Monster Hunters: New information, leaks, and sample characters!

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by B9anders

For monster hunting purposes, I wouldn't really consider Buddhism relevant in regards to specific info on monsters and spirits of any particular kind.

Indian Buddhism basically borrows from Hinduism with minor adaptations, Tibetan from Bon, East-Asian from China and Japanese from Shinto. The only beings really unique to Buddhism are bodhisattvas and they are hardly relevant for monster hunters.

Where Buddhism is relevant is a generic monster-hunting skill for taming ghosts, spirits, deities and supernatural beings of all kinds. This is a feature of Buddhist traditions everywhere. The way to spread the Buddhadharma in a new region seems to generally have been to go in and tame the local deities then convert them. Local humans then tended to follow suit.

Most famous is Padmasambhava who travelled all over Tibet to tame and convert the often very violent deities there and turning them into Dharma protectors, but the same pattern is prevalent in China, Japan and south-east Asia as well.

Buddhist mendicants seem to be the monster-hunters extraordinaire in Asia. Which is a bit funny considering I don't recall coming across any text that deals with this topic as such. It seems to follow a basic formula of strong virtue to protect, advanced meditational skills to actually be able to commune with the spirits, wise eloquence to tame them and possibly a mantra or two trhown in for magical effect.

Sure, but a Buddhist monk is still not going to have Theology (Shamanistic) when he knows nothing about shamanistic dogma, beliefs, practices. He'll have Theology (Buddhist), whether or not it offers a lot of knowledge about monsters deriving from earlier beliefs, although I'd probably say it did because there would be plenty of stories about how various Buddhist mendicants defeated various of the old demons and monsters, starting with Gautama defending against Mara under the Bodhi tree. Likewise, Theology (Abrahamic) does just fine for knowing about vampires, I would think, even though beliefs in vampiric entities and bloodthirsty spirits goes back well before conversion to Christianity.

But Theology specializations are primarily defined by belief, dogma, etc., and only secondarily (however usefully) by what monsters they help you identify.

[Novembermike]

As far as I can tell, Theology is a monster hunter skill here and not a priest skill. If a player wanted to play a Buddhist monk I'd probably just run the monsters through an asian equivalent filter, let him use his theology (buddhism) and call it a day, but that seems like all you really need to do. The choice the devs made was simply genre savvy, so I'd feel free to change it if I'm not sticking to their genre (western monster hunters).

[griffin]

Originally Posted by Langy

It's not compatible at all with GURPS 4e's rapid fire rules, since 4e's rapid fire rules seem to be kinda-sorta based upon them to begin with (though with some big changes, like there being a bonus for how many shots fired and you hit one extra bullet per multiple of Rcl rather than there being a penalty to hit due to auto fire and you miss by your margin of failure). It also makes it so each bullet does average damage rather than making you roll.

Actually the rule I'm particularly interested in is not necessarily something I'd confine to autofire. It's the pre-caluclated DAMAGE. No dice are rolled. Damage is 3.5 points per dice + adds. Record the damage on the character sheet for easy reference.

I wouldn't use this for handling "boss" battles or the "big bad" but it's very useful when dealing with large groups of monsters like zombie hordes, vampire gangs, and mummy armies.

Rolling damage can be very time consuming and bog down game play, especially in cases where the typical result is "monster is mowed down in a hail of bullets". I'm not sure some of the combat scenes for Blade films that feature lots of vampire enemies would play out very quickly using GURPS RAW.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Novembermike

As far as I can tell, Theology is a monster hunter skill here and not a priest skill. If a player wanted to play a Buddhist monk I'd probably just run the monsters through an asian equivalent filter, let him use his theology (buddhism) and call it a day, but that seems like all you really need to do. The choice the devs made was simply genre savvy, so I'd feel free to change it if I'm not sticking to their genre (western monster hunters).

The way I solved this in my modern monster hunter game was to have Occultism, not Theology, be the go-to skill for knowing mundane countermeasures that might work on monsters, magics and curses, divided into specialities that covered threats in any grouping that made sense to me or the players. Theology is a scholarly skill that has been very useful for recognising what kind of Ritual Magic someone is using or even working as a supporting skill for the characters own Thaumatology or Ritual Magic skills.

That way, characters can have Occultisim (Vampires) and be familiar with vampires of a range of mythologies, subject to cultural familiarities possessed by the character. He could also just have Occultism (Jewish Mysticism) and be familiar with mundane countermeasures against any monsters or magical effects that might appear anywhere in the myths of the Jewish people.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by griffin

I wouldn't use this for handling "boss" battles or the "big bad" but it's very useful when dealing with large groups of monsters like zombie hordes, vampire gangs, and mummy armies.

Rolling damage can be very time consuming and bog down game play, especially in cases where the typical result is "monster is mowed down in a hail of bullets". I'm not sure some of the combat scenes for Blade films that feature lots of vampire enemies would play out very quickly using GURPS RAW.

I think the go-to RAW rule for this situation is Cannon Fodder; there's no need to roll damage if one hit takes out the target automatically. But I could see Average Damage being used to good effect in a battle against several worthies, who don't go down automatically but don't merit the detail of a boss fight.

[PK]

Originally Posted by griffin

Actually the rule I'm particularly interested in is not necessarily something I'd confine to autofire. It's the pre-caluclated DAMAGE. No dice are rolled. Damage is 3.5 points per dice + adds. Record the damage on the character sheet for easy reference.

Oh yes, that's in there. Specifically, it's in MH2 (p. 21), though, with the other rules on simplifying and streamlining gunplay. (Many of which I adapted from Action 2, BTW, because it would've been silly to reinvent the wheel when the good Dr. Kromm came up with a wheel that rolled so well!) There are a ton of rules directed at keeping combat simple while also allowing for atmosphere and environment to play a huge part -- after all, a fight in a cramped, unlit tomb should feel much different from a daytime fight in a swamp.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by griffin

Rolling damage can be very time consuming and bog down game play, especially in cases where the typical result is "monster is mowed down in a hail of bullets". I'm not sure some of the combat scenes for Blade films that feature lots of vampire enemies would play out very quickly using GURPS RAW.

You could make a modification of "armor as dice" and do "hit points as dice" as well.

Note I'm making this up on the spot.

Convert HP to dice. Convert armor DR to dice.

To look at wounding, subtract DR from every hit (in dice).

Subtract residual damage dice from HP dice.

Assuming a human, if you only have 1d left, you're at Move/2, etc.

If you have 0 to -HP dice left, roll for KO

Each multiple of HP dice causes a death check at -1.

So you have a 6d battle rifle that hits a diseased evil thing 3 times. No DR, and 4d HP (tough diseased evil thing). That's 18d vs 4d, or -14d. Roll HT-3 or die, and roll KO every turn. Or if you invoke Mook rules, below zero he's KOed, and negative HP dice and he's KOed and dying, -5xHP dice and he's dead. With my 4d example, the thresholds are probably 1d, 0, -4d, and -20d.