Bounty Hunters (Fighters)

Overview

Bounty hunters are similar to rangers in their abilities to track and infiltrate but are slightly less combat-oriented as well as being much more morally ambiguous. Unless otherwise specified, bounty hunters are treated as fighters.
All bounty-hunters must be of non-Good alignment. They must have STR 12, Con of 11+, and Cha of 13+. Either Wis or Int must be 13+
Bounty-hunters get 10% bonus xp of Int, Wis, and Charisma are 15+.
Hit dice are d8s, with a single die at first level.
Humans, dwarves (Max: 9th), and gnomes (Max: 7th) may be bounty hunters.

1. Bounty-hunters surprise on 1-3 on d6 if ambushing or if in a disguise the opponent trusts.
2. Bounty hunters track as Rangers.
3. Bounty hunters climb walls as Thieves.
4. Bounty hunters may wear any armour that is not “bulky” (this includes all magical armour). They may not use shields.
5. At 9th level, Bounty hunters receive limited clerical spell-casting abilities (see below).
6. Bounty hunters can learn twice as many languages as their Int score would indicate, but the extra ones are “smatterings”, basically the ability to describe someone and understand basic directions and descriptions. They may start with up to 3 smatterings.
7. A bounty-hunter may conduct interviews (see below).
8. At 9th level or above a bounty hunter may open an agency. Doing so attracts 2d6 1st level bounty hunters over a period of 2d10-1 weeks; they may be employed or rejected as desired but no replacements will automatically appear for rejects. A bounty hunter may not employ more juniors than their own henchman limit (but do not count towards it) and once an employee reaches 9th level they will depart to start their own agency unless offered partnership (in which case they do become full henchmen if they were not already).
9. Bounty hunters running agencies may become Good aligned.

Maybe just shoot him?

1.1 Spell use

A bounty hunter devoted to an appropriate deity may obtain divination spells from that deity as follows:

Level	Spells/Lv/day
9	1
10	2
11	3
12	3 1
13	3 2
14-16	3 3
17+	3 3 1

They do not obtain any further spell casting abilities beyond 17th level. The bounty hunter must possess a holy symbol of the deity both when praying for the spells and casting them. The bounty hunter must be on good terms with their deity to receive spells.

xp	Lv	d8 HD	Title
0-2200	1	1	Snoop
2201-4250	2	2	Shag
4001-9000	3	3	Tail
9001-19000	4	4	Ferret
19001-36000	5	5	Mole
36001-75000	6	6	Nose
75001-135000	7	7	Dick
135001-300000	8	8	Detective
300001-600000	9	9	Bounty Hunter
600001-900000	10	9+2	Bounty Hunter (10th level)
900001-1200000	11	9+4	Bounty Hunter (11th level)

300,000 xp per level for each level over 9th; 2hp per level over 9th.

1.2 Weapons, Attacks, and Proficiencies

Class	Initial #	non-prof penality	Added profs
Bounty hunter	2	-2	+1/2 levels

Level	#attacks
1-8	1
9-14	3/2
15+	2

Bounty hunters may become proficient in any single-handed melee weapon except polearms (they may become proficient with the spear). They may use any missile weapon except the sling or staff-sling.
If using the specialisation rules from UA, they may become specialists in any permitted melee weapon.

1.3 Interrogation

[Is this right? Ed.]

Bounty hunters can attempt to obtain information from questioning others. In order for the bounty hunter to have any special chance their personality score (Charisma plus Intelligence plus level) must be higher than the interviewee’s. The hunter may substitute Wisdom for Intelligence for this purpose only; the interviewee may not do so even if they are another bounty hunter, and a bounty hunter may not make this substitution when dealing with magical weapons with Ego points. If using comeliness, the interviewee may substitute that for charisma if of the opposite sex to the bounty hunter (other comeliness effects may affect proceedings if using all the UA rules, of course).
The interview may only be conducted with a single person the bounty hunter can focus on providing answers. A litigation trickster or other advisers may be present but their contribution should be no more than to advise whether to answer a question or not.
During questioning, the player may ask to make a saving throw against a number of questions equal to the character’s level before asking the question (this limit is per day; they may conduct more than one interrogation per day if desired). After giving the NPC’s answer, the DM should secretly roll a saving throw Vs Spells for the bounty hunter. If the answer that was given was a lie, evasion or obfuscation, and the saving throw is successful, the DM should inform the player that the interviewee is not telling the whole truth. If the bounty hunter’s personality score is lower than the interviewee’s, then make the roll but treat it as a fail; the player should not be explicitly told that their score is too low.
Repeating the same question within 3 turns will not allow a roll even if a roll was not made previously. Answers which are long-winded allow still only a single roll and the interviewer may have to ask further questions to refine their knowledge. A player may, of course, come to their own conclusions based on how the questions are being answered.
Smatterings can not be used as languages for interrogations.

1.4 Agency Income

Assume that the income is on an order of 1cp per month per 100 head of population in the settlement where the agency is, multiplied by the level of the lead bounty hunter, per partner. Each junior hunter contributes 5% of this total per level per month to the partners’ profits.
So, a new agency in Greyhawk (pop. 58,000) lead by a 9th level bounty hunter would bring in 5220cp per month, or 313gp and 4sp per year profit for the bounty hunter in addition to any special jobs s/he takes on personally. If there were 7 junior hunters with an average level of 4 then an additional 7308cp per month would be generated, or 438gp, 9sp, and 6cp per year.
Multiple agencies in a location will split the available cases on a ratio based on the total levels of the partners. So instead of getting 1cp per 100, each agency would get 1cp per 200 head of population if the leaders of the agencies are the same level.
Another example: the above agency has opened in Greyhawk where a more established agency is already operational, lead by a 10th level bounty hunter and his 9th level partner. The ratios here are 9:19, so the new agency will do its calculations based on 1cp per 311 population and the established on on 1cp per 147 population (i.e., 28/9 x 100 and 28/19 x100). Thus, the new agency’s base monthly income will be 1678cp instead of 5220cp, before adding juniors.

2 Notes

A character class should be something which conjures an image instantly in the mind of any hearer aware of the genre it is drawn from. The bounty hunter is certainly a well-known archetype in many genres from fantasy, to westerns, to modern day television and cinema. There have been various attempts to draw up a bounty hunter class for D&D, and this is mine.
There is a strong overlap with the private detective in the above description as the pure “find things for money” aspect of the bounty hunter is a bit limited for long-term play.
Some development is needed of the agency concept - income rates, mainly - and even so it may not fit every campaign.