Way of the Inner Eye
You are always looking around you. Desperately searching for clues, for hints, for feedback. But you do not really see. You are so busy looking with your eyes that you fail to see with your mind. This is what you must learn to stop doing. You must learn to stop looking, to stop searching. Only then, will you truly see.
A Monastic Tradition
Monks of this tradition dedicate themselves to the perfection of their mystic senses, called the inner eye. They do this by purposefully blinding themselves, usually merely by covering their eyes, although some go so far as to remove their eyes or blind themselves permanently in order to rely solely on their inner eye. Monks of this tradition also often recruit blind people to their order, to teach them to go beyond their limited sense and reach new heights of perception.
Heightened Awareness
When you choose this monastic tradition at 3rd level, your other senses are sharper and your awareness is heightened as long as you cannot see. As long as you are blinded, you gain the following benefits:
- You have a blindsight of 30 feet. This sense increases when you reach certain levels in this class, it increases to 60 ft at level 6, 90 ft at level 11 and 120 ft at level 17.
- You have advantage on all Wisdom (perception) checks you make that don't rely on sight (therefore, ones that rely solely on hearing, smell, taste or touch).
- Attack rolls made against you do not gain advantage because of the blinded condition.
You cannot merely close your eyes to gain these benefits, as the temptation to open them would be too great. Instead, you must cover your eyes with a piece of cloth, a modified helmet or something similar, remove your eyes permanently, or be blinded from another source in order to do so. You can cover or uncover your eyes with a piece of cloth, a modified helmet or something similar as a bonus action.
Greater Reflexes
Also at 3rd level, your reflexes are also heightened when you cannot see. Whenever a creature misses you with an attack, if you are blinded you can immediately use your reaction to make an unarmed strike against that creature, provided it's within your reach. You can spend a ki point to make two unarmed strikes against the same target instead of one when you do so.
Untouchable
Starting at 6th level, you become even harder to hit. While you are blinded, you can use your patient defense feature without spending a ki point. You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), after which you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
Art created using Midjourney AI
Far Sight
At 11th level, you can sense things that are far away with your inner eye. You can cast the Arcane Eye spell without consuming a spell slot or material components, if you are blinded when you do so, your arcane eye has a blindsight equal to yours instead of its normal vision.
Once you've cast this spell this way, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest unless you spend 2 ki points to do so. Wisdom is your spellcasting modifier for this spell.
Inner Eye
At 17th level, you have perfected the use of your inner eye. While you are blinded you gain the following benefits:
- After you've made a reaction, you can make an additional reaction once before the beginning of your next turn. You can make only one reaction per triggering effect.
- You cannot be surprised while you are conscious.
- You have a tremorsense of 60 feet.
