Saturday, October 6, 2012

Lion the Bounty Hunter, a Stars Without Number NPC

LION the Bounty Hunter

Str: 16 +1  Class: Expert Race: Aslan* Background: Bandit
Int: 9          Level: 5 Training Package: Bounty Hunter
Dex: 10      Hit Points: 22
Wis: 7 -1      AC: 4
Con: 15 +1   Attack Bonus: +3 with weapons, +4 with Dewclaws
Cha: 13
Saves
Physical Effect: 14
Mental Effect: 13
Evasion: 10
Tech: 9
Luck: 12
Racial Traits & Abilities: *
Requires 10-11 hours sleep for every 32 hours of activity or will be fatigued.
+1 BAB with all weapons, +2 with Dewclaws
If unarmed he may make 2 dewclaw attacks per round 1d6 damage, he will only do this in a life or death situation of last resort.
Low Light Vision
Heightened Hearing- +1 to any listen based Perception checks.
Base Speed is 40'

Skills
Combat Primitive - 0
Combat Unarmed - 0
Culture/ Tarlkin's Landing- 0 (replace with whatever world is needed for the Campaign)
Culture/Criminal -2
Navigation- 0
Persuade- 1
Perception- 0
Security - 1
Stealth - 1
Survival - 1
Tactics- 0
Vehicle/Grav- 0
Vehicle/Land-1

Weapons & Gear
Bounty Hunter Badge
Combat Field Uniform – "Bounty Hunting Duds" AC 4
Feathered braid "thing" in his hair
Telescoping Stun Baton- range 1.5m, 1d8 damage (stun only), ** Lion prefers to use his hand sprayer but will use this on particularly tough bounties.
6-shot hand sprayer – range 2m, damage either SopSpray or Pepper Spray (see below) **
     SopSpray- Target is sedated and becomes drowsy. The target must make a Physical Effect save but even if fails the save they will rarely become unconscious, but they will become apathetic and incoherent. They will attempt to defend themselves if attacked but will be very sluggish -3 to all rolls and will cease resisting as soon as they are no longer attacked. Otherwise, they will try to stagger off and collapse into a deep sleep. The effects last 2-20 minutes. **
     Pepper Spray: Causes irritation of nose and eyes, and intense burning sensations in both. On a failed Physical Effect save the target is rendered incapable of much beyond reeling around flailing at the air for 1d6 minutes.**

Tranq Gas Grenades x 2- 6m radius, anyone is area of gas must make Physical Effect save or fall unconscious, gas will persist for 1d3+6 rds. ** For when he has to take on several baddies at once.

     Lion the Bounty Hunter started out as a landless male Aslan running with a pack of rogue young males that quickly landed him into trouble with the law. After serving time in prison, he repented of his criminal ways and set out for a life of adventure, leaving his home and kin behind, he eventually found himself living and working among humans and picked up the nick name "Lion", after working as a Bounty Hunter his story was picked up by a Holovid company and overnight he became a star!.. sort of...this was all much to the chagrin of his people, many of whom felt the humans were making fun of him. He ran into several misadventures along the way, most of which made it to the spacewaves. He now resides on a backwater frontier world (Tarlkin's Landing) just trying to make a living still working as a Bounty Hunter and trying to reform as many criminals as he can, only time will tell where he will wind up next. Even though he has lived among humans for many years he still judges the gender of a others based on their profession (warrior types are males, scientist-scholary types are females, just like the rest of his race does, this has gotten him into several interesting situations.  One other curious thing about him, even though his profession is potentially a violent one, he refuses to use guns and only resorts to his powerful dewclaws if innocents are in grave danger.

*I based his stats on the Aslan from the old Traveller d20 RPG rules put out by Quicklink Interactive (now out as SciFi20 minus the Traveller setting references), if you don't want Aslan or Traveller references in your SWN Campaigns what the heck is wrong with you?! Oh sorry just kidding, seriously though just change the race to a felinoid alien race of your choosing. Oh and for you Traveller aficionados I know Aslan aren't so 100% lion-like in their appearance, but we always played them that way when I was growing up so for me it just kinda stuck. : )

**Adapted from the Traveller d20 Traveller's Aide #1, Personal Weapons of Charted Space, produced by Quicklink Interactive.

     I couldn't resist working this one up when I found the picture over on the Worth 1000 words website. I've liberally borrowed from many other sources to stat him up. I hope others don't mind me referring to their work, and of course a big tip of the hat to Duane Chapman for being inspiration for this NPC. Good Gaming! – B.

Lionisms- words of wisdom from Lion the Bounty Hunter (acutally from the real life Dog the Bounty Hunter)

"At the end of the criminal rainbow- there is no pot of gold."

"Start dreaming right now and planning your future."

"When you break someone down- make sure you always raise them up higher than they were before."

"#1 you never hit a women. #2- you never hit a pregnant woman."

"He now knows there's another side of life and he could get there."

" A lot of people won't change a plan thats how they end up not winning."

"The hunter when he understands his prey- its easier for him to find them."

"My grandfather would say they're all helpable if they wake up this side of the dirt."

"If you get a goal in your mind- go for it- you're not in hell yet, you can still make collect calls, you can still talk to your old lady, you can still have children and you can still love and be loved."

"Some guys you can look at and think - yeah he's a criminal and yet some guys who don't look like one - really are. So you cannot - obviously judge a book by its cover."

"You never know what a champion is or to be a winner unless you first learn to lose."

7 comments:

  1. Nice write-up. :) I dig his optimistic quotes. I can imagine him saying, "Never look down on a man unless you're helping him up."

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  2. Thanks Christian!
    I found the quotes from some sites quoting Dog the Bounty Hunter, just seemed appropriate to add them here. Thanks for dropping by!

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  3. "I like it when a plan comes together that you didn't plan."- Dog the Bounty Hunter

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  4. Well, if one doesn't want to use "Aslan" per se, one could always assume an uplifted lion. I find it odd that we see uplifted dolphins, apes, dogs and even octopi in games, but rarely big cats.

    And, for the record, my first PC ever in any game was a mutant lion in 1e GW, Christmas Day, 1981 (although he wasn't played until after the Christmas break). So I heartily approve of this bounty hunter. :D

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  5. Anthony,
    an uplifted or Mutant Lion is a great idea,
    Thanks for the suggestion and the comments! : )

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  6. The RIFTS RPG is famous for its Dog-Boys, but it does have uplifted great cats including a variant called "kill cats" (assassination squads). It's more of a sideline because tests showed the uplifted felines to be way more independent, questioning of orders, and more prone to boredom for routine tasks than the canines. They're Detailed in the Lone Star supplement, a book which also gave the game "monkey boys!" :) Heck, I like Lone Star so much, I even bought this original drawing for the book:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bOke4sxBk3s/Sy7Xx6V-6uI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/unqOLSMgGhA/s320/mutant+gorilla.jpg

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  7. Anthony,
    I played the hell out of Rifts back in the day, and Lonestar is indeed one of my favorite books from the Rifts setting. Sadly while I still love the setting, the system gives me a headache. I'm hoping with the upcoming Spears of Dawn release allowing for magic with the SWN rules, I can recapture some of the kitchen Sink Sandbox feeling by mixing and matching stuff with the SWN rules in the background. Thanks for the comments!

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