anti monster weapons

[awa]

so I am designing a monster hunter game and I got to thinking most weapons are designed for humans, but varying monster bring different considerations into play. So im looking into what kind of specialized gear might develop to target unusual creature types. Assume no magic for the hunters, and standard fantasy technology (ie full plate but not guns).

what I already have
harpoons for big monsters
man-catchers for monster with exotic DR
spiked bracers for monsters that bite

[Lord Torath]

Weighted, hooked nets. Anything with a non-morphable form (ie no puddings, oozes, non-shelled cephalapods, etc.)

[Tinkerer]

Greek Fire - Creatures which require energy type weapons to combat

Additionally in such a world I imagine towns would most likely be laden with traps and defensive measures. Since walls don't offer a guarantee of safety.

[Knaight]

Battle shovels for oozes, razor wire rackets for swarms (with thin blades working as a substitute if the metallurgy isn't there yet), small sling pellets used in a buckshot like fashion (probably 4-6 per shot) for flying creatures and good old fashioned poison all come to mind.

[awa]

Weighted, hooked nets. Anything with a non-morphable form (ie no puddings, oozes, non-shelled cephalapods, etc.)

I actually think barbed nets might work well on cephalapods they would have to rip free of the hooks

[Jackalias]

Sorry I accidentally deleted my post

Boar spears
Molotov cocktails
Military picks and hammers
Something to mark targets that might go invisible
Caltrops would probably be invaluable for stopping charges
One of these things for hordes, maybe a seige version for bigger creatures
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow
Finally clawed gauntlets for if you got disarmed.

[Slipperychicken]

Net made of chains

Concentrated drow poison

Wheeled walls. Like the ones used in sieges.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Are you hunting the monsters as in tracking them and engaging when and how it suits you, or do you expect you might semi-suddenly need to stop the monsters from doing something?

[awa]

While the pcs wont always get the option to prepare and plan it is the default assumption. I guess what i'm saying is the pcs will generally know at least roughly what has been causing problems but they will then need to track it down and cant assume it wont try and turn the tables

[KarlMarx]

Polyboloi.

A small group of monster hunters can easily carry it between themselves, but when it's set up it'll machine-shoot darts with more force and accuracy than any man-carried weapon.

[Bohandas]

does holy water count as magic? Because there's lots that can be done combining that with the fact that water can be frozen or boiled. You could make a holy pykrete club

[awa]

holy water isn't a thing in the setting

[kentran]

Net made of chains

Concentrated drow poison

Wheeled walls. Like the ones used in sieges.

This I thought is pretty interesting.

[awa]

Unfortunately not practical for the monster hunters in my particular setting
no drow
and carrying walls into the wilderness is probably more trouble then its worth

a chain net might work but I'm trying to decide how heavy it would be, i cant imagine you could throw it very far

[Slipperychicken]

Unfortunately not practical for the monster hunters in my particular setting
no drow
and carrying walls into the wilderness is probably more trouble then its worth

a chain net might work but I'm trying to decide how heavy it would be, i cant imagine you could throw it very far

Well, if the idea of knockout poison works for your setting, you could reskin the drow poison.

A barrier might work if stored in a cart, then assembled on-site as needed.

I'm not certain about the weight of a metal net either.

[Lord Torath]

Ooh! A chance to do some math!

This website lists a 1/4-inch wire rope that weighs 0.12 pounds per foot and has a rated capacity of 3.4 tons (6800 lbs). But 0.25 inch wire rope is probably overkill. Let's go with 1/8th inch diameter wire rope, which weighs a quarter as much (and also has roughly a quarter of the strength - 1700 lbs). So call it 0.5 ounces (1/32 lbs) per foot. A 10'x10' net is big enough to catch most roughly man-sized creatures. Assuming a rope spacing of four inches gives us 31 strands in each direction, for a total of 62 ten-foot strands of wire rope. 820ft x 0.03 lbs/foot = 18.6 lbs. Heavy, but not completely unusable.

If we increase the spacing to 6 inches, we end up with 420 feet of wire rope, weighing in at 12.6 lbs. Heavy, but monster hunter teams could easily bring several of these on any particular monster-hunting expedition.

[Max_Killjoy]

Polyboloi.

