Making and Running a Bounty Hunter for Your Campaign 

That's assuming the party will run. Which they will never do. Even at level 3 versus a giant purple worm.

I made a tortle bounty hunter wearing blue. When they killed him, his three brothers wearing orange, purple and red turned up. Now I need to make a wererat monk...

Ahhh, bounty hunters. Otherwise known as: the only thing a DM can throw at the murderhobos and have them be extremely smart in taking down the party without them crying about it

This is such a creative way to incorporate a seemingly simplistic plotpoint in a campaign. Anyone else could’ve just summoned up 3 Barbarians/rangers to ambush the party. I really love how you had the NPC study them and come up with counters to all their abilities and tactics overtime. I can’t wait to incorporate a similar sociopath in my campaign

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing I could only do once for my party. They are the kind of people who if you trap them once, they will spend all of their time looking for traps (+1 hr each room) to be sure that they won’t get trapped again.

So this party of four 5th level Adventures without a cleric and with a poisoned unable to talk wizard are going to continue to go into a trapped lair of an optional monster? Why wouldn't they just go back to town as soon as the wizard loses the ability to talk and find a healer?

"bounty hunter" lowercase. Legendary title

It's a neat plan, but it essentially relies on the party at no point changing their approach regardless of what happens to them. I think the general idea of having a bounty hunter tail the party and try to set up a tailored ambush is great, but the example is a bit too convenient. Edit: For clarity This whole scheme relies on using passive stealth, the party not using tiny hut, the barbarian raging in every fight, the wizard either failing a CON save or your players not calling you a shit for using an undetectable unsaveable poison, the party not going out for more ammo if it's found stolen, the party going ahead with their quest even though their only spellcaster is effectively crippled and their only ranged attacker is out of ammo, the party either failing or just not making any perception checks at the lair entrance, the wizard not just casting hypnotic pattern (it's S,M only) on their target on their first turn, the rogue not throwing a dagger, the barbarian not evading the traps despite barbarians getting advantage against them, the fighter getting killed in a single crit, and the rogue being played by such a coward that they flee instantly.

I was literally about run a bounty hunter next session. Thank you so much.

“Have you ever hunted someone with a bounty higher than your own?” “Oh I would but I’ve been at the top of the list for sooooo long…”

I love how your "Emperor" was dressed as Hol Horse

Next Episode: How to fix your upset D&D group

Remember to never foreshadow a nemesis-like NPC to your players, unless you can really trust those players to not start abusing perception check calls from then on.

How did you know I needed help making a bounty Hunter Runesmith?? Have you been hacking my computer?!??

played something similar last session. Had a few Sahkils stalk the party and hitting them. now, if you don't play PF, Sahkils can phase in the ethereal plane as a move action at will One of the monsters i picked has a 30ft burst that deal 1d3 CON damage, usable every 5 rounds. So... pop in, deal CON dmg, pop out. They got paranoid reeeeally fast

I literally just made a Bounty hunter character since my DM is getting tilted at one of our players being a total doorknob.

Anytime I see the bounty Hunter from Darkest Dungeon I just get happy. Thanks Logan :D

Thing is my players would abandon the hunt for later as soon as the ammo went missing. And the wizard? DEFINETLY at that point.

My homebrew campaign actually has a team of people like Emperor. It's called The Pandemonium Traveling Carnival and the performers in it, all experts in the arcane or weaponry, go from town to town, putting on shows and covertly hunting down rogue adventurers. They also take care of corrupt nobles and shady merchants. The show's strongman/ring master is actually a high level Barbarian. The animal tamer is a Ranger. The woman who juggles knives is a Monk. The stage magician is a Sorcerer. The musical act is a team of three Bards. The high wire act is a pair of sibling Rogues. They typically go to major cities with high-value targets and perform there for a week. As they do, some of the troupe will use down time to recon and research targets in a way similar to what this video describes. They find ways to isolate the target and take them out, typically at the end of the week right before they leave town.

