Bounty Hunters

Hey all.

So I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this because, to be honest, Bounty Hunters are completely misrepresented skill wise. The available skills and playstyle isn’t really like any Bounty Hunter I’ve ever read about or seen. How many Bounty Hunters used Vibro Blades? I honestly can’t think of one that specialized in it. Hunters are mostly slippery, devious trackers who get in and out. Cad Bane, Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Aurra Sing, Embo, and Bossk. All used either Rifles or Blaster Pistols. This whole “We’re the elite dagger users” stuff doesn’t make sense. Sure, if the class was called ‘Assassin’, I could see it.

Anyway. Enough of that rant. I’ve drawn up a skill set that basically uses Pistols and Rifles primarily. Also included tracking techniques and various little niche things for making hunters more versatile sa hit and run artists or Trackers.

First off. Let’s go over the skills that just outright need removing.

Claimbounty– Not really needed as a skill. Make it a core command in the game if the target has a bounty. No reason why it has to be class specific. Any dolt can claim a bounty. Why restrict combat mains from having the ability to be Bounty Hunters too.

Poison Weapon– Seriously? Who wants to use a skill that’s going to destroy their nice weapons. Ontop of that, poisons really dont do any form of effective damage or anything to make them worth while.

Backstab– Remove it. No need for it, Most people use Ambush or lunge to open a fight anyway. Making backstab completely obsolete.

Circle– Either remove it or revise it to be either a different skill with similar use as a mid round ability. It’s usefulness is mostly non existent.

Now let’s go over skills that could use revision to make them useful.

Advanced Unarmed/Unarmed Mastery– These would be great if they had some depth. Maybe incorporate abilities around being an unarmed fighter like ‘wristcrack’ which could make them easier to disarm. Basically, AIM type wounding without using AIM. You could very easily change this up into something similar to how Lightsaber Combat and vibro/pike combat is.

–Example: <blank> brings his lightsaber down over your head, but you catch him at the wrist deflecting the blow to the side.

No reason the skill needs to be completely worthless over all.

Circle– You could still keep circle as an effective combat midround ability with blasters.

–Example: BHer dashes to the right and unloads a quick shot with his pistol

If dual wielding pistols, strikes twice. Unable to be used with Rifles.

Vibroblade Mastery – Just move it to Combat. It’s not necessary for it to be in BH.

Now. Some abilities I was thinking about. Bounty Hunters were very well known for their tracking abilities. Finding their target and killing or capturing them.

Retreat- A lagless flee to get away from a hair situation. Bounty Hunters were notorious for getting away when the heat was on. So getting out of a situation quickly and efficiently was a thing they held in high regard.

Planttrackingbeacon- Plant a beacon on a ship to track where it’s going. This could also be effectively attained by simply boosting their innate slicer levels. Easy, quick fix.

Bug- Plant a bug on a target. You’d have to have a Bug in your inventory to perform and it would not necessarily require you to approach. But could. I was thinking something like shooting a Bug at a target from afar and it has a chance of being detected. reduced chance of being detected while hidden.

Bypass Defense- Being able to weigh in a target and assess weak spots was what a hunter was great at. So having the ability to bypass dodging and parrying would allow them to stand toe to toe with Force users, as they do countless times over in the movies, books and cartoon series. This could simply be limited to bypassing Lightsaber Parrying, to avoid making them overglorified Combatants like they used to be. I’d also think it should be restricted to Blasters only, so theirs still that chance of getting struck back on.

Traps- There are various types of traps that could be set up. I only had time to really put deep thought into two, but had ideas for others.

–Caltrops: An instant ability that tosses caltrops in a room. You’d have to have caltrops in your inventory for this to work and they’d disappear after a certain amount of rounds or after a certain amount of people walked through the room(including mobs). They would cause a small amount of damage and leg wounds so you could see where your target was heading as well as slow them down.

–Rayshielding: This would take time to set up. Several rounds or so. But would effectively lock a target in that room for a certain amount of rounds. It would notify the Bher when it’s been triggered so he could go inspect.

