Hunter Class in 99 Nights in the Forest

The Hunter is the entry-level way to make the forest give you more of what you already kill. It costs 40 Diamonds, hands you two bear traps at the start, and then spends three levels on two drop-rate bonuses and one extra trade with the Pelt Trader.

That last one — the extra Wolf Pelt trade — is the reason this page exists. Our own Pelt Trader page says plainly that nobody found a source naming the fifth rung's pelt or its reward. The answer has been sitting on the Hunter's level 3 perk description the whole time. We deal with it below.

Quick Answer

Hunter Names Four Different Things

Before anything else, because this is where most confusion starts: the word "Hunter" is attached to four unrelated things in this game, and only one of them is the class on this page.

Searching for "Hunter" in a guide will hand you the other three as often as this one.

What Every Level Gives You

There is no passive-on-unlock beyond the traps. The whole class is three upgrades:

Two wikis and one secondary write-up all give the same perk text. The requirement numbers are the less common half of the information — we found them stated identically on two sources (one wiki and one secondary guide), and the third wiki we checked publishes the perks without the counters.

What We Can Add Up: 610 Animals to Max Out

Here is our arithmetic, and we mark it as ours because no source adds it up.

The two level requirements are separate counters:

• Level 2: 120 bunnies + 120 wolves
• Level 3: 120 Alpha wolves + 250 wolves

Add the wolf counts together within one run and maxing the Hunter means killing roughly:

120 bunnies + 370 wolves + 120 Alpha wolves = about 610 animals

That is our multiplication of published figures, not a number any source states. Two things make it an estimate rather than a fact:

1. We assumed the counters accumulate. If each requirement is counted fresh, the wolf total is 370 across both levels; if the wolf counter carries over, the two requirements overlap and the real total is lower. No source says which.
2. Nobody publishes whether the counter is per-run or permanent. A class level does not say "this run only" or "forever," so we cannot tell you whether 610 animals is a single-run commitment or a lifetime one.

The comparison worth making is not against other classes' costs — it is that the 40-Diamond Hunter asks for more animals than the 600-Diamond Big Game Hunter does (that one needs 220 wolves and 150 pelts used). We spell that out below, because the instinct that cheap means quick to max is exactly backwards here.

The Drop Rates Nobody Published

Both payoffs are drop rates, and every source describes them in words only:

• Level 1: an increased meat drop rate
• Level 2: a slightly higher pelt drop rate

We checked the Hunter pages of two wikis, a secondary guide, a Russian-language tier list and a secondary round-up. Not one of them prints a percentage. So we are not going to invent one, and neither should you plan around a number that does not exist.

What we can say, because it follows from mechanics rather than from a statistic:

• The pelt drop rate is the useful one. Pelts are what the Pelt Trader asks for, and his chain runs Bunny Foot to Wolf Pelt to Alpha Wolf Pelt to Bear Pelt. A higher pelt rate shortens that chain.
• The meat drop rate is the early-game one. It smooths hunger before the trader exists, which is most of Day 1 and 2.
• Neither applies outside killing animals. Drop-rate perks act on animal drops. They do not make cultists or chests give you more.

Level 3: What the Fifth Trade Actually Is

This is the part our Pelt Trader page has to leave open, and it does not have to.

Reaching Hunter level 3 takes the Pelt Trader chain from four trades to five. Every source agrees that happens. What they say the fifth one is, consistently across three sources, is:

an extra Wolf Pelt trade

That settles the question our Pelt Trader page raised. The fifth rung is not a fifth pelt — it is one more Wolf Pelt rung, a repeat of the second rung of the chain. Practically, it means you can walk away with one more thing from the Wolf Pelt rung than a non-Hunter can.

One honest limit: "extra Wolf Pelt trade" tells you which rung repeats, not what that rung awards. On our Pelt Trader page, the Wolf Pelt rung awards a choice of the Spear or the Revolver; whether the fifth rung lets you take one of those or adds a different item is not stated by any source.

The Good Axe Claim Does Not Add Up

Here is a conflict worth flagging rather than papering over. Two wiki pages carry the same tip in their tips section: that the Hunter's level 3 lets you obtain a Good Sack, a Good Axe and a Spear, with the Good Sack "from the Bunny Foot trade" and the Good Axe and Spear "from the Wolf Pelt trades."

That list does not fit the trader's own table. On both wikis, the Good Axe is a Bunny Foot rung reward — the first rung, the pelt the chain opens with — not a Wolf Pelt reward. The same pages list the Wolf Pelt rung as Spear or Revolver and say nothing about an axe there. So the tip contradicts the table printed on the very same pages.

We go with the table. The tip is a summary someone wrote from memory, and it collapsed two rungs into one.

Hunter vs Big Game Hunter

These two are not a cheap version and an expensive version. They solve different problems, and one of the differences is surprising.

Two things fall out of that table:

Both classes' level 2 is a pelt drop rate. One is "slightly higher," the other "higher," but the perk text is near-identical and the sources do not publish a number for either. So the pelt farm is not what separates them.