Ahh, more videos like this, please. I feel you've found your second big strength next to the videos explaining races. Well done. 👌👌

We need a video on why Runesmith has such an amazing voice

Runesmith, I absolutely love how your videos give unique and creative insight to making a d&d campaign run in a realistic enjoyable way for me as a forever DM.

In a campaign, the party was introduced by them all being framed for a crime they didn't commit (Even if some of them did commit a few crimes, just not that one) what proceeds is a prison break as they steal a ship and become pirates, while the Paladin is almost crying as they have pretty much no other choice other than to stick around until they prove their innocence. It doesn't take much time for problems to arrive as soon as they drop anchor, but I was getting kinda tired of just using guard statblocks. It's a great idea to have some bounty hunters/ Corsairs to chase them down sometime, maybe I'll use an enemy NPC they liked, (they fought a Gnoll captain who managed to get away from the party, maybe she became a Corsair)

1:19 I stripped your guards idea to make wizard cops. The way I've built them, they're visually very fun. They're a bunch of wizards. Stereotypical Wizards. Like Gandalf. Staff hat beard and long robes. However they gird up their loins, and wear plate armor on their chest. They have magical eyes that glow cyan and see infrared. They never go lethal, and shoot skyrim paralysis spells from their staffs unless their field commander tells them to. Which they summon through a teleportation spell that they cast from a scroll. They also have a Spearhead in a holster on their belt that they can whip out and attach to the bottom of their staff, when told to go lethal. 😃 I had a lot of fun building a whole world and class of NPC around your initial dissection of guards. It really got the creative juices flowing. This makes me immensely excited to find out what you have to say about "bounty hunter" and how they can be played.

Why would the wizard target an area that the barbarian is in with Hypnotic Pattern? It's a 30-foot cube, so it should be easy enough to miss him with. Also, a spell's range only affects its initial casting, not during concentration (unless otherwise stated in the spell). Other than that loved the vid, and am really enjoying all these hypothetically encounter vids!

Man, a massive thing has happened in my life recently and this has perked up my day massively

This encounter seems designed around a party of *very* inexperienced players...

This is super usefull cause im gonna be making a campaign where the party will most likely be at odds with the government or a resistance group depending on how evil they are feeling if they side with the resistence then they will have to deal with only a couple well equipted bounty hunters if they side with the goverment then they have to deal with many more not as well equipted rebels

That's definitely well thought out, I took shortcuts and made an assassin afflicted with the medusa curse

I personally have exactly 1 point of contention with this design. the poisoning. It's an extremely smart tactic, but I feel like it's the kind of thing that's basically just a "Fuck you" to that player, forcing them to sit back and watch their party get murdered without being able to actually contribute. The Rogue and their Crossbow Bolts is also a bit similar, but rogues can work well enough with melee weapons, even if it's just a dagger or short-sword they keep in their boot and they're a Sniper, they don't have basically their entire character shut down for the fight.

Is it just me, or is Logan getting really good at playing dnd with himself?

Love this! I also heard an idea for creating an “anti-party” as a group of unique bounty hunters who work well together and have compatible power and abilities to the party. Either way, could be a great repeat villain depending on how you use them

3:25 put his bolts in ranger ricky's bag, several times, untill robin richie ragged gets violently upset one time. Then steal the bolts before the attack.

2:53 Hey what's up everybody SkiDeepReef here and welcome to another D&D greentext

Perfect idea, thank you. Just what my mastermind villain needs.

I would like to formally thank you for this guide, which is driving me onward to play a bounty hunter character like this.

Man, My group has been playing Drakkenheim for awhile now, and I've become known as the contamination card collector

I like the idea of the barbarian killing the bounty hunter and then almost die, while trying to stabalize the fighter. After all odds and nearly bleeding out in the forest, the bariarian somehow enters a nearly mind-destroying permanent rage out of pure survival and live. They could become the new BBEG, but one that actively cuts through any enemy it can on the quest to actively hunt down the players who ran away, which is constantly forcing them to move and be on the run from a permanently blindingly enraged force whose only motivation is to kill them for seemingly betraying the fighter and barbarian, and also kill anything that stands in its way.

