Tolkeen Artifact Hunter Question

[RockJock]

Has anyone played, or played with an Artifact Hunter? Anything good or bad about them?

Would you allow them to do the Shifter bond with the Supernatural if it was a god of Light, Warrior god, or god of Magic as opposed to the darker sources?

We are going to be playing in a fairly high power campaign, with dimension hopping, and I want a different magic user, so I was thinking of one of these guys. I could always go with just a Shifter or something, but I wanted more flavor. I also see the Hunter as a good jack of all trades class, with the bonus of easily being balanced to other characters with gaining or losing items from their travels.

Thoughts?

[SpiritInterface]

Has anyone played, or played with an Artifact Hunter? Anything good or bad about them?

Would you allow them to do the Shifter bond with the Supernatural if it was a god of Light, Warrior god, or god of Magic as opposed to the darker sources?

We are going to be playing in a fairly high power campaign, with dimension hopping, and I want a different magic user, so I was thinking of one of these guys. I could always go with just a Shifter or something, but I wanted more flavor. I also see the Hunter as a good jack of all trades class, with the bonus of easily being balanced to other characters with gaining or losing items from their travels.

Thoughts?

What book are they from?

[Braden Campbell]

I played one a few years back... Daniel Prophet. It was a blast.

I decided to ignore all links to the supernatural and instead focus on the inter-dimensional thieving aspect. I gave myself a plasmoid familiar, and searched long and hard for the lightest possible MDC armour that gave no prowl penalties (it turns out to be Dog Boy riot gear).

[drewkitty ~..~]

What book are they from?

RDB 7 Dimensional Builder.

Has anyone played, or played with an Artifact Hunter? Anything good or bad about them?

Would you allow them to do the Shifter bond with the Supernatural if it was a god of Light, Warrior god, or god of Magic as opposed to the darker sources?

We are going to be playing in a fairly high power campaign, with dimension hopping, and I want a different magic user, so I was thinking of one of these guys. I could always go with just a Shifter or something, but I wanted more flavor. I also see the Hunter as a good jack of all trades class, with the bonus of easily being balanced to other characters with gaining or losing items from their travels.

Thoughts?

The RUE Shifter does have the option of bonding to a Good SN being within the text.

However, the %'s of bonded to un-bonded seams to be flipped between the Shifter and the Tok. Art. Hunter. Where the texts makes it seam most Shifters make the bond, while most of the TAH don't make the bond.

[RockJock]

It talks about the TAH not bonding to evil, but both the RUE Shifter, and the Shifter in the Megaversal Builder DB gives several "good" options including the gods of Light. I was just curious.

I am looking to play a sort of Indiana Jones, if Indy was a dimension hopping magic user, so not too far off Braden's character.

After some discussion the TAH might become an NPC instead, with a higher power level and work as the groups guide. I'm working on both versions of the possible character for kicks. There is just something about a NPC with a backstory to explain why he has a psychic sword from England, Biomancer armor from an alien dimension, a Kittani Plasma Lance with a Dwarven inscription, Biomech familiar, Psyscape psychic bonuses, Paratee rider from the 3Gs, and magic ring with Elvish writing that is fun to work on.

[drewkitty ~..~]

RJ, what the text says is that even "Evil TAH" are leery of bonding with SN beings for fear that the SN Being would steal the Artifacts they find.

[Braden Campbell]

I am looking to play a sort of Indiana Jones, if Indy was a dimension hopping magic user, so not too far off Braden's character...

Yup. Pretty much.

Since Daniel was also in the employ of Tolkeen, I also had to come up with some rough background info as to how they were organised. So, I invented a hidden, thirteenth member of the Tolkeen Ruling Council who, much like Fagan in "Oliver Twist", trained up young orphans to become master magic-thieves. A certain percentage of what the Artifact Hunters stole went back to him, and any really good stuff had to be passed onto the Kingdom of Tolkeen. The hunters got to keep some artifacts for themselves after the Master got his cut.

I presume that "Fagan" survived the fall of Tolkeen, but lost most of his accumulated treasure in doing so. Still, he could be out there, trying to rebuild his network of thieves and information peddlers...

[RockJock]

The whole "bond with the supernatural" for the Shifter focuses on the "evil", but not the "good" gods. In my opinion it fits the class flavor for Od, Zeus, Thoth, or Odin to have artifact hunters out there scoring the Megaverse on behalf of them, or their churches.

I agree that it says only evil TOH would consider bonding, it just doesn't make sense a page after talking about partnering with benevolent powers for Shifters.

I'm already going on the basis of this being a non-Tolkeen artifact hunter. To me it seems to be a class that would be rare, yet widespread throughout the Megaverse.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The whole "bond with the supernatural" for the Shifter focuses on the "evil", but not the "good" gods.
…snip

Which of the three Shifter texts are you talking about?
I ask cause both the RDB7 and the RUE texts have both evil SN and Good SN beings that the Shifter could bond to.
The only one that is mostly focuses on bonding to evil SN beings is the RMB.

Why does the RMB Shifter text seam to focus on the downsides of bonding to SN evil?…….Because 1) they are the ones that are what are most likely to bond with mortals, and 2) The Downsides of bonding with them are very much worse then those of bonding to SN Good beings.

[RockJock]

I was referring primarily to the DB.

The idea that a AH wouldn't bond because it is too evil, and doesn't fit with the class doesn't work for me when talking about gods of Light and all, as lifted a few pages earlier under the Shifter description.

[drewkitty ~..~]

snip...

The idea that a AH wouldn't bond because it is too evil,
…snip

What the text said, when read critically, is that AH's don't typically bond to a SN being because they worry that is they did, that the SN being would steal the Artifact from them.

Breaking down what the text says…
❖ Artifact Hunters in general do not bond to SN beings of any stripe.
❖ This is because they don't want the SN beings they are bonded to, to steal/demand the artifact they looking for/just found from them
❖ That evil Artifact hunters (note the text make the assumption that evil chars are more confident/arrogant as to make them thing that they can beat the odds) also do not typically bond with SN beings for the same reasons as all the other artifact hunters.

[RockJock]

So an AH who was affiliated with the Church of Light would have no major concern with bonding with a god of Light.

It isn't in the book, but I in my view of the Megaverse this would be an uncommon class, but one that was spread out across the Megaverse working/created by different groups. A UWW Artifact Hunter, Pantheon of Light Artifact Hunter, and so on.

I'm rolling around the idea of a True Atlantean AH collecting for his clan. I wouldn't do the bonding anyway, but it made me wonder about other characters in other circumstances.

[eliakon]

Or just bond with something that doesn't care about items like an elemental intelligence.

Or bond with something that isn't going to steal stuff, like a being who is aligned with your cause.

Or bond with something that isn't going to steal stuff because it keeps its word.

Or bond with something that doesn't want items, it just wants this one little favor

Or...

The operant word is generally not never. And as there is no qualifier on the generally we don't even have to make up any particular imaginary limits on why they generally don't allowing us to make what ever decisions advance a particular game the best.

[RockJock]

Thanks for the input Eliakon and everyone else. I ended up staying away from the bond, more for the fit then a ban on it.

[Axelmania]

In the main book you could bond to an elemental intelligence. It always seemed like a good strategy since they rarely have big plots. Probably something like wanting you to free any you come across and not summon any yourself.

Spells you get are.iffy though. Would you have to select it among the spell magic available to major elementals? Among warlock? Or any spell you want even if your master doesn't know it?