ALL Traps would be subject to bypass by those with the ‘Minesweeper’ feat.

NEW FEAT-
Improved Traps- This would literally just modify the traps to be a bit more effective. For example
Caltrops- Shrapnel Caltrops. Detonate when they’re walked over and cause increased damage as well as still causing leg wounds.

Rayshield- This would simply make it so if someone attempted to walk out of the rayshielding they would become stunned in that room for a certain amount of time.

So. that’s what I got for you. Tear it apart or give suggestions or comments concerning it. One of the abilities I really liked that Henk suggested was the Investigate ability. I’d love to have something like that or something similar. Maybe even a way to look at when a ships name was changed on a pad. So you track the ship to a pad, check out what the name was changed to. Track it to the next location. Do the same and just follow the transponders.

Anywho. Enjoy the read 🙂

Poison weapon and circle actually have good niche uses. Develop a better poison and watch poison weapon become even better. Totally with you on the blades thing though, and yeah circle should be replaced by something like it that isn’t blade only.

I feel like it would be best to leave it as it is. Bounty Hunter sounds way cooler than “combat class” anyways.

There are some fantastic ideas coming out of this thread, good job. Over the weekend I’ll punt them around into some sort of doc that the rest of the staff can mull over and see what comes of it.

Keep the suggestions coming!

Bit late to the refresh on this, but a straight rip from our list of current suggestions:

Currently Considering:
Retreat <dir> – Allows you to flee in a specified direction.
Jetpack Mastery – Negates combat/move penalties from flying.
Traps – Can we reintroduce trap/detrap somehow with new abilities?
Forced Entry <dir> – Need to be VERY careful with this, but as awkward as it sounds it makes sense. BH’ers should be able to bust down doors to get their man. Edit: Individual BH’ers would not be able to access the lockers of homes accessed in this manner.
Investigate – Ask a spec_customs NPC whether a certain PC/NPC has wandered past in the last 30-60 minutes.
Bounty <X> Capture/Disintegration – Add an argument to the bounty/clanbounty command which would specify whether this is a life or death situation. If claimbounty is used on a ‘capture’ target, we need some sort of negative for the hunter. No credits awarded. Credit fine, XP loss?
*Edit: This would be accompanied by a ‘tradebounty <target> <bountier/clan>’ command for a hunter to deliver their target, handcuffed, to the bountier. If you were lazy and tried to use claimbounty on a ‘capture’ target, the system would tell you they are needed alive.
Backstab – A successful backstab should automatically add a ‘back’ wound to the target?

Discuss, argue, pontificate! All opinions other than ‘trandoshans should have mando regeneration’ welcome. 😉

Thoughts on a few of these considerations:

Backstab causing a back wound – With the aim commands currently having a “warm up” time, backstab immediately causing a status ailment might become a little too powerful and overused. I suppose this greatly depends on the degree that a back wound affects your character. I think the real goal here should be based more around a bounty hunter being a better “hunter” than being a better fighter. Perhaps if all it did was leave a blood trail I’d be in support of it, but a debuff doesn’t really seem like something that should be in the cards.

Jetpack mastery – Could potentially change the way bounty hunters are played entirely. This not only increases their pursuit speed, but also gives a bounty hunter an enhanced ability to escape from forcers, all while not really increasing their ability to “merc” forcers. Granted, there’s a potentially gamebreaking “exploit” here.

Retreat <dir> – my favorite suggestion, period. I wish all characters had access to this, but I’d also be perfectly fine with it being a BHer only skill. I can’t think of any change in lotj that would really make me smile more.

These sound pretty cool. One thing I would like to see, however, are Trandoshans getting Mando regen, it’s only fair.

A lot of the posts Valens offered up here were pretty awesome. I like the traps, and the bug. So you could ‘snipe’ a microphone onto someone stealthily. Tracking beacon is nice too, but we have locate ship for that.