I think the specifics of this chain of events are a little shoddy at points, relying a WHOLE lot on hypotheticals despite it being generally interesting. I think you should have framed this as a bunch of different ideas as to how to screw with a party, as opposed to all this happening to the same party which makes it feel more contrived. -The wizard has a favorite food vendor. -The party doesn’t just wait to complete a non-time sensitive request while the wizard recoups - The party rolls so low the Rogue’s stuff is just pulled off his person at night - The party continues knowing something is playing them - The Barbarian has to use resources in a big fight, so now THREE of four party members are down resources and they STILL persist. - The Rogue backing up to hide even though he has no ranged options instead of moving foreword with his enchanted movement and getting his sneak via ally presence It’s a good video for some ideas, but if your players have THIS level of tactical acumen I don’t think they’ll appreciate your big brain strats to fuck them over.

Think you're being to kind to these party members, but then again I build bounty hunters to hunt murder hobos.

"We forgot Beefy! Do you think he'll be ok?" "For our sakes, I hope not..."

I'm fairly certain Swashbucklers add Charisma to their initiative rolls, not their Perception checks. So the maximum Passive Perception in the editor's note should be 26 (10 + 5 from Alert + 6 from Expertise + 5 from Wisdom).

A level 5 cleric would stomp this situation, but then again, I guess the bounty hunter's research would reveal that beforehand.

Really enjoying this series. Thanks for cooking ideas for us!

Favorite use of bounty hunters was after my party robbed a bunch of burning buildings in broad daylight, so they naturally got accused of the arson as well. The party split up and went on a spending spree with their stolen wealth and the bounty hunter (he had a +4 in Intelligence and Wisdom) systematically took them down and brought them to prison one by one.

Why did the party decide to fight a monster while their wizard was poisoned?

The weighted hook net Anti magic dust last 1d4+1 rounds in a 30ft radius Potion of invisibility + unseen servant for mis direction Difficult terrain +caltrops for added damage A trained owl bear as an ally and a reason to get the party into the woods to fight and drain resources And finally a scroll of hold person And or command I love the idea of a swell tongue poison (I would describe the food as sour or something to hint and maybe tip the party off)

I think my group would just think that I tried to specifically kill them if I did that.

I think I might be a little meaner than Runesmith. I really like the warlord stat block in the back of Volo's. I also like giving the full array of features from various subclasses to monsters. I also like my homebrew ranger feature variant that replaces favored enemy, favored foe, and hunters mark. So my bounty hunter is starting with a CR 12 stat block. I'm then adding all the subclass features from one of the following; Horizon Walker, Gloom Stalker, Few Wanderer, Swarmkeeper, Oath of the Watchers, or Fathomless Patron. Depending on the skill sets of the party and the terrain they're in. The bounty hunter will also be proficient in two of the colors of mana from Magic: The Gathering. Their favored mana will give them advantage on all Dex, Int, and Wis checks made in the terrains tied to the mana colors, and checks for those stats that deal with creatures tied to those mana colors. It also adds 1d12 to the damage of all weapon attacks made against creatures of those mana colors. Plus they get 4 or 5 bonus languages commonly spoken by creatures of those mana colors. The 2 mana colors will be chosen based off what two colors cover the most PCs. Given that every race, class, background, and terrain type surrounding ones home town can be tied to one of the colors, it's a safe bet every PC will be tied to at least two colors of mana.

