelry or a childhood
treasure. These items no longer modify your saving throw
against these effects, but are instead necessary to cast the
spell successfully at all.

One Strike, One Kill

Starting at 17th level, when you successfully hit with a
monk weapon during an Attack action, you may spend 3 ki
points to do an additional 5d10 damage. If this damage
reduces the target to 0 hit points, you may make an extra
attack this turn as part of your Attack action.

FAQ/Hooks/Who Does This Serve?

The Way of the Unmastered is an excellent fit for
characters who want to evoke the classic tropes
of samurai or Western movies, wandering the
world and solving problems through simple
wisdom and one or two weapons of choice.
The increase in available weapon options
primarily provides an early-game damage boost,
and some new options aesthetically. It also opens
up some ranged weaponry for the Martial Arts
class feature. If a setting contains firearms, the
Unmastered monk makes an ideal gun-user
among monks. (This does blunt the monk's
melee damage powerhouse status, but also
makes the monk a very strong mid-range
combatant.)
If you're having difficulty finding story hooks
for the party's Unmastered monk, consider some
of the following:
A "problem" the wanderer thought solved in
another town has come back seeking
vengeance.
The monk's school takes poorly to those who
leave, and wants to protect its secret
techniques... or simply punish his
transgression.
An unmastered monk of a very old race, such
as an elf, may have an old, messy life full of
old, messy activities.
The wanderer's exploits may have attracted a
fan! How does this drifter handle an injection
of energy and enthusiasm into her life?
These are far from the only hooks, of course,
but can provide a starting point for a DM who's
stumped by the ethereal wanderer, or a player
who isn't sure how to take the concept in an
interesting direction.

Paladin - Oath of the

People
Paladins who pursue the Oath of the People focus their
efforts on uplifting the common folk. While almost every
paladin is encouraged to hold the people in their heart,
these seek to break the chains of systemic injustices like
poverty, racial tension, and oppression.
Depending on who they were before they felt their
calling, these efforts may cost them much. These paladins
usually work alone, rather than becoming part of an order;
their callings are personal ones.
Such paladins often eschew the glory that other heroes
of justice accrue, choosing to focus their efforts on stopping
plagues or housing the homeless. The power to set the
world to rights is a gift that should be shared, or so they
think. Just as often, however, they end up blade-to-blade
with those who cause, or allow, the intolerable conditions
that let these conditions come to be.
When they do act, they almost invariably draw attention
to themselves in a big way, taking the brunt of aggression.
In the right circumstances, these paladins can become
revolutionary leaders and folk heroes, toppling a truly vile
current regime for the sake of its poorest citizens.

Tenets of the People

Though the particulars often vary, the general sense of the
Oath of the People goes as follows:
Protect the Innocent. Above all else, do not let those
who have done no wrong come to harm.
Uplift the Downtrodden. Those who have nothing, or
who face great obstacles in their lives, are the ones most in
need of help. Those who have little choice but to commit
wrongs to survive are worthy of your protection.
Punish the Corrupt. Your quest should point you, first
and foremost, at those who create undue hardships for
others, or who take unduly.
Live Righteously. Adhere to the same standards you
would expect of others. While you are not obligated to
poverty, do not take more than your fair share. Share what
you do have to the extent that you can. Adhere to the
standards of kindness, mercy, compassion, and bravery.
Speak Truth to Power. While you are not absolutely
obligated to honesty at all times, you should be unafraid to
lay the world plain and make criticism of those who would
hurt others for their own gain.

Oath Spells
Level Spells
3rd heroism, create or destroy water
5th branding smite, enthrall
9th create food and water, beacon of hope
13th freedom of movement, guardian of faith
17th geas, passwall

Channel Divinity
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you gain the following
two Channel Divinity options.
Heal the Sick. You can perform minor miracles, healing
infirmities brought on by poverty or dishonorable acts. As a
bonus action, each creature of your choice that can hear
you within 30 feet of you is cured of any diseases or
poisons currently affecting it, up to a maximum of your
Charisma modifier.
Reveal the Darkness. As an action, you can reveal
hidden things with your Channel Divinity. Within 60 feet of
you, invisible creatures become visible, secret passages
open, and creatures using Dexterity (Stealth) checks to
hide are revealed. This effect affects the area around you
for 1 minute.

Aura of Protection
Starting at 7th level, creatures within 30 feet of you that
you choose, excluding you, have resistance to damage from
area-of-effect spells, attacks, and other damaging affects
which target more than one creature, such as a dragon's
breath or a fireball.

Unbreakable Will
Starting at 15th level, you have advantage on saving throws
to avoid becoming charmed or frightened.

