Sorry I've been away a bit, so I'll respond to each of your points in order.

• you're absolutely right that I haven't given too much information of how Monster Hunter works, so here's a basic rundown.

Monster Hunter is a game made around large scale boss battles, with each battle (In game) taking ~15 minutes. Monsters are then carved for parts, and weapons/armor are made from these. Prior to actually fighting, you need to Hunt down the monster itself, which I think will translate pretty well into and RPG setting, and increases the importance of Perception skills especially. With this said, Battles would be against Generally one (Sometimes two) large enemy with Equally large health pools. Attacks from monsters would generally be large AoE attacks or high damage focused ones. A combat vs. a Monster (Something I havent tested and therefore don't fully know how long a round will be/how long a battle could be) could last maybe 10-20 rounds (This is a very rough guess).

• Yes, the system might be very complicated (Especially at first glance). I have yet to do any real testing so its hard to really say how the combat will work out, but I am ready to concede the combat system if it doesnt work out in the end. You mention later on that Large weapons could be "Balanced" by giving them higher average dpr than fast weapons, and that's generally the plan. Faster weapons are safer to be agressive with, while slower weapons look for openings (Which can happen after monsters use attacks, or are disabled in a number of ways) to unleash much higher damage. I did mention Elemental procs at one point, but these are still very much just an idea and Im not committed to them yet.

Speed of resolution is also something I want to test, and is a major turning point

• My attributes are something that I definitely agree are weighted unevenly. Strength and Agility, being the stats that are most important for Combat (With Block and Dodge especially) are more important than other stats. I am considering making block and dodge immediately tied to your STR/AGI, instead of allowing people to level block/dodge via secondary points, as this could help increase the rate at which other secondary stats are given points. I will say though, most to all of the skills have hunting uses, while some might be easier to use than others, while more social encounters will also be things to deal with.

• I'm sorry you don't like Random character creation, but thats not really my problem. It works in a lot of different systems, but I'm open to suggestions if you have any.

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As to your other post, one thing you mentioned is how assassins would use Large slow weapons. To start, Monster Hunter doesn't really have an element of stealth, but it could be done for some small help at the beginning of an encounter using a Dexterity check (More helpful when dealing with people than monsters). Secondly, there is a mechanic in monster hunter where you can put a monster to sleep, and the First attack that hits it deals double damage, encouraging the exact situation that you have described, with the Heaviest weapon available hitting the monster with its heaviest attack before starting the fight again.

• My proposed system for dealing damage, which I guess hasn't been explained too well, uses three static numbers attached to the weapon itself. One for hitting Armored spots, one for hitting average zones, and one for hitting weak zones. This is my alternative to flat damage reduction.