I actually had a fun take on the bounty hunter. I had a murderhobo player who just would not stop, I tried talking to him, trying to reason that his lawful good alignment wouldn't hold up with slaughter of everyone they met and flat out just asking him to stop. He just threanted to kick me out of his house. So I was venting to one of my other friends out of game and he offered to join the party but make a character tasked with hunting them down. I gave him the basic starting gold for that level and he stocked up on gear designed to take them all down. His finished character was a lawful evil rogue with a few levels into the assassin prestige class (this was 3.5). I got the okay from the host player to bring him in and as soon as the player starts murderhoboing he's immediately caught in a net that had poisoned hooks woven into the mesh. Poison was one that focused on doing wisdom damage and the net was imbewed with hold person. Oder of operations kicked in with the net restraining him, the hooks digging into him letting the poison do its work due to a nat 1 save on the murderhobo and then he rolled a total of 5 after all the wisdom damage was tallied up for the save vs Hold Person. My friend announces that he'd been hired by the local nobility to bring them all in dead or alive. The host/problem player got mad and demanded my friend to leave and I decided I was done with that party.

The Swashbuckler gets to add their Charisma modifier to Initiative, not Perception. The maximum passive Perception at 5th level is 26, or more likely 25 if you're using point buy/standard array.

My spell jammer DM did this to me! My swashbuckler’s clothes were ruined and I remarked that I found a cozy tailor in the town we were going to. Next session: as we leave a gorilla 🦍 confronts the party given that my mans was a deserter from the elf navy. When our captain wouldn’t allow it the big boi started clobbering us. And before the wizard could cast a spell a dwarf perched above on the roof tops shoots him causing him to flee back into the shop. Meanwhile the captain and I are focused on the gorilla when one of the bounty hunter’s that way laying in wait BASHED me over the head. Knowing a duelist like me would focus on one target. As I’m being dragged away the captain is pre occupied with a wrestling match between himself and the big harambe guy. Total blind side. Loved it

I had a campaign where the party was framed for a crime by a nobleman, and they had to try and keep a low profile while attempting to clear their names. The nobleman was aware of their plans to expose him, and called on 4 bounty hunters; 1 for each party member. Our barbarian's bounty hunter was a disguised mind flayer who could easily feed on his low intelligence. Our Paladin's bounty hunter was an illusion wizard who would make a clone of himself for the paladin to waste smites on. Our rogue's was a monk with eye tattoos all over his body that he could see through, so the rogue couldn't exactly sneak so easily. And the bard had a hot succubus (pretty self explanatory). The party did all beat their respective hunters, but they all took multiple encounters and serious thinking outside the box (except for the barbarian, who just got lucky and crit the mind flayer 3 times in one turn)

ok but wouldn't the party investigate where the poisoned food came from?

Holy shit..... I love this. My party has made many enemies of many different alignments and I've been wondering how I could make someone they've thwarted come back to them. I love the whole "casing the party" aspect, that would really surprise them

" the assassin stat block is super unfair" Sure but is it really as unfair as this ambush?( for the record I don't care about fairness all that much I just find that comment funny pertaining to a fight like this that ended before it started)

I now know my next PC, an incredibly old incredibly creepy neutral evil halfling named Emperor.

I love that the BH from darkest dungeon is there in the thumbnail

First of all... kudos for the Jojo's reference! I think no NPC would take this kind of job alone, unless his level or CR is on the deadly range for the PCs. Specially when you regard the logistics if he somehow captures one or more party members (even if he is trying to kill them all, he can use one as hostage to lure them into a trap). If he is not going to be alone I would pair him with capable NPCs like scouts and spies (which become really dangerous even when they only have ONE poisoned arrow each, nets, manacles, caltrops... or you can use the "tanglefoot bag" that appears in one of the published adventures). You can use the Veteran or a reskin of the Knight with it's LEADERSHIP power to boost his group. If he is going to be a lone wolf... I would give him class abilities to give him a little more breathing ground... Ranger, Rogue, Oath of Vengance/Oathbreaker Paladin are probably the most straight foward choices. But the real deal is facing a shadowdancer... a Way of Shadows Monk at level 6 can pick them one by one... you can even make them belive they are being attack by a whole group with the teleport ability.

I’m not first I’m not last But when runesmith uploads I click fast

The fact he didn’t even need a stat block, yet made the fight with a bounty hunter super interesting was quite cool.