Champion of the People

At 20th level, your presence on the battlefield is inspiring to
all those who fight for justice. You can use your action to
gain the following benefits for 1 hour:
You have advantage on saving throws against spells.
You have advantage on Constitution saving throws, as
do your allies within 30 feet of you.
You can use a bonus action on each of your turns to
allow an ally within 30 feet of you to take the Attack or
Dash action immediately.

FAQ/Hooks/Who Does This Serve?

The Oath of the People is for paladins who want
to be both upright and keenly personal, in a way
that the Devotion paladin is not necessarily.
The paladin who has sworn an oath to the
people copes better with intrigue and dastardly
tactics than another paladin might, albeit by
exposing them or bypassing them rather than by
partaking of them, necessarily.
Thanks to its spell selection, it also performs
well in the interaction and exploration spheres,
doing a serviceable job of dealing with basic
problems like food and water.

Rogue - Enforcer
Enforcers form the support structure for thieves, assassins,
and other shady characters. More physically-inclined than a
typical rogue, these brutes eschew charisma and grace in
favor of underhanded maneuvers and heavy weaponry.
Many become pirates or brigands, taking what they desire
by force rather than finesse.
Most enforcers find the knives and hand crossbows so
beloved of their smaller counterparts to be distasteful at
best, and outright absurd for combat at worst. Such a rogue
would sooner use a dagger to pick his teeth than solve his
problems.

Bonus Proficiencies
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain
proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial
weapons.

Brutal Strike
Starting at 3rd level, you can apply brute force with deadly
precision. You can use your Sneak Attack when making an
attack with one-handed or versatile weapons other than
finesse or ranged weapons, including your unarmed strike.
In addition, you don't need advantage on your attack roll or
an additional hostile creature within 5 feet of the target to
use Sneak Attack if you are making an opportunity attack.

Dirty Trick
Starting at 9th level, you can set up your own openings for a
successful strike. You can use a bonus action to strike a
creature within 5 feet of you in a sensitive area, throw sand
in its eyes, or otherwise bully it with your physicality or
environment.
That creature must make a Dexterity or Constitution
saving throw (DC 8 + your Strength modifier + your
proficiency bonus). On a failed saving throw, the next melee
weapon attack or unarmed strike the creature makes gains
disadvantage, and your next attack on the creature gains
advantage.

Powerful Physicality
Starting at 13th level, you can use a bonus action on your
turn to gain advantage on the next Charisma (Intimidate)
check you make, and may add your Strength modifier as
well as your Charisma modifier to the roll. You can also use
a bonus action on your turn to gain advantage on the next
Strength check you make to break free of bonds, break an
object, or force open a stuck, locked, or barred door or
chest. Other similar Strength checks may also receive this
benefit at the GM's discretion.

Stopping Power
Starting at 17th level, you become an imposing target to try
to pass by. When you make an opportunity attack against a
creature, it must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 +
your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus). On a
failed save, the creature's speed is reduced to 0 for one turn
and it is knocked prone.

FAQ/Hooks/Who Does This Serve?

The Enforcer focuses on a mechanical-ecological
niche as much as it does an aesthetic one; it
offers a broader range of ambush-damage
concepts to the rogue. If you've ever wanted to
open up a fight by rabbit-punching someone in
the back of the head, the Enforcer is a great place
to look.
Its focus on opportunity attacks enables it to
ruin the day of someone who wants to run up to
a ranger, sneakthief, or ranged fighter, since in
principle they have to get past the Enforcer first.
Aesthetically, meanwhile, it makes a good
place to put the "muscle" of a team of thieves,
especially if that muscle is comfortable in
another aspect of thievery as well, such as talking
or picking locks.]
Though it's framed primarily as a member of
an organized crime syndicate, don't let that limit
your imagination. The enforcer might be a trained
soldier who never quite fit in as a scout nor a
heavy, or a convict who earned her muscles
during a long prison stay.
Having trouble hooking an enforcer rogue into
your campaign? Try a few of these sample
pitches:
That job that got her convicted? It turns out
the mark now wants her help getting back at
the rest of the squad... and has a line on real
freedom.
An old buddy has yet another get-rich-quick
scheme. The trick is, it involves posing as a
soldier to get in good with these goody-twoshoes adventurers...
Going straight is rough. He's heard tell that
adventurers need to be tough, and they usualy
want someone who can handle traps, too...
Again, while these are hardly the only hooks
for an enforcer, these can help you get started if
you're just not seeing the place for one in an
adventuring party. Remember -- the enforcer is
still a rogue, just... mortgaging a little
dextrousness to be scary.

