How would you Monster Hunter in DnD?

[Blackhawk748]

What it says on the tin. How would the playground go about running a Monster Hunter style campaign in DnD? For those unfamiliar with Monster Hunter its a game where you hunt massive and fantastic creatures, there is no magic, so you do it with muscle and teamwork.

[Deadasadoor]

I did something like it for a one shot. I had a series of premade encounters, and a sort of central hub where players could restock and pick missions. All of the monsters were homebrewed of course. Its not terribly difficult to translate their abilities into DND.

I did see a posting for a monster hunter 3.5 game at a game store once. Maybe someone has already homebrewed a lot of the monsters somewhere online?

[Blackhawk748]

I did something like it for a one shot. I had a series of premade encounters, and a sort of central hub where players could restock and pick missions. All of the monsters were homebrewed of course. Its not terribly difficult to translate their abilities into DND.

I did see a posting for a monster hunter 3.5 game at a game store once. Maybe someone has already homebrewed a lot of the monsters somewhere online?

The monster arent so much the issue. The main issue i see is gear, as without mages you cant increase it, so you would need to come up with some weird crafting thing

[DrMotives]

You could start with things like dragoncrafted / dwarfcrafted / feycrafted etc., then perhaps strip the CL requirement for craft magic arms & armor to a character level one instead, allow something like UMD checks to simulate required spells. Possibly use various legendary forges and/or materials to make powered up versions of the ___-crafted gear templates. After all, you're already homebrewing, this doesn't seem too far off.

[Sith_Happens]

The monster arent so much the issue. The main issue i see is gear, as without mages you cant increase it, so you would need to come up with some weird crafting thing

1. Replace caster level requirements on crafting feats with character level requirements.
2. Replace all spell prerequisites on magic items with specific monster parts that need to be supplied.
3. Make extremely liberal use of the rules allowing characters to collaborate on crafting.

That gets you Monster Hunter's loot system quick and simple, which is the easy part. The hard part is combat and enemy design; the way you fight monsters in Monster Hunter is about as far away from D&D as it gets. Personally it doesn't seem anywhere near worth it to me to try and reconcile the two.

[Extra Anchovies]

Maybe just give weapons crafted from slain monsters properties thematically fitting with that monster? E.g. armor made from the hide of a sea serpent could function as Plate Armor of the Deep, a sword carved from a dragon's jawbone could be a +3 flaming greatsword, that sort of stuff. Affixing innate magic to the monsters' bodies also gives an in-game reason for monster hunting to be an important job.

[Terazul]

Maybe just give weapons crafted from slain monsters properties thematically fitting with that monster? E.g. armor made from the hide of a sea serpent could function as Plate Armor of the Deep, a sword carved from a dragon's jawbone could be a +3 flaming greatsword, that sort of stuff. Affixing innate magic to the monsters' bodies also gives an in-game reason for monster hunting to be an important job.

Yeah, most armor/weapons you make in MH will have resistances appropriate to what you fought. Poison monster? Armor that gives immunity to poison. Lightning breathing laser dragon? Elec Res, Elec Weapon. Sharptalon tacklebeast? High affinity (crit) and sharpness weapon.

I'd agree that DnD isn't the best fit, but it can work. The one MH campaign I played in actually used FantasyCraft. Each kill we got netted us materials that we could craft into gear with bonus feats/skills/etc. I mostly stacked Edge and made "charged" attacks with Sword and Shield. Keeping combat Monster Hunter-y is really the issue, since it's a very twitch-based reactionary game about learning about your quarry and... well, hunting.