I once had a single player situation, ran it as she was a bounty hunter type thing; ended up working fairly well.

I'm dealing with a Shenanomancer whoes pissed off the anti-Necromancer Order. This will be really useful, thanks.

I thought this was going to be about a campaign where the PCs are bounty hunters at first. Read the title wrong because i have dum dum Not what I expected, but this is cool as heck too.

Me, running a dnd campaign where the party is part of a Bounty Hunter Guild: Yes. Finally I can see if I'm doing this right! I grievously misunderstood this. Still epic owo

was JUST writing some bounties as a way to get players to possibly explore the world more, great timing

2:21 some here either made a massive oopsie mixing initiative and passive perception. Charisma there is added to initiative exclusively. With 20 WIS, expertise and Observant it would be a passive perception of 26 :) On the other hand, with a 20 CHA and a 20 DEX it would have a +10 initiative or a +15 with the alert feat. To have all of this at level 5, it would mean that you are using weighted dices.

I have someone with a passive 36. They are trying to work towards 40. I told them that if they hit it, they'll be pretty much able to see everything anywhere within his sight.

Okay that barbarian if he survives sounds awesome

Nice. I always feel like I come away a tiny bit better of a DM from your videos.

Loving these scenario video's! Giving me lots of ideas!

Made a Paladin subclass that is all about stopping/destroying magic. Then turned them into a faction that seeks out casters and magic items. Any spell cast of 3rd level or higher, or a magic item used of rare or rarer, and the paladin faction is pinged. You can negociate that youre using magic for good, but you'll pay a fee to them to essentially have a license to use it. (Or you can decide they are a problem and the faction should be dismantled) Inspiration: Fallouts "Brotherhood of Steel"

Thanks for the advice I'll be using this in the future

I love this series! Is there any special tactics Dwarfs would use to defend a mine?

I love your narrative legos.

I would love a how to make interesting artifacts video next, I'd love you forever Logan!

Emperor be like "Execute Order 6d6"... I'll show myself out

Great video, I wish I could do more than like the vid... And I'm kinda broke rn... Annnnyways, super fun idea I would love to see this as an NPC or even a player who plays outside of the rest of the party

Although I do like this, I will say I'd personally never do something like removing the wizard's ability to cast their spells. I've had a fight where my armorer artificer was restrained for the entirety of the fight, and another with my paladin where an enemy cast heat metal on her armor. Playing D&D is supposed to be fun and, quite frankly, not being able to do anything isn't that.

Half the people on this channel seem to always need the exact thing Runesmith posts. Wizardry or sorcery?

Started imagining doing something similar with a tiger lycantrope, of wich are known to be calculated, in hunts.

Wait where does it say that a Swashbuckler Rogue gets a bonus to their Passive Perception? 10+5 (20 Wisdom)+6 (Expertise in Perception)+5 (Observant Feat)=26. Where does the other +5 come from? I assume it's got something to do with their Charisma as that is stated to also be a +5 (20). But the Swashbuckler Rogue gets no ability to add their Charisma to their Passive Perception (at level 3 they only get to add their Charisma score to their Initiative rolls with Rakish Audacity, but it says nothing about Passive Perception). Does anyone know what else they could possibly mean? As this seems like an obvious mistake in the video.

Passives cancel out? That's something I've never heard of and isn't even explained.

A video so nice I watched it twice. Seriously this series is a god sent.

Assuming 5e, Hypnotic Pattern does NOT suddenly wear off if you leave 120 feet. Spells only stop working at range if they specially say so, which Hypnotic Patten does not.

Actually useful i was going to design a few bounty hunters for my game incase something goes wrong, because they're always useful. Im thinking of using the owlin for one of them

sorry, I know I'm nitpicking, but swashbuckler doesn't have a feature that boosts passive perception. It has an initiative boost, but not one for perception.

