What if Hunter's Mark was eliminated as a spell, and was made into a feature exclusive to the Ranger class? Now, I know this sort of thing has been floated many times by many people. But what I'm proposing is that Hunter's Mark stays exactly the same, except for two things: First, it is no longer a spell- it is a feature with the same number of uses as listed in Favored Enemy. Because it is no longer a spell, the option to upcast it to increase its duration would be gone. Instead, you would use another one of your "uses" of it to do that. Two uses increases it to 8 hrs. Three uses increases it to 24 hours. And Second, Hunter's Mark would now function as a Resource for subclasses, in the same way thst things like Bardic Inspiration, Channel Divinity, Wildshape, or even Second Wind work for their respective classes and subclasses.
How exactly it could be used in the subclasses is something I haven't fully worked out. But what I do know is that Hunter's Mark loses its luster in mid- and high-level play. I was thinking it might be nice if players had options for using it at those tiers of play, other than for the d6 of damage and tracking (the subclasses would uses the "uses" of Hunter's Mark, without necessarily adhering to the spells requirements. I.e., concentration might not be required to expend a use of your Hunter's Mark to, say.... increase your Primal companion's size by one category for one minute, giving it strength check advantage, speed increase, and increased damage [as an idea thst just occurred to me].)
Let me know what you think of this idea. Does anyone have some ideas on how the subclasses could be amended to include such a mechanic? And what kind of subclass features would you add?
I think looking at the new Winter Warden Ranger is a good idea of what could be done with Hunter's Mark. It gives you benefits at 3rd and 15th level that turn the spell from a simple 1d6 into something more. By doing so it transforms it into a feature worth concentrating on at higher level.
A number of the new playtest subclasses have used Hunter's Mark as a feature, and the main complaint most people make is that it then forces them to constantly use Hunter's Mark instead of other spells in order to use their subclass features. Look at the Hollow Warden from the Horror Subclasses UA, which is built almost entirely around using Hunter's Mark to augment your character. The augmentations are cool as hell, but if I want to cast Zephyr Strike or Summon Beast, I give up about 80% of my class features.
I think the problem is the class is already built too much around Hunter's Mark in the first place. If the class spell list was less laden with desirable concentration-based spells, that might mitigate the issue as it is, but I can think of a dozen Ranger spells that I consider far more essential in most circumstances.
Ultimately, the issue is, whoever is creating all these classes is too hung up on keeping true to old BS. Early Rangers were built around having Favored Enemies, which was extremely limiting and everybody hated it. So they were like, "Okay, the Ranger fans liked dealing extra damage, but they didn't like it being tied to a specific creature type. So we should spend three editions revamping the feature." They probably should have just accepted it was a bad feature and replaced it with something more functional and class-specific. But they didn't. So here we are, with this Frankenstein's monster of a class feature that hampers more than helps, trying to find a way to make IT work, rather than trying to replace it with something that does.
Will someone dumb hunters mark down. My ranger has it. I want to know the mechanics.
The basic idea is that you cast it on a target, and then every time you hit that target with an attack while the spell is active, you deal extra damage. If the target dies before the spell runs out, you can move it to another target without having to cast the spell again.
It also provides advantage on ability checks you make to try to find or track the target, but in my experience this rarely comes up in practice, and it's mostly about the extra damage.
What if Hunter's Mark was eliminated as a spell, and was made into a feature exclusive to the Ranger class? Now, I know this sort of thing has been floated many times by many people. But what I'm proposing is that Hunter's Mark stays exactly the same, except for two things: First, it is no longer a spell- it is a feature with the same number of uses as listed in Favored Enemy. Because it is no longer a spell, the option to upcast it to increase its duration would be gone. Instead, you would use another one of your "uses" of it to do that. Two uses increases it to 8 hrs. Three uses increases it to 24 hours. And Second, Hunter's Mark would now function as a Resource for subclasses, in the same way thst things like Bardic Inspiration, Channel Divinity, Wildshape, or even Second Wind work for their respective classes and subclasses.
How exactly it could be used in the subclasses is something I haven't fully worked out. But what I do know is that Hunter's Mark loses its luster in mid- and high-level play. I was thinking it might be nice if players had options for using it at those tiers of play, other than for the d6 of damage and tracking (the subclasses would uses the "uses" of Hunter's Mark, without necessarily adhering to the spells requirements. I.e., concentration might not be required to expend a use of your Hunter's Mark to, say.... increase your Primal companion's size by one category for one minute, giving it strength check advantage, speed increase, and increased damage [as an idea thst just occurred to me].)
Let me know what you think of this idea. Does anyone have some ideas on how the subclasses could be amended to include such a mechanic? And what kind of subclass features would you add?
I think looking at the new Winter Warden Ranger is a good idea of what could be done with Hunter's Mark. It gives you benefits at 3rd and 15th level that turn the spell from a simple 1d6 into something more. By doing so it transforms it into a feature worth concentrating on at higher level.
A number of the new playtest subclasses have used Hunter's Mark as a feature, and the main complaint most people make is that it then forces them to constantly use Hunter's Mark instead of other spells in order to use their subclass features. Look at the Hollow Warden from the Horror Subclasses UA, which is built almost entirely around using Hunter's Mark to augment your character. The augmentations are cool as hell, but if I want to cast Zephyr Strike or Summon Beast, I give up about 80% of my class features.
I think the problem is the class is already built too much around Hunter's Mark in the first place. If the class spell list was less laden with desirable concentration-based spells, that might mitigate the issue as it is, but I can think of a dozen Ranger spells that I consider far more essential in most circumstances.
Ultimately, the issue is, whoever is creating all these classes is too hung up on keeping true to old BS. Early Rangers were built around having Favored Enemies, which was extremely limiting and everybody hated it. So they were like, "Okay, the Ranger fans liked dealing extra damage, but they didn't like it being tied to a specific creature type. So we should spend three editions revamping the feature." They probably should have just accepted it was a bad feature and replaced it with something more functional and class-specific. But they didn't. So here we are, with this Frankenstein's monster of a class feature that hampers more than helps, trying to find a way to make IT work, rather than trying to replace it with something that does.
Will someone dumb hunters mark down. My ranger has it. I want to know the mechanics.
The basic idea is that you cast it on a target, and then every time you hit that target with an attack while the spell is active, you deal extra damage. If the target dies before the spell runs out, you can move it to another target without having to cast the spell again.
It also provides advantage on ability checks you make to try to find or track the target, but in my experience this rarely comes up in practice, and it's mostly about the extra damage.
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