A small group of monster hunters can easily carry it between themselves, but when it's set up it'll machine-shoot darts with more force and accuracy than any man-carried weapon.

The rate of fire is such that I don't see why a human loader wouldn't be just as fast, more reliable, and an extra person to maintain and move the weapon -- while lack of the mechanism would make the weapon lighter and less complicated.

IMO, it's more reasonable to see early self-loading mechanisms like these in static defensive use, where weight is less of an issue and getting more weapons up and firing is important.

[awa]

did you actually find a rate of fire per minute?
I looked and could not find anything other than, faster than contemporary balistas which is not particularly helpful

Ooh! A chance to do some math!

This website lists a 1/4-inch wire rope that weighs 0.12 pounds per foot and has a rated capacity of 3.4 tons (6800 lbs). But 0.25 inch wire rope is probably overkill. Let's go with 1/8th inch diameter wire rope, which weighs a quarter as much (and also has roughly a quarter of the strength - 1700 lbs). So call it 0.5 ounces (1/32 lbs) per foot. A 10'x10' net is big enough to catch most roughly man-sized creatures. Assuming a rope spacing of four inches gives us 31 strands in each direction, for a total of 62 ten-foot strands of wire rope. 820ft x 0.03 lbs/foot = 18.6 lbs. Heavy, but not completely unusable.

If we increase the spacing to 6 inches, we end up with 420 feet of wire rope, weighing in at 12.6 lbs. Heavy, but monster hunter teams could easily bring several of these on any particular monster-hunting expedition.

Carrying it isn't the problem using it is I dont think you can throw a 12 pound net very well.
Though i could see the weighted barbed net talked about before having bits of metal wire woven into it at key points to make it harder to cut.

Well, if the idea of knockout poison works for your setting, you could reskin the drow poison.

A barrier might work if stored in a cart, then assembled on-site as needed.

I'm not certain about the weight of a metal net either.

poison is included in the game the monster hunters use a lot of alchemy items but Ive basically got those figured out already

The setting pretty mountainous and monsters lurk off the beaten path so a cart is no guarantee but it did get me thinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudis_(stake) could work their a lot less bulky then a wall but can still make a decent barricade. They would also be cheap to make and could be abandoned quickly

[Max_Killjoy]

did you actually find a rate of fire per minute?
I looked and could not find anything other than, faster than contemporary balistas which is not particularly helpful

The major delay between shots is running the "slider" forward and then cranking the "string" back, not the loading. Adding the loading mechanism doesn't appear to reduce time between shots by much.

[awa]

in that case its likely the weapon is like a Chinese repeating crossbow trading penetration for rate of fire

[Evoker]

Tame/caged large predatory animals. Release 10 bears into the goblin infested forest. Come back in a month, and the goblins will be gone. You just have to chase the bears back into cages.

[Max_Killjoy]

in that case its likely the weapon is like a Chinese repeating crossbow trading penetration for rate of fire

Not in this case.

95+% of the time between shots is "string" movement. The torsion mechanism itself is the same as other "models", so the power is about the same.

The only real benefit is that you don't need a loader, or for one of the other crew to take time to load -- it's more manpower efficient in battle.

[Lord Torath]

Carrying it isn't the problem using it is I dont think you can throw a 12 pound net very well.
Though i could see the weighted barbed net talked about before having bits of metal wire woven into it at key points to make it harder to cut.

I don't know that it'd be any harder to throw than a hemp/silk rope net, and would likely have a similar range. As you throw the thing, you give it a slight spin (frisbee-style) to encourage it to open, and the effective range for a thrown net is 5-15 feet. Not being an expert (or even a semi-competent) net-thrower, though, I will defer to anyone who is.

[awa]

Tame/caged large predatory animals. Release 10 bears into the goblin infested forest. Come back in a month, and the goblins will be gone. You just have to chase the bears back into cages.

At least for the setting in question this is a wildly impractical idea for a number of reason not the least of witch you have just replaced the previous monster with killer bears.

[Sredni Vashtar]

At least for the setting in question this is a wildly impractical idea for a number of reason not the least of witch you have just replaced the previous monster with killer bears.

True, but bears are animals, not monsters. So, it's someone else's problem now.