It’s not even a question, that barbarian will survive just through sheer will, and the all consuming desire to kick the asses of his party members.

gotta be honest if nobody in the party keeps watch at night they deserve this. dont get why the rogue with no ammo would hide on the other side of the battlefield tho

awesomely executed

I feel bad using tactics and plans like this cause I've had players assume I was playing against them and they didn't know how to fight back.

My character, a Hexblade Samurai, is cursed by the Muramasa and has to kill a creature for its blood every few days to avoid making wisdom saves or risk slipping into a murderous blood rage. Due to this he frequently takes up bounty hunting and vigilante work. Our last session had us resting in Balder’s gate as we were escorting Volo to Candlekeep. I was running out of days to feed my blade and decided to take up marks on death trio cultists and roped the party into helping. We learned that they like attacking people alone or the elderly at night. Our yuan-ti pure blood warlock disguised himself with a disguise kit and cast disguise self on our redemption paladin (who has the unarmed fighting style from a feat) and they chose to walk down the street as a pair of elderly ladies while we tailed behind. After a bit a robes man comes out from an alleyway and starts waxing off a dumb speech about death while our players pretend to be near deaf and thanking the man for offering them help. They hear snickering from down the alleyway as the cultist is getting his pride torn to shreds. He holds out a hand after getting the idea to play along with the old lady (fisticuff paladin) asking for help crossing the street. After (s)he takes the cultist’s hand, the cultist swings out a mace that rolled a 10 against our paladin’s 20 AC. So imagine a robed man is holding the hand of an old lady in the middle of a medieval street swings down his mace only to be met with a loud clang and a mace bouncing off the old lady’s shoulder. “Looks like ya fucked up, sonny!” Paladin has cultist in a grapple by technicality and deals auto damage every round. Paladin proceeds to crush the cultist’s hand to shreds for 4 damage and proceeds to punch his daylights out with a critical hit laced with a smite for good measure.

This reminds me of the time i tried to make an OP bounty hunter who would hunt the party for most of the campain. First encounter with the party and a short fall off a cliff later he was dead, needless to say but i wasn't jumping for joy when the party got a couple levels from the battle and swept through the dungeon i had planned for them shortly after.

This video is so damn helpful and really well executed. I can tell the editing and characterization are getting way better over past installments (not that they were bad, just that you've made so much progress). I'm totally using something like this next time any of my players commit a serious crime! Now that I think about it, I bet gameplay like the bounty hunter's would be really fun for a campaign, just assemble a team of bounty hunters going after a party of reskinned player adventurers and let them indulge in their traps and caltrops.

My party had a good reason for nuking the city… but I still feel attacked. 😂

Ok I miss read the title and instead of reading bounty hunter, I read beauty hunter.... so now Im making a new npc XD

your enitre end game scenario is built on the premise that the fighter will die without being able to do much even if we concede this point the rouge and the wizard are still ready to go with secondary weapons a rogue that can flank and do sneak attack to a bounty hunter locked in combat with a 5d12 hit point barbarian( even if he lost half of his life he is totally still capable of tank for a discrete number of turn and any hit from his weapons is a potential disater for the lone bounty hunter ) i have never seen a party escape especially not a single player leaving behind the group. the most realistic scenario is that the rogue murderhobo will charge the engage lone hunter and spam sneak attacks also a level 5 wizard has a by default( i have never seen anyone going adventurin without a ranged weapons) a crossbow or a slingshot in his arsenal to be useful when he runs out of magic. swelling the tongue of the wizard is a good move but it is still a level 5 pg with a ranged weapons to deal with especially in this scenario of 4 vs 1 the lone bounty hunter can't afford any misstep in calculating position, attacks and accaptable risk and damage to take even 2 bolts on the spot are can potentially be the difference between being able to tank a barbarian or a fighter for a turn or more

High Wis druid with Observant in an animal form that gives Advantage could get the same Passive Perception as the Swashbuckler example (Expertise could come from another feat or just a level of Rogue)

I love ya random Character's Names~

Nice video as always, Runesmith! May Stibbles smile on your breakfast beard!