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[Baleur]

Is this normal? First time playing with 0.44
I am playing in a world with large beasts on High, but yeah..
First guy that joined kinda shocked me (not reading patchnotes does that to you), "WHAT? You can get visitors now?!"
Further scared when he told me "I heard this is a good place to hunt monsters". Oh dear this cant end well.

But now, 6 of them joined, with bronze and silver gear and weaponry, elite soldiers now milling around my fort.
I feel like i barely even need to set up a military squad at this rate, if they keep coming 3 per season!
It does make me a bit scared though, do they "spawn" this rapidly because my embark location is destined for serious hellspawns in the future?

[EDog]

You can expect to see a lot more of them--I had a fort accumulate 30 or 40 of them in just a few years. I've also had one without a single visitor in 20-ish years, but I think that's because I only generated 2 years of history for that world, and none of the civs had any time to create monster hunters. That, or my location is just too boring for them (calm surroundings).

[Shonai_Dweller]

Remember they're independent. You can't make a squad out of monster slayers. That makes for a pretty unreliable defence. (I hear Therapist can cheat them into squads of you really need to).

[Baleur]

Probably because i settled right next to my own civilization's mountainhomes.
I'm not used to things being so active in the world lol.
In my last game the only dwarven civ in the world was dying, and the queen herself moved into my fort O_o

[PatrikLundell]

If your monster hunters are elite you're lucky. They can just as well come with wooden weapons. As mentioned, they can't be controlled and usually get themselves killed fairly quickly when attacking cavern critters. This can provide you with some useful gear (if they had any), but also causes your dorfs to run into danger to recover the corpse bits left behind (as whatever killed them is probably still there), and to get them to go to the caverns you have to leave passages open, which means you have to leave your fortress open to cavern critters. On top of this, when you open up a cavern they can very well decide that it's more interesting to continue to socialize in the tavern than go to "work", and once down there they soon have to get back up because they get hungry/thirsty.

Not surprisingly, I refuse all of them, as I think they're more trouble than they're worth, but those who have a less security focused/paranoid play style may get some use out of them.

[Saiko Kila]

As others say monster hunters are not unusual. I say that you got a very small number of them. I got over 80 in first two years, far more than actual dwarf population. If you don't have taverns, libraries (and probably temples), then monster hunters can be the ONLY visitors you get. You need to only breach caverns once to keep them coming (you can seal them afterwards immediately, doesn't stop them).

They go to your boss-man quickly after entering the fort and ask for resident status, without waiting about two years as most other visitors. Then they drink and eat your stuff, unless you actually open the caverns for them. My monster slayers began dying of old age after year 3rd, some of them apparently were pensioners, hoping for a nice, quiet retirement (which they got).

[Bradders]

I'm with Patrick here, I hate the buggers.  They're usefulness is variable and marginal, at best.  They might do some exploration for you, but mostly they will wander into something they shouldn't, and die, causing no end of struggles to bury the body, reclaim the equipment, and do it all safely.  Before they die, they sit around in your fort consuming your booze and food producing nothing.  Without squads and orders (like mercenaries), they can't be ordered to defend anything usefully.  I refuse almost every single one of them.

Exceptions: family members and/or legendary trained dwarves.  My current fort has my mason's monster-slayer-daughter visiting the fort, and she's a legendary spear dwarf with iron and copper equipment.  She can stay.  I just make sure to airlock the caverns to keep her safe.  Don't want daddy getting upset, now, do we?

[Eschar]

If they turn out to be useless, you can always drown them for their equipment.

[Saiko Kila]

One of my monster slayers has bravery 1. She is over 130 years old, so I suppose it's too late to complain to her career advisor.  Actually, many of monster slayers are kind of crappy, with low bravery and even lower intelligence scores. I have tons of them, and still waiting for some witcher-type, so I can unleash him on the caves.

I've noticed that monster slayers (both wannabe and rejected) are often attacked by siegers, unlike bards, poets and the like. I don't know what were they thinking trying to leave the fortress during siege, or coming there.

[PatrikLundell]

Given the survivability of monster slayers, it's fitting for them to have an incredibly poor intelligence. Monster slayers are military types like mercs, and so are attacked by goblin siegers, while visiting civilians are (usually) let through. Necros don't care, of course: they attack everything. Visitors try to leave when it's time to leave, regardless of sieges, and they also arrive regardless of sieges (as opposed to migrants and merchants, who have the sense to stay away).

[Leonidas]

Given the survivability of monster slayers, it's fitting for them to have an incredibly poor intelligence.

For example, they seem to think that it's fine to bring a spear when battling the undead.

[Saiko Kila]

Given the survivability of monster slayers, it's fitting for them to have an incredibly poor intelligence. Monster slayers are military types like mercs, and so are attacked by goblin siegers, while visiting civilians are (usually) let through. Necros don't care, of course: they attack everything. Visitors try to leave when it's time to leave, regardless of sieges, and they also arrive regardless of sieges (as opposed to migrants and merchants, who have the sense to stay away).

I got a siege from gobbos (led by a single human), with beak dogs and trolls. The beak dogs massacre everyone who approaches my fort - sages, scholars, wolf men, poets, performing troupes. They are truly generalists. Trolls on the other hand do attack like gobbos, but this also means neutral animals (like muskoxes or horses).

At the same time a group of six necros wanted to visit the fort, hiding in shadows. They were revealed in an entry tunnel by a rejected monster slayer leaving my fort (not my dwarf, they all were deep inside the fortress because of alert). After reveal they retreated and ran away. Maybe they weren't attacking anyone because they forgot to bring their zombies.

[PatrikLundell]

Necros generally flee when detected if skulking (as do goblin snatchers, kobolds, and gremlins).

[RurikGreenwulf]

Well I mostly just let them go into the caverns then I wall them off
Right now I'm on a terrifying biome so the giant toads and cave crocodiles they kill came back as corpses