My party has accumulated some bounties, and I would like to make some memorable and repeat-encountered (assuming they survive) bounty hunters for them to encounter.
Vampires, Werewolves, and basically everything except Dragons are normal enough to exist without major upheaval to the world, so I am considering making a few groups of bounty hunters, to roll randomly for which ones they encounter at specific locations.
One I have is a trio of adventurers; an Arcane Archer, a Wizard, and a Battlemaster. The three will specialise in control spells and abilities - disarming strikes, spells like Hold Person and Resilient Sphere, and arcane archer using Beguiling and Grasping arrows from afar. Their goal is to take them alive, not to kill them.
The party is level 11, with 5 of them (monk, paladin, warlock, cleric, and Barbarian) along with 4 mounts (giant goat, a silver drake who was awakened, a dire wolf, and a pony) and plenty of magic items to boot.
I think I will need to think hard on the magic side of things, as they are predominantly bashy-bashy types (warlock is Hexblade). Also poisons to make them sleep, and perhaps antimagic abilities.
Don't make it too hard for them to win just because they have to take them alive. It's not like they can't stabilize their opponents once they drop to zero hit points. Why not have one of the bounty hunters be a Grave Cleric who can easily prevent the party from dying without the use of actions?
You could also apply attrition warfare by having the bounty hunters focus on taking out only one character, steal their magic items, then get the hell out of there, forcing the rest of the characters to tend to the wounds of their friend instead of pursuing the hunters. This works best with teleportation magic. Something like a cambion can do the trick.
One method I like is ambushing the party when they're at their most vulnerable. This requires exceptional stealth and spy tactics, so things like invisibility, familiars, high stealth proficiency, etc. Did the party just defeat a difficult encounter? Don't let them take a break and ambush them right away. Do they ever leave most of their rations behind due to encumbrance before going into dungeons? Poison their food and wait for them to take a meal when they return. Does the dungeon only have one entrance? Seal it off and force them to survive for days, waiting until they're completely exhausted before rescuing them.
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Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
Maybe a Medusa who wears a veil. When they want to catch someone they remove their veil, turning the enemy to stone. Maybe her snake venom turns them back into flesh-people again, so she can bring people in alive.
A chain devil also sounds like a cool bounty hunter.
In my game I had an evil secret society that kept running into the PCs. Eventually, the society decided to hire/train assassins tailored precisely to kill the party. So I created essentially the antithesis PCs for all of my players - a Monk with the Mage Slayer feat to jump on the wizard, a high level Bard to Dominate the barbarian, etc.
It was a very fun and memorable encounter. I know that generally using character creation isn't balanced towards intercombat the same way using a monster stat block would be, but it was a fun special case. You could potentially do the same here.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
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My party has accumulated some bounties, and I would like to make some memorable and repeat-encountered (assuming they survive) bounty hunters for them to encounter.
Vampires, Werewolves, and basically everything except Dragons are normal enough to exist without major upheaval to the world, so I am considering making a few groups of bounty hunters, to roll randomly for which ones they encounter at specific locations.
One I have is a trio of adventurers; an Arcane Archer, a Wizard, and a Battlemaster. The three will specialise in control spells and abilities - disarming strikes, spells like Hold Person and Resilient Sphere, and arcane archer using Beguiling and Grasping arrows from afar. Their goal is to take them alive, not to kill them.
The party is level 11, with 5 of them (monk, paladin, warlock, cleric, and Barbarian) along with 4 mounts (giant goat, a silver drake who was awakened, a dire wolf, and a pony) and plenty of magic items to boot.
I think I will need to think hard on the magic side of things, as they are predominantly bashy-bashy types (warlock is Hexblade). Also poisons to make them sleep, and perhaps antimagic abilities.
Any ideas gratefully received!
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Don't make it too hard for them to win just because they have to take them alive. It's not like they can't stabilize their opponents once they drop to zero hit points. Why not have one of the bounty hunters be a Grave Cleric who can easily prevent the party from dying without the use of actions?
You could also apply attrition warfare by having the bounty hunters focus on taking out only one character, steal their magic items, then get the hell out of there, forcing the rest of the characters to tend to the wounds of their friend instead of pursuing the hunters. This works best with teleportation magic. Something like a cambion can do the trick.
One method I like is ambushing the party when they're at their most vulnerable. This requires exceptional stealth and spy tactics, so things like invisibility, familiars, high stealth proficiency, etc. Did the party just defeat a difficult encounter? Don't let them take a break and ambush them right away. Do they ever leave most of their rations behind due to encumbrance before going into dungeons? Poison their food and wait for them to take a meal when they return. Does the dungeon only have one entrance? Seal it off and force them to survive for days, waiting until they're completely exhausted before rescuing them.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
Give them monster companions that help with capturing live bounties. Maybe a devourer that can eat and stabilize its prey.
That reminds me of that lady with the mole-creature in Avatar: The Last Airbender. She was dope.
Personally I'd be extremely tempted to have a bounty hunter show up that was a not so subtly a d&d version of a mandalorian.
Maybe a Medusa who wears a veil. When they want to catch someone they remove their veil, turning the enemy to stone. Maybe her snake venom turns them back into flesh-people again, so she can bring people in alive.
A chain devil also sounds like a cool bounty hunter.
In my game I had an evil secret society that kept running into the PCs. Eventually, the society decided to hire/train assassins tailored precisely to kill the party. So I created essentially the antithesis PCs for all of my players - a Monk with the Mage Slayer feat to jump on the wizard, a high level Bard to Dominate the barbarian, etc.
It was a very fun and memorable encounter. I know that generally using character creation isn't balanced towards intercombat the same way using a monster stat block would be, but it was a fun special case. You could potentially do the same here.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?