Shadow Hand by

### Shadow Hand
The Shadow Hand archetype teaches the arts of stealth, deception, and ambush. Its stances and stratagems allow a warrior to take on a shadowy aspect or to channel dark energy to sap an enemy’s strength. Your attacks and parries are infused with the stuff of shadow. Through careful training and discipline, you learn to use your abilities to stalk, surprise, and inhibit a foe's fighting ability with your shadowy nature.

#### Strategic Prowess
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn stratagems that are fueled by focus points, which represent your shadowy training and careful honing of your skills.

***Stratagems.*** You learn three stratagems of your choice, which are detailed under "Stratagems" below. Many stratagems enhance an attack in some way. You can use only one stratagem per attack.

You learn two additional stratagems of your choice at 7th, 10th, and 15th level. Each time you learn new stratagems, you can also replace one stratagem you know with a different one.

***Focus Points.*** Through intense mental exercise and training, you have learned to enter a state of perfect martial clarity. In this state, your mind and body become one, allowing you to overcome mundane physical limits.

You gain a number of focus points equal to half of your fighter level (rounded up). These focus points are used to fuel your stratagems, and a focus point is expended when you use it. You regain all of your expended focus points when you finish a short or long rest. Additionally, each time you score a critical hit, you regain one expended focus point.

***Stances.*** You learn two stances of your choice, which are detailed under "Stances" below. A stance is not a stratagem, but a specific fighting method that you maintain from round to round. So long as you maintain a stance, you gain some benefit from it. You can initiate a stance as a bonus action, and when you enter a stance, you immediately gain its benefit. You can use a single bonus action to end one stance and begin another, or you can choose to simply end your current stance without entering a different one. You can only benefit from one stance at a time.

You learn one additional stance at 7th, 10th, and 15th level.

***Saving Throws.*** Some of your stratagems require your target to make a saving throw to resist the stratagem’s effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

**Stratagem save DC** = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your

Dexterity or Wisdom modifier (your choice)

#### Darkstalker
At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Stealth skill. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses Stealth.

When you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check, creatures with special senses such as blindsight, keen smell, or tremorsense must make a Wisdom (Perception) check without advantage to notice you, just as sighted creatures would make to detect you.

#### Evasion
Starting at 7th level, when you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

#### Improved Strategic Prowess
At 10th level, you can replace one stratagem you know with a different stratagem whenever you finish a long rest. This change reflects your physical and mental preparation for the day ahead.

#### Implacable
Starting at 15th level, when you roll initiative and have no focus points remaining, you regain 1 focus point.

#### Adaptive Style
At 18th level, you can regain a number of focus points equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one) as an action. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

#### Stances
The stances are presented in alphabetical order.

***Assassin’s Stance.*** While you are in this stance, you gain the sneak attack ability, if you do not already have it, which deals an extra 2d6 points of damage. If you already have the sneak attack class feature, your existing sneak attack ability deals an extra 2d6 points of damage. See the rogue class feature (PHB 96) for a complete description of sneak attack.

***Child of Shadow.*** While you are in this stance, you can try to hide when you are only lightly obscured from the creature from which you are hiding.

***Dance of the Spider.*** While you are in this stance, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free. You also gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.

***Fluid Motion.*** While you are in this stance, if you make a melee attack against a creature during your turn, that creature can't make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn.

***Hasty Skirmish.*** While you are in this stance, you can move up to half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.

***Hearing the Air.*** While you are in this stance, your inability to see a target does not impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.

***Island of Blades.*** While you are in this stance, once on each of your turns when you miss with a weapon attack, you can make another weapon attack as part of the same action.

***Leaf on the Wind.*** While you are in this stance, creatures more than 40 feet away from you have disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

***Slayer’s Defense.*** While you are in this stance, when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.

***Speed of the Dusk.*** While you are in this stance, your speed increases by 10 feet and your jump distance is doubled. Additionally, you gain a +2 bonus to initiative.

***Stance of Clarity.*** While you are in this stance, you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.

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#### Stratagems
The stratagems are grouped by level and presented in alphabetical order.

**3rd Level Stratagems**

Starting at 3rd level you can learn the following stratagems:

***Clinging Shadow Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one focus point to transform your weapon into solid darkness. You add 1d8 to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target has disadvantage on all attack rolls until the end of your next turn.

***Cloak of Deception.*** When you initiate this stratagem, you can expend one focus point to have the shadows around you surge forward and engulf you, turning you invisible as an action. You remain invisible until the end of your next turn, and anything you are wearing or carrying is invisible as long as it is on your person.

***Emerald Razor.*** When you make a weapon attack roll against a creature, you can expend one focus point to add your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one) to the roll. You can use this stratagem before or after making the attack roll, but before any effects of the attack are applied. If that attack hits, add the 1d8 to the attack's damage roll.

***Insightful Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one focus point see every weak point of your opponent in an instant. You add 1d8 to the attack’s damage roll, and learn all of the target’s immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities.

***Quicksilver Motion.*** You can expend one focus point and use a bonus action to move up to your speed. During this movement, you appear translucent and ghostly, and can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. Immediately after you end your movement, each creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one damage).

***Restraining Shadows.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one focus point to create shadowy tendrils that emanate from the strike and wrap around the target. You add 1d8 to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, the target is restrained.

