Talk:Bounty Hunter, Tome (3.5e Class)

Ratings

ThunderGod Cid is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

The additions to Subduing Attack that I suggested have made me slightly less wary of this class, but I feel that being a bounty hunter is too little to really be put into a whole class. I really think you could put the core of this class into a Tome Combat Feat (Disable, Kidnap, etc.) and then have it be available to a much more diverse range of characters than this class allows. As a full class, it still seems pretty stretched, with more than a few class features still only being scaling passive bonuses and more damage. Also, since with Tome classes I am particularly big on choices offered, it is noteworthy that this class has little in the way of that.

Balance

This seems like a generally inferior class to the Rogue. Sure, it's better at dealing nonlethal damage, but it doesn't take very much nonlethal damage to drastically reduce the chance that you'll accidentally kill the target. It can't flank and it doesn't have UMD. Also, "A bounty hunter cannot collect on a contract if they are dead" makes them slightly worse at collecting on contracts than any other character. --Foxwarrior 07:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Given that this is a moderate BAB class and already supposed to follow in the footsteps of the Tome series, I am somewhat surprised that Subduing Attack did not follow in the mold of the Tome Assassin's Death Attack (dealing +3d6 damage at level 1 and increasing by a d6 every level thereafter). It's usage mechanism (studying the opponent for a full round) also lends itself better to the fact that the bounty hunter gains little benefit from flanking. I know you have that partly covered by disable, but that only lends to the idea of this class as a dip, then followed by taking other levels.

As far as balance is concerned, I agree with Foxwarrior. Since the Thief-Acrobat and the Assassin are the Tome standards of both sides of Rogue-level (the former being lower, the latter being higher), I think they are a reasonable target range, and right now I do not believe that it matches up to either of those two classes without Use Magic Device or spellcasting. - TG Cid 22:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Edited to increase power. Subduing attack now increases at every level, and added a new 7th-level ability.

I approve, although I think that if you are going to put the bonus damage on the Tome Assassin's level (or close to it) it should probably have the "study opponent for one round, then deal damage to them" bit in there as well. It still allows the bounty hunter to maintain the "dispatch target enemy" theme very effectively while not quite being the gobs of bonus damage every round kind of unmanageable. - TG Cid 06:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Done.