[CharonsHelper]

I'll +1 some sort of Greek Fire. (alchemist's fire in D&D terms)

As long as the monster in question isn't resistant to fire, Greek Fire seems like a good way for bunches of low-grade soldiers to take down big dumb monsters as their touch ACs tend to be crappy. (I've used it in D&D as the touch attack makes hitting easy even for level 1 mooks.)

[Slipperychicken]

I'll +1 some sort of Greek Fire. (alchemist's fire in D&D terms)

As long as the monster in question isn't resistant to fire, Greek Fire seems like a good way for bunches of low-grade soldiers to take down big dumb monsters as their touch ACs tend to be crappy. (I've used it in D&D as the touch attack makes hitting easy even for level 1 mooks.)

I'd say just go with oil since it's a lot cheaper and does similar damage if you land it.

Unless you've got some serious budget and low manpower, 50 gold a pop isn't very practical. If your monster-hunters are already low-level they might as well just spend that kind of cash hiring some slingers or archers, and maybe have them ignite their missiles and throw oil. But if as a GM you don't care about the cost and want battles to be simpler to adjudicate (i.e. don't want to track exactly which squares are splashed, whether they've been burned, etc), then it's not an issue.

[awa]

True, but bears are animals, not monsters. So, it's someone else's problem now.

its a low power setting so a man eating tiger or bear is definitely part of the pcs job description.

I'll +1 some sort of Greek Fire. (alchemist's fire in D&D terms)

As long as the monster in question isn't resistant to fire, Greek Fire seems like a good way for bunches of low-grade soldiers to take down big dumb monsters as their touch ACs tend to be crappy. (I've used it in D&D as the touch attack makes hitting easy even for level 1 mooks.)

its a home brew setting so d&d specific mechanics are not necessarily relevant im mostly looking for plausible mechanical weapons like the barbed net for the non-magical specialist class to have

the system actually uses a kind of armor as dr so all attacks are touch attacks, that said monster hunters do use alchemy and a variety of different fire bombs are options for them to take.

[Slipperychicken]

the system actually uses a kind of armor as dr so all attacks are touch attacks, that said monster hunters do use alchemy and a variety of different fire bombs are options for them to take.

How about concoctions intended to stun, blind, weaken, or disorient monsters?

I guess this isn't necessarily weapons, but monster-hunters could also do well to have bait of various kinds. Perhaps scents, decoys, or even noise-makers meant to attract or repel different kinds of monsters. Say if the hunters want to ambush a monster, they might find an animal or plant it really likes and put attractive scents or tracks leading to the ambush-site.

Also, bear traps (and snares, and others in that category) would be a good idea for some monsters, especially ones that aren't very smart or whose movements can be reliably predicted. Hurting monsters while impairing their mobility could really help save the lives of hunters.

[CharonsHelper]

I'd say just go with oil since it's a lot cheaper and does similar damage if you land it.

Unless you've got some serious budget and low manpower, 50 gold a pop isn't very practical.

I don't know about other editions off the top of my head - but alchemist's fire is only 20gp in Pathfinder, and acid is 10gp. You're probably better off with bows against something pretty mundane, but stuff with massive natural armor and/or decent DR can basically ignore mundane bows.

Ex: An iron golem's AC 28 & DR 15/adamantium make it able to shrug off mooks' mundane attacks on anything but two 20's (roll a 20 to hit & another to crit). But get 10 mooks with backpacks full of acid and/or alchemist fire vials and some room to skirmish and it's going down in a few rounds since they can just chuck them at max range (at it's pitiful touch AC of 8 - so most will it - and those that don't still deal 1dmg on the splash). With it's 20ft movement they can just keep scattering and chucking vials at 50ft.

Even a thousand or so gold (enough for 100 acid or 50 alchemist fire, or possibly 1/2 of each) worth of alchemic weapons is pretty cheap for a village to be able to take down something that big & nasty.

Even higher touch AC targets can be dealt with this way if they're slow enough, but they'll be relying more on the 1hp splash.

its a home brew setting so d&d specific mechanics are not necessarily relevant im mostly looking for plausible mechanical weapons like the barbed net for the non-magical specialist class to have

I don't think that nets are as effective as you think they are. There's a reason that hunters didn't/don't use them unless they're specifically going out of their way to take something alive.