***Sapphire Nightmare Blade.*** When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one focus point to attempt to frighten the target. You add 1d8 to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

***Shadow Blade Technique.*** You can expend one focus point and use a bonus action on your turn to create an illusory double of your weapon, choosing one creature within 5 feet of you as your target. You have advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your turn. If that attack hits, add 1d8 cold damage to the attack's damage roll.

***Shadow Jaunt.*** As an action, you can expend one focus point to have a cloud of shadowy energy swirl around you and disappear, and a moment later have this shadowy cloud reappear with you across the battlefield. You can teleport up to 50 feet to an unoccupied point within sight.

**7th Level Stratagems**

Starting at 7th level you can learn the following stratagems:

***Drain Vitality.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend two focus points to create a shadowy aura that flows into the wound you inflict, sapping the target’s strength, vitality, and energy. You add 2d10 necrotic damage to the attack's damage roll. Unless the target is immune to necrotic damage, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the target’s Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if its Strength is reduced to 0. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.

***Flickering Riposte.*** Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you, you can expend two focus points to flash through the conduits and pathways of the Plane of Shadow. As a reaction, you can impose disadvantage on it. Additionally, you can teleport up to half your speed to an unoccupied point within sight.

***Immobilizing Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend two focus points to form black energy from your strike that spreads across the target’s body, rendering them helpless. You add 2d10 to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target is paralyzed until the end of your next turn.

***Mind Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can expend two focus points to cause your supernatural strike to restrict a magic user’s abilities. You add 2d10 to the attack's damage roll. If the target is concentrating on a spell, the creature automatically loses concentration.

***Ruby Nightmare Blade.*** When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can expend two focus points to add 2d10 to the attack's damage roll. Additionally, you can reroll a 1 on a damage die for any attack you make until the start of your next turn.

***Shadow Garrotte.*** When you hit a creature with a ranged weapon attack, you can expend two focus points to have the ammunition carve a slice of shadow that wraps around the target’s neck and squeezes the life from it. You add 3d8 necrotic damage to the attack's damage roll and pull the target up to 10 feet closer to you.

***Shadow Stride.*** As a bonus action, you can expend two focus points to dissipate into a puff of black shadow and coalesce from a mote of shadow a large distance away. You can teleport up to 50 feet to an unoccupied point within sight.

**10th Level Stratagems**

Starting at 10th level you can learn the following stratagems:

***Bloodletting Strike.*** When you hit a creature with an attack, you can expend three focus points to administer countless deep cuts in the blink of an eye. You add 3d10 to the attack's damage roll. At the start of each of the creature’s turns, it must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 2d8 necrotic damage. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

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***Death in the Dark.*** When you hit a creature that is surprised with a weapon attack, you can expend three focus points to deal a lethal strike to the unsuspecting target. You add 3d10 to the attack’s damage roll, and that creature must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, add 6d10 to the attack’s damage roll instead.

***Disrupting Blow.*** When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can expend three focus points to add 3d10 to the attack’s damage roll, combining brute force with precise aim to cause the target to suffer disadvantage on all ability checks and saving throws it makes until the start of your next turn.

***Shadow Noose.*** When you hit a creature with a ranged attack, you can expend three focus points to create a noose formed of shadow that wraps around the target’s throat and hoists it aloft. You add 3d10 to the attack’s damage roll, and that creature must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target is stunned until the end of its next turn. Nonliving creatures, constructs, and other creatures that do not require air to live automatically succeed on this saving throw.

***Stalker in the Night.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend three focus points to slide through the dark like a bird of prey, emerging only to strike down your foe before sliding back into the shadow’s embrace. You add 3d10 to the attack’s damage roll, and can then move up to your movement speed and take the Hide action as part of this attack.

**15th Levl Stratagems**

Starting at 15th level you can learn the following stratagems:

***Enervating Shadow Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend five focus points. Then, the weapon becomes cloaked in an inky, black nimbus, and as you strike your opponent, that energy flows into the wound and leaves them pale, weak, and shaking. You add 3d12 to the attack’s damage roll, and the creature takes a -2 penalty on all saving throws while cursed in this way. This secondary effect lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.

***Five-shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike.*** When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend five focus points to pierce your enemy to the core. A shadow of ultimate cold falls over the target’s heart and begins to worm through its veins to the five points of its body. You add 3d12 to the attack’s damage roll, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, roll a d20. On a result of 1-7, the cold spreads to the target’s legs, and the target is restrained until the end of your next turn. On a result of 8-14, the cold spreads to the target’s arms, and the target has disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws until the end of your next turn. On a result of 15-20, the cold strikes the target’s heart, and the target takes two levels of exhaustion.

***One with Shadow.*** As a bonus action, you can expend five focus points to fade into the raw essence of shadow, becoming ethereal for one minute.

#### Extras 
**Created by [/u/Nathan314159265](https://www.reddit.com/user/Nathan314159265/)**  
**Current Version:** 1.0  
**Artwork:** Cloaked Swordsman by [staticdis](https://media.photobucket.com/user/staticdis/media/Anime%20Guys/Cloakedswordsman.jpg.html?filters[term]=cloaked%20swordsman&filters[primary]=images&filters[secondary]=videos&sort=1&o=4)