Wizard - School of Battle

Some wizards find the power of their minds ill-suited as
protection on the road, and fear being caught unawares
without their spellbooks. For these wizards, the School of
Battle provides a path to safety and security, marrying
blade and spell without distracting so much from their
studies. These wizards often become masters of
channeling energy into objects mundane and magical, and
learn to focus through even intense pain.
They trade away much for the sake of their bodily
strength, however. Few develop the facility for a single
school of magic that their peers do, and they are often
incapable of the fantastic effects a master transmuter or
evoker can muster. Many of them, thus, choose to become
marshals rather than master wizards as they grow in
renown, serving as trainer, outfitter, and moral support for
novices of any field they so choose.

Student of Battle
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, you gain
proficiency with simple weapons, light armor, medium
armor, and shields. You also gain proficiency in two martial
weapons of your choice.

Enspell Blade
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to focus magical power
through your weapon. As a bonus action, you can
temporarily turn your weapon into a magic weapon, with
no other benefits. This effect requires your concentration,
as if you were concentrating on a spell, and lasts up to one
hour. You can use this feature a number of times equal to
your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) until your next
long rest.
If your weapon is already magical, when you hit a
creature with an attack from the weapon, you can expend
one spell slot to deal fire, cold, or lightning damage to the
target, in addition to the weapon's damage. The extra
damage is 2d4 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus an additional
1d4 for each spell level higher than 1st, up to a maximum
of 5d4.

Extra Attack
Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once,
whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Supernal Focus
At 10th level, you gain proficiency in Constitution saving
throws. In addition, whenever you make a Constitution
saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell, you have
advantage on the roll.

Fire and Sword

At 14th level, you make adroit use of magic in combat.
Before you use your action to cast a wizard spell or cantrip
which causes damage to a single target, you may make one
weapon attack as a bonus action.
If that weapon attack hits, the target takes damage as if it
had failed its save or been successfully hit with the spell or
cantrip as well as the weapon. (The creature must still be a
valid target for the spell.) This only applies to saving throws
against the damage itself; additional saving throws to avoid
a secondary effect happen as normal, and on a miss, the
spell is still consumed.

FAQ/Hooks/Who Does This Serve?

The School of Battle is (one of many such
homebrew, at this point) a wizarding tradition for
those who want to take a more bookish approach
to the marriage of steel and spell.
Unlike many other approaches, however, the
School of Battle eschews grace in favor of sheer
deadliness and brute force. Its ability to deliver
magical damage and spell effects with its blade
makes it less of an inversion of the Eldritch
Knight and instead a closer cousin to the Paladin
or Cleric, whie still focusing on its nature as an
arcanist.
Within wizard, the School of Battle's closest
cousins are the transmuter (as the Constitutionheavy "wizard of things") and the evoker (as the
damage-heavy "wizard of battle").
Aesthetically, School of Battle adherents make
excellent use of backgrounds like Soldier and
Folk Hero, and do quite well "relearning" how to
move in armor and still cast spells effectively as
of level 2. They may also be wizards who grow
nervous or uncomfortable at the violence of the
adventuring life and take up steel.
At high levels, School of Battle wizards have
some unorthodox ways to deliver powerful spells
like Finger of Death or Disintegrate, opening up
new targets to these attacks. The potential waste
of a high-level spell slot, however, makes for new
tensions in taking these chances!

Fighting Styles

Warlock Invocations

The following fighting styles can be chosen by fighters,

rangers, and paladins whenever they would choose a
fighting style.

The following invocations can be chosen by warlocks any

time they would normally choose an eldritch invocation.

Grace

Blinking Blade

When using a two-handed or versatile weapon in both

hands and not wearing heavy armor, you can treat the
weapon as if it had the finesse quality.

Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade

Forming your pact weapon no longer requires an action,
and you can create ranged weapons. Any weapon you form
is loaded.

Bully

Fetor and Decay

When wearing medium or heavy armor, you can take a

bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action
can be used only to take the Help action regarding an
enemy within 5 feet of you.

Prerequisite: 9th level

You may cast contagion once using a warlock spell slot.
You cant do so again until you finish a long rest.

Rider
When riding a horse or other mount, you can take a bonus
action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be
used only to cause your mount to take an Attack action
instead of a Dash, Dodge, or Disengage action.

The Master's Tools

You gain proficiency in three tools of your choice.

The Master's Workshop

Prerequisite: 7th level
You may cast fabricate once using a warlock spell slot.
You can't do so again until you finish a long rest.

Tome of Blades
Prerequisite: Pact of the Tome
The first ranged spell attack roll you make against a
target within 5 feet each round does not have disadvantage.

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