Bounty Hunter prestige class?

[Skylinkdave]

Has anyone come up with an outline for a hypothetical Bounty Hunter prestige class? What sort of class-specific feats or skills would such a class have? Maybe some specialized tracking skills, or weapon abilities like the Big Game Hunter class? Or maybe some enhanced Gather Info abilities?

Dave

 

[Shadowdancer]

I've been pondering this same question, but have no answers yet.

 

[ljsteele]

Contacts. Lots of contacts.

Take a look at the GT:Bounty Hunter book - its a mini, so not that expensive. (Disclaimer -- I did a fair amount of playtest work on it.)

If I were to do it, I'd call it "Recovery Agent" and feed in bounty hunter, skip tracer, theif taker, etc.

The problem with bounty hunting is economics. Skip tracing has similar problems. It costs money to send agents after something. It needs to be worth the time and money to recover. Sending information on the other hand, is cheap.

My suggestion for the GT book, which got partially implemented was to borrow the real world example of regional detective agencies in the style of the 19th century Pinkertons which sent information by telegraph to all their local offices, one of which might bag the bad guy.

A typical "Pinkerton" office might range from one agent for a minor system to an office of dozens or hundreds of agents for an important world. They have some reputation, contacts, etc. already in place. When needed the large office can send teams of specialists. Oversight is minimal, since the offices are at least 1 jump apart. Gives as PC pretty good range of action.

 

[GJD]

There was an old White Dwarf article on bouty hunters for CT, with a number of suggestions and deckplans for the Type H Hunter, a modified version of the Type S Scout. It might be hard to track down (i've still got 1 and 1/2 pages of it, describing some new computer programs and the deck plans) but the suggestions were good.

GJD

 

[Skylinkdave]

Originally posted by Lisa:
Contacts. Lots of contacts.

That's what I was thinking. The character I'm making has Contacts/Law Enforcement and Contacts/Underworld.

The problem with bounty hunting is economics. Skip tracing has similar problems. It costs money to send agents after something. It needs to be worth the time and money to recover. Sending information on the other hand, is cheap.

For the character I have in mind, though, it's more of an obsession, and not so much of a job.

Thanks for the tips, I'll look for the GURPS book

Dave

 

[lightsenshi]

Just use a rogue/merc.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I was thinking more of a rogue/traveller. Rogue has pretty good combat abilities and contacts, traveller has good spread of skills and more contacts. Plus traveller gives you JOT -- take that feat a couple of times, then spend most of your skills ranks on a few crucial skills.

 

[Skylinkdave]

Okay, so some sort of rogue/merc/traveller combination. Lots of connections (incorrectly listed as "Contacts" in my previous post). What sort of special class abilities could/should they have? Or would the rogue/merc/traveller combination cover it?

Dave

 

[ljsteele]

To borrow some pages from GURPS. You could add some class feats for law enforcement powers and/or diplomatic immunity that would give a bounty hunter some legal rights to kidnap bad guys or recover stolen stuff and transport it around. Maybe some ability to carry weapons or restraints where they might not otherwise be legal?

If you want to avoid the issue of imperial licensing, limit it to a sector or subsector and make it duke or marquise based licenses.

 

[Skylinkdave]

Originally posted by Lisa:
To borrow some pages from GURPS. You could add some class feats for law enforcement powers and/or diplomatic immunity that would give a bounty hunter some legal rights to kidnap bad guys or recover stolen stuff and transport it around. Maybe some ability to carry weapons or restraints where they might not otherwise be legal?

This, plus the suggestion of a "Pinkerton-like" organization from your earlier post, and I think we're on the right track...

Dave