High Level Hobo?

[RedDragons]

What do you see a high level hobo being, just a bunch of levels of rogue?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Most adventurers.

What? Technically, they are.

[Flickerdart]

What exactly do you imagine a high-level hobo being? Does he catch rides on Ra's golden chariot? Does he catch Titanic Warbeast Dire Rats for his food? Does he beg by playing songs fit for the gods themselves in Sigil?

High level characters aren't just tougher versions of low level characters.

[Randomguy]

A VoP drunken master?

[Darius Kane]

Commoner 20. With VoP.

[GoatBoy]

A murderhobo (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Murderhobo)

[zimmerwald1915]

A source you might find helpful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bound_for_Glory_(book))

[Jeraa]

A high-level hobo? The avatar of one of the players deities (in disguise, of course), come to the Material Plane to test their faith and willingness to aid those less fortunate.

[Soranar]

Well a fist of the forest is a hobo with class features

soo

bearfist fistbeard would be your high level hobo

[Telonius]

High ranks in survival. Able to subsist on not all that much. Travel-related abilities. Not many possessions. Generally chaotic. Use of improvised weapons. So...

Monk2/Ranger4/Drunken Master4/Horizon Walker10. No way the character is Exalted, so Vow of Poverty is out.

[Keneth]

What Kuulvheysoon said.

He'd probably be a commoner though. What else would he be?

And since we're on the topic, does being a high-level commoner make you more common? How common is a high-level commoner? Can you even notice him? Or is he so common that he just blends in with the ambient? And what's with all those chickens?

[Zonugal]

How about a Human Commoner 1/Survivor 5?

[Venger]

you guys are going about it the wrong way:

what class gives you the ability to survive indefinitely without food, disappear down blind alleys and reappear elsewhere at your leisure, be everywhere at once, do some sweet-ass hobo parkour, and as a capstone lets you hop from city to city whenever you feel like it, allowing you to skip all that riding the rails nonsense?

Urban Souls are high-level hobos.

[ThatKreacher]

you guys are going about it the wrong way:

what class gives you the ability to survive indefinitely without food, disappear down blind alleys and reappear elsewhere at your leisure, be everywhere at once, do some sweet-ass hobo parkour, and as a capstone lets you hop from city to city whenever you feel like it, allowing you to skip all that riding the rails nonsense?



I immediately thought of shadowcaster :smalltongue:

[RedDragons]

Odd Urban soul is more..well.....urban druid does better:P

[Gnorman]

No way the character is Exalted, so Vow of Poverty is out.

Are you suggesting that hobos cannot be Exalted? For shame...

Also, I have never seen a hobo do parkour.

[RedDragons]

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3381/3253537179_7ae2851777_z.jpg

[Diovid]

Urban Ranger (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) 10 / Urban Soul 10 with the Urban Soul's city-bonded substitution level.

[Venger]

I have never seen a hobo do parkour.

behold rickety cricket's hobo parkour (http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/u35dd2/it-s-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-manhunting)

NSFW of course due to profanity, being sunny and all.


Urban Ranger (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) 10 / Urban Soul 10 with the Urban Soul's city-bonded substitution level.

glad you agree

[ZeroNumerous]

A high level hobo that isn't an adventurer?

Probably Commoner 2.

He likely had a lot of fights with people wanting to take his food, clothes, whatever else, and that was how he got to level 2.

[Vaz]

Most adventurers.

What? Technically, they are.

"You've just killed the Dragon, and have 200K gp to spend each from his horde, what do you do?"
"I spend it all on a new sword."
"But what about your starving, jobless wife who has to look after your 4 kids (your other 3 died of malnutrition, the rest only survived by eating them), don't you want to set them up in a lovely mansion and have the best of everything so that they'd never need go without?"
"Nope, give me that +5 Vorpal Sword."

[Steward]

The thing is, I don't think that "hobo" really lends itself to a character class. Just because someone is homeless doesn't mean that this defines all of who they are. A group of wandering hobos in a fantasy village could be former soldiers who deserted their unit (Warriors or possibly Fighters), itinerant workers trying to eke out a meager existence (Commoners and Experts), religious ascetics and friars who wander to spread the faith or achieve some kind of fulfillment (Monks, Clerics, and Adepts), wandering criminals or vagabonds (Rogue, Warrior, Fighter), etc. Or what if they're wandering and posing as hobos in a desperate attempt to hide from a demon they accidentally let slip through a planar portal (Wizard, Sorcerer)?

You would probably need more information about the hobo in question before you could represent them as a class.

