Friday, April 30, 2010

B/X Bounty Hunter


This new character class is based on the Stephan Michael Sechi fantasy RPG supplement, The Compleat Adventurer. See this previous post for more info. Written up NOW at the impassioned request of reader and enthusiast Joe Kushner.



BOUNTY HUNTER

Level.....Title.....Experience Points.....Hit Dice
1.....Tracer.....0.....1D6
2.....Tracker.....1600.....2D6
3.....Trapper.....3200.....3D6
4.....Blood Hound.....6400.....4D6
5.....Blade Slinger.....13,000.....5D6
6.....Quarry Man.....26,000.....6D6
7.....Targeteer.....52,000.....7D6
8.....Huntsman.....105,000.....8D6
9.....Master Hunter.....220,000.....9D6
10.....10th level Master Hunter.....335,000.....9D6+2*
11.....11th level Master Hunter.....450,000.....9D6+4*
12.....12th level Master Hunter.....565,000.....9D6+6*
13.....13th level Master Hunter.....680,000.....9D6+8*
14.....14th level Master Hunter.....795,000.....9D6+10*

*Constitution bonuses no longer apply.


Bounty Hunters are characters that hunt individuals for pay. While the most notorious are little more than hired assassins, most bounty hunters prefer the option of taking their prey alive or dead due to the additional money live prisoners will command. With a few exceptions, bounty hunters will generally take any job...if the pay is right.

The Prime Requisite of bounty hunters is Dexterity; a bounty hunter with a Dexterity of 13-15 gains an additional +5% on earned experience points, and one with a 16+ in Dexterity gains a +10% bonus. All bounty hunters must have a minimum Strength of 9.

RESTRICTIONS: Bounty hunters use six-sided dice (d6) to determine their hit points. Because of their need to travel with speed, they wear no armor heavier than chain mail, and they normally do not use shields. They may wield any type of missile weapon and use any one-handed melee weapon, preferring to keep one hand free for grappling in melee combat. Bounty hunters may achieve a maximum of 36th level of experience. They use the same attack table as fighters of the same level, and use the same saving throw table as thieves. A bounty hunter may use any magic item not restricted to a specific class.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Bounty hunters have the ability to track and read tracks (determining the number and type of prey) equal to 50% +5% per level of experience (maximum of 95%). This chance of tracking decreases by 5% for every day that has passed since the tracks were made, and decreases an additional 5% for every hour of rain or snow fall since the tracks were made.

Bounty hunters have the ability to open locks and hide in shadows, exactly as a thief. They may also find traps as a thief of the same level, and may set snares and traps with the same chance of success. In addition, when striking an opponent with surprise a bounty hunter may waylay his victim with a fist or blunt weapon. A normal to hit roll is made and, if successful, the bounty hunter does double damage and knocks the target unconscious for a number of minutes equal to the damage caused. If the waylaid target is of equal or greater level or hit dice to the bounty hunter, it may make a save versus death ray to avoid losing consciousness.

Bounty hunters never build strongholds or establish domains.

11 comments:

  1. I sure do hope these are going into the B/X Companion. They are aren't they? Otherwise, I'm going to be screaming for a PDF compilation of just these classes.

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  2. As a matter of fact Matthew, no...they will not be in the B/X Companion. There is some advice/info on making one's own classes (and a sample "new" character class), but otherwise just the Companion just features the same old classes from B/X.

    However, perhaps I'll just do "JB's B/X Compleat Adventurer" including B/X versions of all classes in TCA (give or take a couple).

    Available soon on Lulu or through Brave Halfling Publishing (should probably talk to John about the latter...)!
    ; )

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  3. Boba Fett, Johah Hex...gotta love bounty hunters. I think the old Arduin Grimoire had a Bounty Hunter class (that made more sense than some of the other classes therin).

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  4. I like it!!!!

    And Yes a compilation is a great idea.

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  5. Have you considered using an HTML table to present your class charts? They are pretty easy to use, and would get rid of those pesky period spacers you are using.

    Alternately, you might consider using hard spaces (the ampersand character followed by 'nbsp;' forces the browser to introduce a space) instead of using periods.

    Here's an example:
    Level   Title     Experience Points   Hit Dice
    1         Tracer   0                              1D6

    What do you think?

    Hope This Helps,
    Flynn

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  6. Oh, and a compilation would be very cool!

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  7. And don't forget the NPC bounty hunter whose levels capped off at something like 13th back in the day.

    Thanks for posting! Great stuff. Makes me nostalgic.

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  8. I highly enjoy the use of the word waylay for the special attack.

    "I'm about to waylay the shit out of you!"

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  9. @ Flynn: my html-fu is rather weak, I'm afraid. My tables always tend to get squished on blogger.

    My .pdfs by contrast have very nice, neat tables I assure you.

    @ Ryan: you and I are SO on the same page.
    : )

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  10. Something similar you might want to check out for a different
    perspective on B/X L.L. classes.
    http://osrlibrary.blogspot.com/

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  11. Too bad we won't see these in the Companion, but a PDF would be most cool. Please do continue to bring on the awesome!

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