Bounty Hunters and Assassins
There are two character types that everybody sees as cool in the Star Wars universe. They are Jedi and Bounty Hunters. Jedi already have many books about them and how they act but bounty hunters have been more forgotten. Bounty hunters are basically very well paid cops. They track down the toughest criminals for a cash incentive. These characters have most of their equipment customized including their armor, weapons, and ships. They are the most cunning and dangerous people out there and all are wary of confronting one even the Jedi. This article is broken into two parts. The first part provides information for playing a bounty hunter or assassin and the second part is for game masters to help come up with ideas for running a bounty hunter campaign.
Playing a Hunter
Bounty hunters and assassins come in all shapes and sizes. The only aliens that don’t become bounty hunters are the ones that deplore violence. Every world has a couple of local bounty hunters and there are thousands of bounty hunters who travel the galaxy looking for work. Few of these hunters are successful but the ones who are can garner much wealth and recognition. The more successful hunts they have the more money they can demand and the better their equipment becomes. This section has information about how to play a bounty hunter and assassin including a level progression chart to maximize your abilities and roleplaying tips and stuff like that. It also features special weapons, equipment, and ships for the bounty hunters.
The first thing you need to do is distinguish your bounty hunter from the other bounty hunters. All of the bounty hunters aboard the Executer in TESB has a distinguishing mark. Remember these are the best known and most dangerous bounty hunters which is why they are aboard the Executer. The distinguishing mark doesn’t guarantee success for your bounty hunter but it helps them become recognized. The distinguishing mark doesn’t have to be a body feature it could be a chosen weapon or a favorite way to kill their enemy. Taking an example from a book I just read the assassins mark was that he shot his target in the face three times every time. A little thing like this helps give your character depth and something that makes them stick out. From the same book the same assassin is also a talented artist. That trait seems contradictory to being an assassin but it’s a personality quirk which makes that assassin likeable.
Your character doesn’t need a trait like that to set him out. He could just be very dedicated to his hunts and focus on them to the exclusion of everything else. Or the character could be very quick at bringing back prey. No matter what you should have a trait of some sort that makes your bounty hunter different from the thousands of other bounty hunters. If your character just blends in with the other bounty hunters he isn’t going to get any special high paying jobs or a client who goes exclusively to him.
Most bounty hunters are going to be a gruff character who doesn’t take any crap from anybody because that’s just the way that they are. Not all bounty hunters have to be anti-social but as a general statement most bounty hunters are like that. When you start your character off he isn’t a successful and well known hunter yet so he will be stuck with easy low paying missions to start out with. Your character will act deferentially to other bounty hunters with a reputation since they can easily waste him. Bounty hunters never act deferential to people lower than themselves unless they have a weird quirk in their personality. As the character rises in level they become more self confident and are more deadly so they become more arrogant and other bounty hunters start looking up to them.
Assassins are very similar to bounty hunters in all respects except in the missions they attempt. The assassin only takes missions where the target is wanted dead. The assassin is trained to kill not capture. They can use many methods besides just shoot-outs and melees. They like to use sabotage, poison and sneak attacks. Where many bounty hunters like direct confrontation the assassin is a more restrained foe but just as deadly.
This section contains two progression charts. The first one is for a typical bounty hunter and the second is for an assassin. Both charts are written out for humans because they are the base race to choose from.
Bounty Hunter
The bounty hunter is basically a combat character with a few special abilities. The few levels in scout are for the extra skill points and the boost in feats. The typical bounty hunter has this disposition of scores Str: 13 Dex: 15 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 12 and Cha 8. All feats and ability increases are treated as such although most characters will differ in some respects. The characters feats are chosen in the beginning to help them gain entry into both the bounty hunter and elite trooper PrC. The elite trooper PrC is nice for a boost in combat ability especially weapon specialization.
