D&D: ‘Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting’ – This Monster Hunter Themed Splatbook Comes to D&D Beyond
Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part One is Loot Tavern’s take on making D&D play more like the Monster Hunter series—now on D&D Beyond.
A new monster hunting sourcebook lands on D&D Beyond just in time for people to have mixed feelings about Monster Hunter: Wilds. And I’m not being playful. When Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting initially crowdfunded, it wasn’t shy about its inspiration. To wit, Konami’s Monster Hunter series about finding big monsters, killing them, and harvesting their parts to make incrementally better (and much cooler looking) gear was at the heart of the $1.8 million Kickstarter.
Now, Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part One has hit D&D Beyond, giving a whole new round of players a chance to see if they will be up to the challenge of hunting, carving, and cooking monsters that pack a bit more of a punch.
Of course, you’ll have to get past the fact that there aren’t Palicos anywhere in the book, and you’ll have to dream up your own cooking animations, first.
Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part One
The original Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting is a massive, 600 page book. It’s been broken up for accessibility on D&D Beyond—so they say in the video. Though I don’t wonder if there’s some kind of weird file limit in the backend. Either way, in Part One, you get a lot of the monster hunting essentials:
- 4 new subclasses
- College of Fleshweaving Bard
- Circle of the Hive Druid
- Oath of the Harvest Paladin
- Biomancy Wizard
- 5 new species
- Cnidaran
- Cyclopian
- Gobboc
- Golynn
- Rakin
- 13 new feats
- 29 new spells
- 5 “Monster Hunts”
The Monster Hunts are probably one of the biggest draws about the book. These are adventures that turn “fighting a monster” into more of an ordeal. You’ll stalk your prey, try to learn about it, and then when you eventually take it down, there’s rules for harvesting its parts. Get in there and carve so you can craft new weapons and armor. There’s an intricate crafting system, if that’s your kink. You can use monster parts to upgrade your gear.
And of course, there’s cooking. You can make magical meals which give you different effects which may well kit you out for your next big hunt. These rules, it goes without saying, really only work if your DM is willing to put in the work to make them challenging. So, keep that in mind,
Happy adventuring!
