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Kurtmuran
2010-07-21, 07:46 PM
sup guys anyone know how i can adapt this concept to d&d 3.5 or pathfinder
i need some help or ideas and a bit help to bulid the kittens of MH

Strudel110
2010-07-22, 08:42 AM
I tried this once you're gonna have to homebrew all the monsters, make a system where you can switch between gunner and blademaster and level up in each (two classes you'll have to homebrew) you'll need to make items, armor, weapons, and a carve system. The felynes could be homebrewed pretty easily though.

Drascin
2010-07-22, 08:51 AM
The thing is, statting the monsters is pretty easy - Kushala Daora has been a boss in one of my M&M games - but getting the feel of Monster Hunter well done is pretty hard. Monster Hunter is a game that works primarily through equipment, with the ability to change your equipment and therefore your abilities completely - you basic character is mostly equal to everyone else's. This means that classes just plain can't work.

KingGolem
2010-07-22, 01:10 PM
Yes, the most work will be in making the armor and weapons. I suggest using the basest armors and weapons as a guideline, so they would use the stats provided in the D&D books. For example, a basic iron sword from the sword and shield weapon path would use the stats of a shortsword and a light steel shield. You also need to decide what you intend to do with the sharpness system. I think that could be the criticial hit range, with yellow weapons having normal 20 or 19-20 ranges, and green weapons can have 18-20 ranges, and so forth. It is my opinion that in-combat sharpening should just be thrown out, but if you want to include it you could make it so the sharpness goes down after X amount of hits and imparts a nasty attack penalty.

As for the armor, I don't think the standard D&D armor class system would scale very well for this type of game. As you probably know, in the games every hit you take deals some damage. I'm not suggesting we should do that, but perhaps we could look at the armor as DR system presented on page 111 of Unearthed Arcana (if you don't have that book I could help flesh out your system). After all, high-metal armor (or alloy armor, whatever it's called) is fairly low-level in Monster Hunter, and I would say it's analagous with plate armor in D&D. So if we keep the armor class system, their should probably be a limit to how high the AC on a suit of armor can be. Add varying levels of elemental resistance to these armors and we should be good to go.

On the topic of how to handle characters and removing class levels and such, I suggest that we adapt a mechanic from another roleplaying system called Mutant Future (which is free, if you want a link). Their system is classless, and everyone gets a number of d6's equal to their Constitution score from the start. Perhaps we could calculate BAB in a similar fashion with Strength, where every point of Strength gives you BAB akin to a level of Fighter. This might make the starter characters a bit too tough, so we might could try and scale back these figures a bit. After all, the true test of a monster hunter is in the quality of his gear. Food for thought, anyway.

Carving ought to be easy to implement. Just make some manner of loot table based off carve percentages from the Monster Hunter Wiki. Gathering can be done in a similar way. The players can declare what type of resource for which they are gathering and roll on a gathering table for the area they are in (i.e., forest, swamp, volcano, etc.). Perhaps gathering yields could be improved if you had a higher Intelligence score (you'd know where to look, due to knowledge) or Wisdom score (sharp eyes). If you want to keep the skill system (which I wouldn't really recommend) you could use the Survival skill for this instead.

Let's see...that covers most of the mechanical issues, I think. There is but one remaining problem on my mind: narrative. In the video games, Monster Hunter is all about combat, because combat is frantic and visceral. As such, their narrative is lacking by D&D standards, which does not have such frantic and visceral content. I think if you tried to replicate the type of bare-bones narrative of a Monster Hunter game in a d20 system, both you and your players would get bored fast. How do you intend to inject narrative into this type of game? I have a few ideas, myself: perhaps a new group splits off from the Hunter's Guild, and these new contenders are nothing but petty thugs and mercenaries. Things get really hairy when they sell their skills to a would-be despot who sends them out conquering villages with their tamed monsters and deadly hunter weapons. That's just one idea, and I sure hope you've considered this problem. D&D demands something more between encounters.

So there's my two zeni on this project. If you think you're still up to it, you've got something to work off of.

Kurtmuran
2010-07-22, 10:55 PM
thanks for the help i be working on it when i finish i post the advances