While the focus of Rune Factory 4 is undoubtedly the growing and harvesting of crops and flowers, it's also possible to turn your farm into a ranch by taming and recruiting monsters. These handy critters have a few uses — they can help out on the farm or even in the field.

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With such a massive range of monsters in the game, it can be beneficial to pick out the best ones. While trial and error is one method you could use, it's far more efficient to know in advance what monsters are worth bringing to the farm.

Updated on June 14, 2023: Want to learn how to befriend monsters in Rune Factory 4? This guide covers the best ways to tame monsters, and we've updated it to be even clearer for you.

How To Tame Monsters

To tame a monster, you must first meet two requirements:

1. You must have a monster barn on your farm.
2. You must have space for a monster in your monster barn.

You can build monster barns with orders in the castle's main room. At the beginning of the game, you can build a maximum of two monster barns, and they will each hold four monsters.

Eventually, you will unlock the option to expand your farm with an order that adds a new field — each new field can support two monster barns.

You can also expand monster barns themselves with orders.

Taming monsters is a relatively simple ordeal. When in the field, throw an item at them — they will get a speech bubble above their head with a heart inside it. It will gradually grow larger until it becomes a skull or a gigantic heart.

If the heart becomes a skull, you have failed and must try again. If it becomes a huge heart, on the other hand, you have successfully tamed the monster, and you will have to name it.

They will be added to your party automatically, though you can talk to them to send them back to your farm.

Monster Taming Tips

• You can use the brush or a Love affinity weapon on a monster to increase the chances that a taming attempt will be successful. This is useful when your item reserves are low.
• While monsters all have some favorite items that you can use to increase your chance of success, you do not need to use them. You can use Medicinal Herbs or even Colored Grasses and still be successful.
• You can tame bosses upon rematch, but they require specific items.
• Your level matters when trying to tame monsters. The higher your level is, the better your chance at taming success — try leveling up if you keep failing.

How To Take Care Of Monsters

To take care of your monsters, you will need to feed them and brush them every day.

To brush them, go up to them with the brush tool and press the action button on them — they'll get a bubble with a musical note or a heart in it to denote success.

There are two ways to feed your monsters. At first, you'll probably have to feed them all individually by gifting them food items.

However, once you have a Fodder Bin placed on your farm, you can put Fodder Grass into the bin. The monsters will eat this automatically instead. You will need one fodder per barn and any monster you have put to work will require more.

You can buy Fodder Grass Seeds at the General Store.

How To Use Monsters On The Farm

There are two things that monsters can do for you on the farm:

1. Automate your farming.
2. Produce items for you.

Once you have raised a monster's friendship level with you high enough, you can set them to work on your farm. Every field is split into three sections and each monster can take care of one section.

When working a field, monsters will water any tilled soil patches and crops, and they will harvest crops at the end of the day and put them in the Shipping Box.

Monsters who are put to work will require more fodder and will also gradually lose health. Monsters at low health will show you their status with a scribble speech mark and refuse to work for you.

There are three methods to deal with this:

• Stop making them work until they recover their health.
• Heal them manually with items such as Recovery Potions.
• Heal them manually with healing spells. To do this, you will have to temporarily add the monster to your party and then use the spell.

Some monsters will also produce items for you, with the quality increasing as you increase your friendship with them. They will produce items once per day, even if they are currently set to working your fields.

This is very useful for hoarding multiples of a certain item type, such as threads or furs.

How To Use Monsters In Battle

Monsters can be added to your party just like NPCs can, though you can only take two with you at a time.

To do this, interact with your target monster and select the option to take them with you. Different monsters will have different behaviors in the field, with some being more aggressive and effective than others.

Monsters level up along with you as you gain experience beating foes.

• Monsters in your barns will earn 50 percent of your experience gains.
• Monsters in your party will earn 100 percent of your experience gains.

You can also increase your monsters' stats by gifting them items. Their favorite items will provide larger boosts, but any item will work as long as it does not have adverse effects, such as a Failed Dish.

Some monsters can be ridden — this will increase your speed and may unlock unique attacks. To ride a monster, interact with them in the field.

All Monster Produce

The table below will list all the items that monsters can produce. It will also list the item's classification and the monsters that produce it.

* Woolies will produce different size Fur depending on their friendship level. At five hearts, they will start producing Medium Fur, and at eight hearts, they will start producing Large Fur. Shmoolies will always produce Medium Fur.

** Buffamoos will produce different size Milks depending on their friendship level. At five hearts they will start producing Medium Milk, and at eight hearts they will start producing Large Milk.

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