Main Equipment

Equipment and Equipment Crafting are essentials of Monster Hunter. Players will seek out monster materials to improve their weapons and armor, and to create consumables. Below you will find the rules for weapons, armors and trinkets.

Magical Items

Magical items do not exist in Monster Hunter the same way that they do in a normal D&D game. You cannot find or obtain a Flame Tongue Long sword, a Staff of Frost or any other magical armor, weapon, or wonderous items. Instead, when you kill or capture a creature, the party receives a number of materials that can be inserted into their weapons and armor to gain their magical effects. Think of it as a "create your own magical items."

Attunement

When you finish a Short or Long rest you can attune to one weapon, one armor, and two trinkets. You cannot attune to one weapons or armor each at a time. Additionally, only one attuned trinket is active at a time, granting you the material effect placed inside of it. As an action, you can swap between which trinket is active.

An unattuned armor or weapon acts as a common version, no matter its rarity; preventing the use of the weapon properties it gained from the rarity increase and rendering any materials inside their slots disabled until attuned.

Trinkets

Trinkets in Monster Hunter are not just for show. They have 1 material slot that you can place a weapon or armor material into and still gain their benefit as if it was in a weapon or armor set. You can have up to two trinkets on you at a time, but you only gain the effect of one of the trinkets at a time. As an action, you can swap which trinket effect you are using. Players can choose a trinket from any sourcebook or perhaps a trophy from a creature they have hunted. If they do not find something they like on the list, the player can work with the GM to choose an appropriate trinket for their setting.

Trinket Rules

If the material grants an effect such as extra damage on weapon attacks, or requires the armor to be worn, then it only works on armor or weapons you are attuned to.

Rarity & Slots

There are 5 rarities of armor and weapons in Monster Hunter: common, uncommon, rare, very rare, and legendary. Each rarity has 1-5 slots the hunter can use to place monster materials in. These monster materials enchant their armor or weapon with magical effects. When armor increases in rarity it does not gain any additional AC.

Material Rules

Below you will find a set of rules that limit the materials that you can place in your armor and weapon, to provide a fair and balanced game:

1. A material can only be replaced with another material. Once replaced the previous material is destroyed.
2. Materials do not stack with improved versions of their effects, including unnamed materials (IE: detect does not stack with detect+ or critical eye+1 does not stack with critical eye+2)
3. Your armor and weapon can only have one effect each that uses runes.
4. Your armor can only have one material that grants a bonus to AC.
5. Your armor can only have one damage reduction, resistance, or immunity to any one damage type.
6. Your armor can only have one advantage or immunity vs a condition such as poisoned, frightened, or prone.
7. A weapon can only have one bonus to spell DC and spell attack rolls.
8. A weapon can only have one extra damage, condition inflicting, or on-hit effect material. The extra damage material rule doesn't apply to materials that have a requirement to deal that extra damage, such as the partbreaker effect found on the Gravios Carapace material.

Armor

Armor in the Monster Hunter universe is comprised of all nonmagical armor in the PHB and uses the standard rules for the armor. This armor can be enhanced at the Smithy using materials you obtain while out on a hunt. They usually have the look and feel of the monsters utilized to enhance the armor.

A class that does not use armor such as a barbarian, monk, or some spellcasters can choose a piece of clothing as their armor. For example, this could be a robe, a tunic, or a loincloth. This armor provides no AC increase, but they can have their rarity upgrade the same way as a normal piece of armor can be to increase the material slots for magical effects.

Shields

Shields in the Monster Hunter universe can only be used with a weapon that already provides it. Any AC bonus it may provide is increased as the weapon's rarity changes, as shown in the weapon's information.

Weapons

Your class grants proficiency in certain weapons, reflecting both the class's focus and the tools you are most likely to use. Whether you favor an insect glaive or a heavy bowgun, your weapon and your ability to wield it effectively can mean the difference between life and death while adventuring. Your proficiency also means that weapons that come paired with a 2nd one (Dual Blades, Tonfas) or with a shield (Sword & Shield, Lances), are drawn together as one free action.

There are 17 types of weapons in the Monster Hunter universe: Charge Blade, Dual Blades, Great Sword, Gunlance, Hammer, Hunting Horn, Insect Glaive, Lance, Longsword, Magnet Spike, Magus Staff, Switchaxe, Sword & Shield, Tonfas, Bow, Light Bowgun, and Heavy Bowgun.

These are the only weapons available to the players and other npcs. Standard D&D weapons do not exist in this world. Weapon proficiencies have been reassigned to classes.

A character can choose to attune to an “unarmed item” instead of a weapon, such as handwraps, gauntlets, or knuckles. This item is treated as a weapon for upgrading, attunement and material placement. This item has no special properties except that it offers 1 additional material slot per rarity level. E.g. an uncommon "unarmed item" would have 3 material slots rather than 2.

Upgrading your Armor & Weapon

When you want to upgrade your armor or weapon, consult the table below. Once you have the correct number of resources, a smithy will upgrade your gear for the cost listed. It takes one week to complete the process. Some creature materials will state that it is a "rarity" armor crafting material, these can be used in place of the resources listed in the table.