D&D: Monster Hunter 5e
Amellwind’s Guide to Monster Hunting
Do you love hunting massive monsters and using their corpses to craft rare and fantastical weapons? Do you wish D&D 5e included good details for this? Well, strap in as we delve into Amellwind’s Guide to Monster Hunting!
In Monster Hunter, the player takes the role of a Hunter. Slaying or trapping large monsters across various landscapes as part of quests given to them by the locals. As part of its core gameplay, players use loot gained from slaying monsters, gathering resources, and quest rewards to craft improved weapons, armor, and other items that allow them to face more powerful monsters.
Inside Amellwind's Guide to Monster Hunting you will find over 150 pages full of new races, factions, feats, equipment, monsters, and more. For this show, we are going to focus on the hunting and crafting aspects, but there is much Monster Hunter goodness to be found beyond this. You can check it out here. Join us as we delve into this fantastic homebrew content.
What is different
The biggest difference between your standard D&D game and a Monster Hunter-styled D&D game is the equipment and magical items. In a standard D&D game, players are rewarded as they travel through their game by finding magical equipment or purchasing it from a magic shop.
Monster Hunter is a high magic setting game, but magical armor, weapons, and other items that do not have a limited amount of uses do not exist in the world though. Instead, you gain materials from hunting creatures, gathering resources, or finding a merchant who offers materials for a cost. These Materials provide magical effects that you slot into your weapons, armor, and trinkets to gain some type of magical benefit.
How do I obtain Materials?
Obtaining materials to upgrade your weapon and armor is a core part of Monster Hunter. The 2 most common ways to obtain material for you is carving materials off your kills or capturing larger creatures in the field. Occasionally a hunter may get lucky and come across a discarded material in the field, possibly from a creature shedding, or what was left over from another creature's kill. There is rumored to be a tradesman that travels from location to location that offers materials for a price.
Carving
Carving your kills is one of 2 ways to obtain materials while on a hunt. When you attempt to carve a creature, make a Dexterity (Survival) check against the creature's Carve DC. On a success, roll a d20 and compare the results to the creature’s loot table (Monster Hunter Loot Table PDF). On a failed save, treat the roll as if they rolled a 1 on the loot table.
Capturing
Certain creatures can be captured. A creature that can be captured will have a captured section of its loot table. Captured creatures may provide loot that you are unable to obtain, an increased or decreased chance to obtain certain loot that you may have gotten from carving. When you capture a creature, you obtain a number of materials as labeled in the creature's loot table. No check is made, but the material is not gathered until you return to town.
Equipment and Equipment Crafting are essentials of Monster Hunter 5e. Players will seek out monster materials to use to improve their weapons, armor, and consumables.
Upgrading and Rarity
When a character seeks to upgrade their equipment, they must have a specific quantity of a specific resource to do so. Such as five earth stone to upgrade a normal weapon to an uncommon one. In addition, they must pay 500 gp worth of materials and labor.
Part of the upgrading process is Rarity. There are 5 rarities of armor in Monster Hunter: common, uncommon, rare, very rare, and legendary. Each rarity has a number of slots the hunter can use to place monster materials in. These monster materials enchant their armor with magical effects. When armor increases in rarity it does not gain any additional AC. It’s worth noting that there are specific rules that limit the materials that you can place in your equipment. For example, your equipment can only have one damage-reduction material.
Resources
Below you will find a list of items a character can obtain from gathering resources while on a hunt. These resources range from bone piles to mushrooms. Many of them are crafting materials that can be combined together with other resources or monster materials to create useful items for your adventurers. Some of those that can be found are Bone piles, fish, insects, minerals, and more.
Common Weapon Material Effects
Artillery. While attuned to this weapon, your wyvern fire can now be used twice per long rest. (Feats and Class Features)
Taunt. When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to redirect the attack to you.
Uncommon Weapon Material Effects
Carver. You have advantage on your first carve attempt on a creature while you are attuned to this weapon.
Part breaker. You deal an extra 1d4 damage when you score a critical hit with this weapon.
Spirit's Whim. The first time you mine or gather on an expedition, you gain double the amount before or herbs you would normally receive.
Very Rare Weapon Material Effects
Honed Blade. This weapon's damage die is increased by1 size up to a maximum of a d10. A d6 becomes a d8, and a d8 becomes a d10.
Stamina Thief. Once per turn when you hit a creature with this weapon, it must make a DC 10Constitution saving throw or gain one level of exhaustion. A creature cannot gain more than 2 levels of exhaustion from this weapon's property.
Common Armor Material Effects
Botanist. When you successfully gather a plant resource, you instead gather 2.
Team player. You may use the help action as a bonus action twice per long rest.
Rare Armor Material Effects
Adrenaline. The first time you drop below half of your hit point maximum in combat, you gain a rush of adrenaline. On your next turn, your movement speed doubles and you can take one extra action.
