Pathfinder Bounty Hunter vs other Mundane Classes

[HMS Invincible]

One of my party members said he wanted the bounty hunter, which I assumed was a variant on a rogue or ranger.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/tripod-machine/bounty-hunter
What I didn't realize was that it was a fighter/ranger/rogue gestalt. It gets a fighter's (full)BAB, rogue's sneak attack, and the ranger's class skills +points to spend them. That's on top of the bonus feats, rogue talents, and some useful! fluff mechanics.

I'd be so jealous if I wasn't a fulll caster, but it does makes me feel bad for the alchemist and fighter in our party. I mean, why play a mundane class X, Y, or Z, when you can have this gestalt monster.
Just to be clear, I understand the tier system(He's worse compared to another full caster), but why aren't all the mundane classes getting these toys? The only downside is the MAD requirement to fully utilize all the goodies.

[tyckspoon]

Eeyeaah.. there's a reason most tables don't like 3rd-party products. (Check out the same company's Gladiator, which can get Improved Two Weapon Fighting as a pre-reqless bonus feat in 2 levels.)

[HMS Invincible]

Eeyeaah.. there's a reason most tables don't like 3rd-party products. (Check out the same company's Gladiator, which can get Improved Two Weapon Fighting as a pre-reqless bonus feat in 2 levels.)

To be fair, TWF styles need more love, you're paying twice as much gold to enchant, at a lower attack bonus to boot. And to be honest, combining a fighter and rogue isn't a bad idea; it reminds me of how early d&D played. You were either magical, or you were a fighter. I'd happily accept a PC who took Bounty hunter, and shove him in the rogue or possibly fighter role. Without playtesting it myself, I'm not sure if you should specialize into either fighter or rogue, or just accept the MAD like a melee druid.

[Novawurmson]

Here's what I had to say about it in a thread talking about 3rd party PF products (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260095):


Bounty Hunter: Tier 4. You're basically a Ranger with full sneak attack instead of spells, an animal companion and any choices. I'm having trouble seeing where this guy would fit in: in a low optimization game, full BAB and sneak attack is going to be tearing through opponents like nobody's business; in a high optimization game, you're mostly getting the worthless parts of being a Ranger (Endurance, anyone?). Certainly playable, but think hard about why you wouldn't just play a Rogue or a Ranger first.

This class is just poor design; it's got strong basics with nothing fun or special to differentiate it from other classes. As a sidenote, every product released by that company on the PFSRD is the same - just a mishmash of core rule book class features with little to no customization and/or unique or creative features.

I would suggest your player play a Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian, or similar and call themselves (and roleplay) and "bounty hunter."

As another sidenote, I would recommend Psionics Unleashed and Psionics Expanded if you're looking for solid 3rd party PF support. Their version of the 3.5 Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife) and their new class the Aegis (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/aegis) are much better examples of game design.

[HMS Invincible]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to contact him in person until the session starts. I guess I can tell him over facebook, but that seems rude. I'll have to double check to make sure he's actually switching classes, I thought he was sticking with summoner.

I get why the bounty hunter is weaker than a ranger, but why is it weaker than a rogue? I know this brings up questions of tiers, like did rogue really move up from tier 4 to 3?

Edit: Lastly, would a bounty hunter make a better fighter? I'd assume so since fighter is tier 5, while bh is tier 4.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Rogue moved down a tier, if anything. PF hardcore nerfed all the useful rogue options of 3E. Tumbling is suicide, blinking doesn't grant SA, grease doesn't grant SA (it might on a readied attack...bleh) and the skill rank cost is greatly reduced to not lose dex anyway, can't SA with splash weapons or even quickdraw them to full attack with...
And on the non-combat side, "class skills" are basically a joke now, it's just a puny +3 (even in homogenous D&D 4E, it's worth a stinkin' +5), cross-class ranks cost the same, and anyone can get the full benefit of "class skill" just by dipping or by taking any of the limitless traits that grant a skill as class skill AND a +1 bonus on it (which means Mr. trait taker ends up with a higher bonus!). Rogues can be above average at a lot of skills, but thanks to their MAD, other classes will easily outshine them at skills based on their primary stats. Rogues are what bards used to be smeared as being in 3E, which is super ironic since the PF Bard literally steals the skill monkey role from rogue while still having full casting progression and group buff songs. Bard in PF effectively has more skill points than a rogue by level 6 or 10 (versatile performance; how early he has "more" depends on if you consider the perform skills themselves worthless or not), can ace knowledge checks, can later use skills untrained, and then finally gets to always take 10 on any and all skill checks. Sure makes the rogue's skill mastery look like turd.

Oh, and the only thing Trapfinding makes exclusive now is disabling (not finding) magical traps. And detect magic is now infini-cast. So yeah, rogue in PF has no real purpose and can't do anything really well. He just sort of feebly fills in as backup for a bunch of disparate roles.


Anywaaaaaay.... I concur with others that Bounty Hunter is not broken, and is probably if anything bland and boring.