The cheap class is the slower one to max. Hunter level 3 needs around 610 animals. Big Game Hunter level 3 needs 220 wolves and 150 pelts eaten. If your frame is "what gets maxed fastest," the 600-Diamond class is the quick one and the 40-Diamond class is the grind. That is our comparison of two published requirement sets, and no source states it.

Is It Worth 40 Diamonds?

The sources genuinely disagree, so here they are side by side rather than averaged:

• For it: the Hunter is cheap, flexible solo or with a team, and pairs unusually well with the Big Game Hunter class — one wiki lists that synergy explicitly. The bear traps let you take wolves and bunnies without standing in their bite range. The per-animal hit counts that go with those traps are collected on our Bear Trap page.
• Against it: once the Pelt Trader's list is complete, the class stops earning its keep. The same wiki lists that as its main downside, along with the time the levels take.
• More against it: a tier list written in Russian puts it in the low tier for a blunt reason — with an active run you already get plenty of meat, pelts drop sooner or later anyway, and the extra trade may simply never be needed. A separate round-up calls the perks minor and says the traps are fine for base defence but not strong enough to justify the class.
• For it, team-wise: several sources cast it as the class that feeds the camp. Another player does not have to think about food, which is a real cost saving in a four-player run.

We are not adjudicating this. What the disagreement tells you is that the Hunter is a class that pays off inside a specific plan — one built around the Pelt Trader chain — and that outside that plan the 40 Diamonds are better spent on something that answers a question you actually have.

How to Level It Without Dreading It

Every source that addresses leveling says the same two things:

1. Farm bunnies and wolves near camp during the day. They are the fastest targets and they cover the level 2 requirement.
2. Keep going at night from a high spot. Stand on a tree branch or similar ledge and shoot down into the night's wolf spawns. Three sources give this same tip; it is the standard wolf-farming position in this game, not a Hunter-specific trick.

For the Alpha wolf requirement at level 3: Alpha wolves need a Level 3–5 campfire in the Forest and show up in the Snow biome at night, in Locked Caves and at the Cultist Hunter Camp. Our Alpha Wolf page has the spawn conditions spelled out.

Bear traps are worth using early — they are the reason the class starts with anything at all — but they are a limited resource in a run, and you cannot farm 610 animals on traps alone.

FAQ

How many bear traps does the Hunter start with? Two, per two wikis and a secondary guide. One source list says one. We record two as the majority.

Does the Hunter give a percentage bonus to drops? No source publishes one. Both perks are described in words only, and we are not going to guess a number.

How many animals to max the Hunter? About 610 — 120 bunnies, 370 wolves and 120 Alpha wolves — if the two counters accumulate in one run. That is our arithmetic on published requirements, not a stated figure.

How do I get the Pelt Trader's fifth trade? Reach Hunter level 3. It is the same fifth rung described on the Pelt Trader page, and it is an extra Wolf Pelt trade rather than a new pelt.

Do class levels keep across runs? Unknown. No source states whether the Hunter's kill counters are per-run or permanent.

Should I buy Hunter or Big Game Hunter? Different jobs. Hunter sharpens the Pelt Trader chain, Big Game Hunter builds permanent health and damage over a long run — see the comparison table above, All Classes for the full pricing tier, and our Big Game Hunter class page for the nine-row Pelt List those numbers come from.

Is the Hunter a combat class? No. It starts with traps and nothing else. Bring your own weapon.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-03.

Stated by two or more sources and agreeing: the 40 Diamond cost, the two bear traps, the three perks, and the Hunter's arrival in the Cultist Stronghold Update on 4 July 2025 — wiki and secondary guide on the first two, the fandom Update Log plus the fandom Hunter page on the date. The level 2 and level 3 kill requirements (120 bunnies, 120 wolves, 120 Alpha wolves, 250 wolves) are stated identically by two sources; a third publishes the perks without the counters.

Single source, flagged as such: the one source listing a single starter bear trap. The claim that the level 3 perk yields a Good Sack, Good Axe and Spear — that is one wiki's tips section, and it contradicts that same wiki's own trader table, so we do not carry it.

Nobody publishes: the actual drop-rate percentages, whether the counters are per-run or permanent, whether trap kills count toward the animal requirements, and what the fifth Wolf Pelt trade awards beyond repeating the second rung.

Our own arithmetic: the ~610 animal total, the wolf-total addition, and the comparison against the Big Game Hunter's requirement set. All three are our multiplication of published figures and are marked as such in the text.

Related Pages

• All Classes — where the 40-Diamond Hunter sits against the rest of the pricing tiers
• Pelt Trader — the chain the Hunter's level 3 shortens, and the fifth rung it opens
• Brawler Class — the class that arrived with the Hunter in the same update
• How to Get the Iron Body — what the fourth rung, and the Hunter bonus, are for
• The Wolf — the animal you will kill the most of while leveling
• The Alpha Wolf — the level 3 gate
• Cultist Stronghold — where the Hunter class and this Hunter-adjacent camp both came from
• Best Class — the 600-Diamond tier the Big Game Hunter belongs to