Chain Crit. Every consecutive hit on a creature increases your crit range by 1 until you score a critical hit, miss an attack, or hit a different creature
While this is just a sample of all the fantastic content inside this homebrew supplement, we believe it is something that adds a lot of fun customization to player characters. If you’re a big fan of the Monster Hunter series or just looking to loot the monsters and use their bits and pieces as weapons and armor, then we highly recommend checking out Amellwind’s Guide to Monster Hunting.
Each 5e weapon and armor has a unique perk that lets you build them into your unique playstyle. Click to Learn More!
Unearthed Tips and Tricks
Monster: Poisoncaster
Origin Statblock: Lamia
Lost Features: Intoxicating touch, dagger, claws, spell list, swap dex/str
New Features:
Poisoned immunity
Dagger. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d4 +3) piercing damage and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 hour. If the saving throw fails by 5 or more, the target is also unconscious while poisoned in this way. The target wakes up if it takes damage or if another creature takes an action to shake it awake.
Channel (Recharge 5-6). The orc uses one of the following channel features.
Weakening Cloud. The orc conjures a blast of toxic gas in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or have disadvantage on Strength-based attack rolls, Strength checks, and Strength saving throws for 1 minute.
Poison Puddle. The orc conjures an eruption of poisonous liquid centered on a point it can see within 120 feet. The green poison puddle fills a 5-foot radius for 1d4 rounds. When a creature enters the puddle's area for the first time or starts its turn there, that creature must make a Constitution saving throw. The creature takes 5d8 poisoned damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Spell List.
At will: druidcraft, barkskin, healing word, fog cloud
3/day each: blight, entangle, speak with animals
1/day: polymorph
Encounter: Watering Hole
While traveling through a scorching desert, the characters spot a battle between goblins and kobolds. The goblins are under siege protecting their watering hole with a small village surrounding it. The only source of water within a dozen miles. The kobolds came to slay the goblins and steal their precious resource. The kicker is, both sides treat the characters as enemies unless a character can succeed on a DC 15 Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) check convincing either side they are allies. It's a simple contest, the party isn’t strong enough to defeat both sides, thus must wait for a winner, join a side, or bypass the battle entirely. A character that succeeds on a DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check notes the variety of humanoid corpses littered throughout the battlefield that doesn’t appear to be part of either side. These are the villagers that were killed previously for the water source by the goblins just a few days past.
Magic Item: Soul of Gaia Rune
Wondrous item uncommon (requires attunement)
This acorn of bark is about the size of a human child’s fist. The gaia (nature) rune appears on it in the form of a tree of life that runs along its surface. The acorn has the following properties, which work only while it’s on your person.
Commune with Geia. You can read, write and speak druidic.
Nature’s Spirit. You can’t be poisoned or diseased.
Earthen Grasp. You can cast entangle as a bonus action. Once you use this property, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Gift of Gaia. You can transfer the acorn’s magic to a nonmagical item,-a wooden weapon or shield-by tracing the gaia rune there with your finger. The transfer takes 8 hours of work that requires the two items be within 5 feet of each other. At the end, the acorn is destroyed, and the rune appears in green on the chosen item, which gains a benefit based on its form:
Shield. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
Wooden Weapon. Gaia’s strength is imbued within the weapon. You can use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of melee attacks using this weapon, and the weapon’s damage die becomes a d8. The weapon also becomes magical.
Dungeon Master Tip: Redefine Races and Lineage
A simple but extremely effective tool to bring your world to life and help it stand out among others is to simply redefine the races and their origins. For example, in most fantasy settings, elves are ancient and wise, benevolent forest dwellers who guard their territory from intruders. Simply changing them to a nomadic race of herders, peddler merchants and even thieves gives them a significantly different feel. Gnomes are often clever tinkerers with a love of song, dance and tricks; instead they’re brutal savage cannibals that will hunt down trespassers in their territory for sport. Whichever direction you choose, changes like this can truly make your world feel unique and memorable.
Player Tip: See you next Fall
Using the dominate person spell to create a pliable target can be seen by some as unsavory, but sometimes someone needs to be ‘convinced’ to step through a dimension door that unbeknownst to them opens 500 feet in the air, allowing you to drop them from a great height.
1. Cast the dominate person/charm person.
2. If the target fails their Wisdom saving throw, encourage them to accompany you as you cast dimension door. Select 500 feet straight up as the final destination of your teleport.
3. Once you and the target begin to fall, use your reaction to cast feather fall. If you let the target fall, they will take 20d6 falling damage. If you chose to include them as a target of your feather fall spell, you now have eight rounds of falling to cast spells targeting your opponent before reaching the ground.
Utility
This technique offers a clever way to use height against your enemies. Use this technique to:
• remove a powerful enemy from the battlefield.
• isolate and render an enemy effectively helpless for up to eight rounds.
• trick an enemy into a situation where they take massive falling damage.
Keep your blades sharp and spells prepared heroes!
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