Class / Feats / Skills
1.Soldier / Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus / Demolitions 4, Pilot 4, Treat Injury 4, Intimidate 4
2.Soldier / Dodge / Demolitions 1, Pilot 1, Treat Injury 1, Intimidate 1, Astrogate 1
3.Scout / Starship Operation Transport, Precise Shot / Move Silenty 5, Astrogate 1
4.Scout / - / Gather Information 6, Pilot 1
5.Soldier / - / Gather Information 2, Pilot 2, Intimidate 1
6.Soldier / Two Weapon Fighting, Fame / Pilot 1, Demolitions 4
7. Soldier / - / Gather Information 2, Pilot 1, Astrogate 2
8. Soldier / Rapid Shot / Pilot 1, Astrogate 1, Move Silently 2, Treat Injury 1
9.Soldier / Martial Artist / Pilot 1, Astrogate 1, Move Silenty 2, Treat Injury 1
10.Bounty Hunter / - / Disguise 3, Pilot 1, Bluff 3
11.Bounty Hunter / - / Hide 3, Move Silently 4
12.Elite Trooper / Power Attack / Jump 4, Demolitions 3
13.Elite Trooper / - / Move Silently 4, Spot 3
14.Elite Trooper / - / Move Silently 4, Spot 3
15.Bounty Hunter / Multishot / Disguise 4, Pilot 3
16.Bounty Hunter / - / Demolitions 4, Listen 3
17.Elite Trooper / - / Demolitions 4, Treat Injury 3
18.Elite Trooper / Shot on the Run / Hide 4, Listen 3
19.Bounty Hunter / - / Pilot 4, Astrogate 3
20.Bounty Hunter / - / Bluff 4, Move Silently 3
The character ends up with a class distribution like this Soldier 7/Scout 2/Bounty Hunter 6/Elite Trooper 5. The elite trooper is used only to gain the weapon specialization. If you don’t deem it that important you can drop those five levels for 5 other levels preferably in one of the other 3 classes.
Assassin
The assassin is less of a combat character than a bounty hunter but still deadly in a fight. The assassin has more of a varied background and is capable of striking anywhere and is usually proficient at long range shooting like a sniper. Other assassins rely on other techniques such as sabotage and explosives. Assassins generally have a favored method of killing to help sell themselves but others diversify to make it harder to defend against an attack by them. The general assassin will have ability scores similar to these Str 12, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 8. As before the assassin is treated as a human.
Class / Feats / Skills
1.Scout / Track, Point Blank Shot, Far Shot / Climb 4, Demolitions 4, Disguise 4, Hide 4, Move Silently 4, Spot 4, Survival 4, Listen 4
2.Scoundrel / - / Disable Device 5, Escape Artist 5
3.Scoundrel / Weapon Focus / Demolitions 2, Disguise 2, Hide, 2, Move Silently 2, Spot 2
After this the character continues gaining levels in either scoundrel or scout as they prefer. The scoundrel path allows them to gain the sneak attack ability. The assassin needs to keep his skill slots maxed out in the skills that are listed in the chart. The character’s feats aren’t that important but a few more combat ones would be good. Power attack would be useful in sneak attacks for doing more damage.
Custom Equipment
Many of the better known bounty hunters and assassins have their weapons, equipment, and ships custom ordered and built to fit their needs. Not only is this to display their wealth and allow them better equipment but it is designed for them to make the most out of not a design build for general use. Custom ordering has positives and negatives which are listed individually for the certain equipment ordered. The rules for custom equipment is found at Custom Equipment
Special Equipment
Bounty hunters and assassins don’t do normal jobs and they require special equipment to help them accomplish their missions. This equipment is similar to the custom equipment but it is more general but developed for beginning bounty hunters and assassins who can’t afford custom equipment but heed more than standard grade equipment.
Hunter Helmet
Cost: 1250
A simple helmet with a visor built into it. The visor features a strong magnification ability. It’s not as strong as electrobinoculars but stronger than macrobinoculars. It also contains a comlink microphone that comes out and a receiver in the ear part of the helmet. The helmet also contains amplified pick-ups to better detect sounds.
The helmet reduces the range penalty for spot checks to -1 every 15m. It acts as a comlink and grants the wearer a +4 bonus to listen checks. The helmet provides a DR of 1.
Riot Gun
Cost: 750 Damage: - Critical: - Range Increment: 15m Weight: 3kg Stun Damage/Fort DC: 2D8/20 Type: Energy Size: Medium Group: Blaster Rifle
The riot gun was designed for police forces to help deal with rowdy crowds. Many bounty hunters have adapted this weapon for taking out large numbers of people without killing them. Useful for when the bounty is only on a living captive not a dead body.
