Way of the Still Waters
To Jin, the man’s fist moved as slowly as if it were underwater. He used the turbulent motions against his opponent, empowering his next strike, and rendering him unconscious with a single blow.
Jin, A Monk of the Way of the Still Waters
The monks who follow the Way of Still Waters are like placid mountain lakes; they are still and calm until some outside force disrupts them and forces a reaction. Many adherents live a pacifistic lifestyle and never seek conflict. When strife finds them though, they deal with it in a swift and decisive use of power and grace.
Building a Way of the Still Waters Monk
Monks who follow the Way of the Still Waters learn to use the flow of combat to their advantage, empowering their abilities with turbulent forces
Perfect Calm grants you advantage on one saving throw of your choice in a round after using your flurry of blows, patient defense, or step of the wind abilities.
Turbulent Waters allows you to gain turbulence dice when attacks miss you, or when you succeed on a saving throw. These die can empower your attacks to deal additional damage.
Spreading Ripples offers another way to gain turbulence dice, using your reaction when a nearby ally of yours is hit by an attack or fails a saving throw. It also allows you to deal damage to adjacent enemies you attack when using your turbulence dice.
Duality of Water grants you additional defenses, including resistance to either fire or cold damage, depending on whether you have accrued any turbulent dice or not.
With these abilities, the Way of the Still Waters monk is most effective when in the fray of combat. The more opportunities they have to be attacked, the more likely they are to gain a turbulence die, which they can then use to deal additional damage. However, turbulence dice are lost if you haven’t made an attack or been attacked for 1 minute, so there is no need to save them up for after a battle. Spreading Ripples can best be taken advantage of when the monk is fighting alongside allies, so consider coordinating with another front-line member of the party, so that you can continue to gain turbulence dice whether the enemies are attacking you or them.
As with all classes, any race is suitable for playing a Way of the Still Waters monk, but there there are a few races whose innate abilities may synergize particularly well. The Halfling Nimbleness trait possessed by all halflings (including the recently highlighted Urban Halflings) allows you to move through the space of any creature larger than yours, letting you easily break through enemy lines to unleash your turbulence to cause maximum chaos. The Spindrift Step of the Spindrift Dwarves enables you to walk across water in short bursts, an ability you otherwise wouldn’t unlock as a monk until 9th level.
Roleplaying Tips
When playing a Way of the Still Waters monk, you can try to base your roleplaying off of the nature of water itself. Perhaps you act in accordance with the name of your path, maintaining stillness in otherwise chaotic situations, observing and waiting for exactly the right moment to act. Or maybe you lean more into the tempestuous force of a raging river, constantly in flux and always on the move, both literally and figuratively. Like a placid lake, your character may be much deeper than they seem at first, and while some may take them for a simple warrior, perhaps they come from a Researcher background, having dedicated their life to the pursuit of knowledge. It could be that you come from a seafaring order of monks, taking the Corsair background, resulting in your character believing in all manners of sea-based superstitions. When interacting with others, whether that be characters of NPCs, consider how your training as a monk might have influenced your personality. For example, you may have developed a sense of patience far beyond that of most adventurers, and it may be up to you to keep the party’s more impulsive members at bay. In any case, remember to always act in alignment with the tenets of your order, whatever those may be.
How to Access this Content
This subclass was created by our partners at Kobold Press, and it is one of the many available to subscribers, along with others like the Soulspy or the College of Entropy, as well as races such as the Shade or Spindrift Dwarf. Build your own Way of the Still Waters monk and tell us about it in the comments below or on any of our social channels. Join us on on Discord, Reddit or Facebook to meet other members of the community and take your game to the next level, or follow us on Twitter @shardtabletop for regular updates.