[Keltaris]

Here's a hobo turned god. (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20020406a)

[Tokuhara]

Well, another option is a Bard/Sublime Chord/Urban Savant/Virtuoso.

[Curmudgeon]

Definitely not Rogue. Rogues are all about acquiring things, and a Hobo is supposed to live with just the clothes on their back plus a "pack" consisting of a single large handkerchief tied to a pole.

[Flickerdart]

Rogues are all about acquiring things
Says who? Kleptomaniac is just one of many ways to play a rogue, and given that their signature ability, Sneak Attack, is "murder stuff more better" and not "be the best at stealing stuff" I'm not sure any of the designers would have agreed with you either.

[Karnith]

Definitely not Rogue. Rogues are all about acquiring things, and a Hobo is supposed to live with just the clothes on their back plus a "pack" consisting of a single large handkerchief tied to a pole.
The technical term for that pack is a bindle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindle).

Also, I'm seconding (thirding?) the suggestion for Urban Soul.

[the_david]

Definitely not Rogue. Rogues are all about acquiring things, and a Hobo is supposed to live with just the clothes on their back plus a "pack" consisting of a single large handkerchief tied to a pole.

Or a shopping cart...
Does anyone else picture a 4th level rogue (PF) with a Floating Disc full of junk. Or a 1st level wizard. Like, whatever.

[otakumick]

the handkerchief on a stick is the purview of the bindlestiff, not the hobo... of course unless you are a bindlestiff or a hobo you are unlikely to care about the distinction as it is largely a distinction based on having someone to look down upon each looking down on the other and seeing it as a lesser type of homeless... though at least proper hobos get the coolness of trains to associate with.

[hamishspence]

I think Heinlein went with

"A hobo is an itinerant labourer, whereas a tramp is an itinerant who has no interest in labour"

Don't know how accurate that is.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I think an important question is "Is he a hobo by choice?"

Yes like Cain in Kung-Fu, so he's an adventurer? He could be anything, though I lean towards Unarmed Swordsage, Warblade and Cleric.

No, he can only be high level relative to other hobos and needs a horrible build otherwise he would cease being a hobo at some point. Otherwise he'll stop being a hobo at some point. If in his travels he's attacked by and beats a "trivial" cr 2 encounter as a commoner 8 and the windfall should be enough to get him back on his feet.

[Curmudgeon]

Says who? Kleptomaniac is just one of many ways to play a rogue ...
I said acquiring, not stealing. Rogues have lots of skills, and many of those skills require gear (lock picks, rope, a zillion masterwork tools, & c.). I've rarely seen a Rogue without a Heward's Handy Haversack just to hold all their stuff. Add to that the various magical boosts to bolster the weaknesses of d6 hit dice and only 1 good save, and most Rogues threaten to blind anyone looking at them with Arcane Sight.

Rogue is an equipment-dependent class. That's not a good match for a hobo.

[Greenish]

I think an important question is "Is he a hobo by choice?"

Yes like Cain in Kung-Fu, so he's an adventurer? He could be anything, though I lean towards Unarmed Swordsage, Warblade and Cleric.

No, he can only be high level relative to other hobos and needs a horrible build otherwise he would cease being a hobo at some point. Otherwise he'll stop being a hobo at some point. If in his travels he's attacked by and beats a "trivial" cr 2 encounter as a commoner 8 and the windfall should be enough to get him back on his feet.I agree on the distinction. In the first case, the Urban Soul is the best fit, and in the latter, I'd go with the Commoner/Survivor suggestion.


I've rarely seen a Rogue without a Heward's Handy Haversack just to hold all their stuff.I've rarely seen anyone who could afford it without HHH. :smallamused:

[otakumick]

an excellent fictional example of a "high level hobo" of the hobo by choice variety is Happy Harry last of the Hoboes who is in a variety of stories by Lazlo Zalezac

[Venger]

Definitely not Rogue. Rogues are all about acquiring things, and a Hobo is supposed to live with just the clothes on their back plus a "pack" consisting of a single large handkerchief tied to a pole.


Says who? Kleptomaniac is just one of many ways to play a rogue

well, hobos steal/acquire/find things out of necessity since they don't have anything. as long as that's your reason behind it instead of "I steal teh shinies" then you don't have to have your hobo be a klepto, just someone who's more in need than normal people.


The technical term for that pack is a bindle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindle).

Also, I'm seconding (thirding?) the suggestion for Urban Soul.

you're the third.

(to me at least) we don't really seem to be disagreeing with each other. as is often the case in D&D, all that's needed is a simple refluff:

bindle of holding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#bagofHolding)

now everyone's happy.