Gamemaster Section
If your characters are interested in being bounty hunters a bounty hunter campaign is an easy one to throw together. It will lack a major plot but will revolve around several bounty hunts. Or the bounty hunters can act as very elite mercenaries and perform special operations. Most of the time you’ll want to stick to being bounty hunters not mercenaries. A bounty hunter will accept most jobs but is specialized in tracking down a single prey. If you want to add a backstory to the campaign you can add political intrigue in the campaign easily by making the bounty hunter work during the Rebellion and having them choose who to work for. This can also be added by having several warring guilds and the guilds sending the characters on missions to attack members of other guilds.
Establishing The Campaign
Before you start the campaign you’ll want to let the characters know that it is going to be a bounty hunting campaign. A bounty hunting campaign eliminates the two Jedi classes from being chosen as bounty hunting doesn’t fit into the category. Despite the looks of things a Noble can qualify for the bounty hunting prestige class before any other class can because of the reputation score requirement. A scout is a good choice also because they gain many skill points. A soldier is also a good choice because they are good in combat and get lots of feats.
A bounty hunting campaign is going to be a combat heavy campaign but it can still have elements of roleplaying in it if you want. The main part of developing this campaign is balancing combat and interaction. During the hunt the characters will be able to display their physical abilities but not their social abilities. A good way to fit this into a campaign is by having the prey hiding in a city. This requires the characters to deal with other people and interact using their social skills. You can also add political intrigue by adding interaction among the bounty hunter guilds. Or you can set your campaign in the time just before the battle of Endor where Boba Fett is hired by Prince Xixor to destroy the bounty hunter guild. The members have to form alliances to stay alive and keep practicing their trade once the guild is destroyed.
No matter what you add though combat is going to be a focus so you’ll need to know the combat rules very well. You’ll also want to devise clever tricks for the prey to use while being hunted to frustrate the characters. Many GMs are reluctant to kill off PC’s but you have to remember that bounty hunting is a dangerous job and if the character isn’t suited to being a bounty hunter they are going to bite the dust. You should let the character make a new PC though because you’ll want them to keep playing and not alienate them.
When starting the campaign off the characters aren’t going to be going after the toughest targets that are out their. They can but they won’t be able to capture it. The characters will start off going for targets who are personally weak and are relying either on stealth or a weak defensive force to protect them. After a few of these missions the targets will become stronger and have better defenses. At high levels the target will have good combat abilities and have lots of resources and contacts. Most of your work in this kind of a campaign is going to be creating the targets and devising ways to prevent the characters from reaching him. The good thing about this sort of campaign is that it doesn’t need a highly developed backstory or a good setup all you need is to tell your characters to create a bounty hunter type character and let them go. You may think this limits the character types that will be used but many different character types will work to create a good bounty hunter.
Since this kind of campaign will generally be giving the characters quite a bit of freedom since they have no boss or commander you should be ready for them to make strange decisions. This problem can be solved in a number of ways. If the characters decide to just travel to a planet for no reason you can put several things in front of them to slow them down. They could have somebody contact them to hire them or have another bounty hunter start tracking them down because a former employer feels cheated by their work. Another good way to give them independence but still control their actions is to create a wanted board for them. You can post several characters on this board and give the following information on them; name, weight, height, description, crimes, bounty, and last known whereabouts. You can have several higher level targets on the board to tempt the characters and to install some continuity so it doesn’t seem like a line of simple bounty hunting missions and seems like a story.
As I’ve said before most bounty hunting campaigns won’t have an in depth plot to them but some will and here are a few ideas that I have for these stories.
Have an NPC work with the group only to betray them. This will give you immediate plot with the betrayal having some attack or ambush related to it. After the ambush the characters will also distrust each other fearing maybe one of them sold out. A good way to do this is to just give the character some money by having an informant type character walk up to them and slip them money or a credit chip. That character might not like the tactic too much. It also has long lasting consequences as the characters will want to find out who the betrayer was and who paid the betrayer and then why they did it.
Taking one from the bounty hunter trilogy, you could have some political intrigue within a bounty hunters guild. A fractious element could form within the guild. The faction might attempt to recruit the characters and involve them in their plot. If the characters refuse the faction will hold a grudge against them and they might be suspected by the authorities in the guild for collaborating with the faction. No matter which way the characters decide to go they’ll be in trouble.
This is just my interpretation of what a bounty hunting campaign should be so if your opinion differs whatever. This is also just a brief outline of a bounty hunting campaign and not a solid path. I plan on running on bounty hunter campaign after my trip to Florida and I’ll post the data and most of the targets on the site when I finish it.
