With the general consensus of "hunter's mark should be a Ranger class feature, not a spell", I jumbled together a ranger variant that removes hunter's mark spell from the game. Beyond the ones I've made up below, you'd have to use Deft Explorer and Primeval Awareness from Tasha's. I'm wondering how else could I balance this though. I also wanted to reintegrate the flavor of Favored Enemy/Terrain, so here's what I made:
Mark of the Ranger
1st level Ranger class feature
When you hit a creature with an attack, you may mark them as your quarry. Nature will help you keep track and defeat your chosen foe. You may only mark 1 creature at a time. The mark lasts up to an hour or until you choose to remove the mark (no action required). The mark also disappears if the marked creature dies or leaves the plane of existence you are in for more than 1 minute.
Once per round, when you hit the marked creature with an attack (including the round you marked them), you add 1d4 to your damage roll. Also, the marked creature has disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks when trying to hide from you, and you have advantage on Wisdom (Survival & Perception) checks to track and find the marked creature.
You can use this ability a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus (minimum of 1), and you regain all expended uses when you take a long rest.
At 6th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d6. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 30 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
At 13th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d8. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 60 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
At 17th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d10. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 120 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
Specialist
9th level Ranger class feature
On your travels, you’ve encountered enough enemies of a certain type to know how to best strike them, and battled in enough locations to use their qualities to your advantage. Choose 1 terrain type (e.g. arctic, coastal, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, the Underdark, urban) and 1 creature type (you can also select 2 humanoid races instead). The choices made here should reflect the types of enemies and terrain you have encountered on your adventure.
When the creature you have marked is of the chosen creature type, the die added to your damage rolls against them is doubled (e.g. 1d6 becomes 2d6).
When you are in your chosen terrain, you have advantage on attack rolls and Dexterity (Stealth) checks when using the Hide action.
At 17th level, you choose another terrain type and creature type.
Prey Seeker
20th level Ranger class feature
You gain an unparalleled focus in hunting down your enemies. You can add your wisdom modifier (minimum of +1) to your attack rolls against the marked creature.
Mark of the Ranger: I'd be more than fine with that version. Much much better than Favoured Foe while still keeping the spirit of Favoured Enemy and Hunter's Mark. I wouldn't mind leaving Hunter's Mark at home for this one either.
Yay! I did think of the aura in Dead by Daylight, where you can clearly see where the other player's are (even if you're across the map) and wanted to add that to a Ranger's abilities.
Specialist: You said it's in addition to Natural/Deft Explorer, however it plays with the same idea so I kinda have to compare it with those anyway. This one runs into the same problem as the PHB version. It's too situational. In fact the PHB version gets to have 3 different terrains at level 10 and 2 favoured enemies (or 4 specific humanoids) at level 6.The good thing about your version is that thanks to your Mark of the Ranger you wouldn't rely too much on finding your Favoured Enemy. The bad is that the unlike with Mark of the Ranger you threw away the spirit of the original and turned it completely into a combat boost. A Ranger in their favoured terrain should be able to do more with it than fighting better.
I did thought of it as a class feature at 1st, 9th, and 17th. But then that's 3 features at 1st level. I guess if one is situational, it should be okay. And yeah... it does have a problem of being too combat-focused and situational. However, I did think of it as a bonus on top of mark of the ranger (since it is a specialty, kinda like Turn Undead?), so I rationalized that it was fine. For the flavor and out-of-combat abilities, more of Natural Explorer & Favored Enemy should be breathed back into this.
Prey Seeker: Most people won't ever reach that level anyway but I'll still talk about it. Adding your wisdom modifier doesn't sound like a whole lot for a level 20 character but is fine since it's in addition to the other two features. The actual issue is that it's honestly very boring for your ultimate achievement. Several official classes have this problem unfortunately but WotC has also shown how to do it better with the Artificer, Paladin (though it's in the subclasses here) and Cleric (it's just an upgrade of their 10th level feature but narratively as well as mechanically a HUGE one). If I were to come up with a new capstone I'd orientate myself on those instead.
I was most out of my element here, because I did kind of not want to stray far from the RAW ranger capstone ability. Another thought was doubling the mark dice (e.g. 1d10 to 2d10; 2d10 to 4d10 for specialist).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
With the general consensus of "hunter's mark should be a Ranger class feature, not a spell", I jumbled together a ranger variant that removes hunter's mark spell from the game. Beyond the ones I've made up below, you'd have to use Deft Explorer and Primeval Awareness from Tasha's. I'm wondering how else could I balance this though. I also wanted to reintegrate the flavor of Favored Enemy/Terrain, so here's what I made:
Mark of the Ranger
1st level Ranger class feature
When you hit a creature with an attack, you may mark them as your quarry. Nature will help you keep track and defeat your chosen foe. You may only mark 1 creature at a time. The mark lasts up to an hour or until you choose to remove the mark (no action required). The mark also disappears if the marked creature dies or leaves the plane of existence you are in for more than 1 minute.
Once per round, when you hit the marked creature with an attack (including the round you marked them), you add 1d4 to your damage roll. Also, the marked creature has disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks when trying to hide from you, and you have advantage on Wisdom (Survival & Perception) checks to track and find the marked creature.
You can use this ability a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus (minimum of 1), and you regain all expended uses when you take a long rest.
At 6th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d6. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 30 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
At 13th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d8. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 60 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
At 17th level, the die added to your damage rolls against the marked creature changes to 1d10. Also, you know the exact location of the marked creature if they are within 120 ft., regardless of stealth or cover.
Specialist
9th level Ranger class feature
On your travels, you’ve encountered enough enemies of a certain type to know how to best strike them, and battled in enough locations to use their qualities to your advantage. Choose 1 terrain type (e.g. arctic, coastal, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, the Underdark, urban) and 1 creature type (you can also select 2 humanoid races instead). The choices made here should reflect the types of enemies and terrain you have encountered on your adventure.
When the creature you have marked is of the chosen creature type, the die added to your damage rolls against them is doubled (e.g. 1d6 becomes 2d6).
When you are in your chosen terrain, you have advantage on attack rolls and Dexterity (Stealth) checks when using the Hide action.
At 17th level, you choose another terrain type and creature type.
Prey Seeker
20th level Ranger class feature
You gain an unparalleled focus in hunting down your enemies. You can add your wisdom modifier (minimum of +1) to your attack rolls against the marked creature.
Thanks sfPanzer for the feedback!
Yay! I did think of the aura in Dead by Daylight, where you can clearly see where the other player's are (even if you're across the map) and wanted to add that to a Ranger's abilities.
I did thought of it as a class feature at 1st, 9th, and 17th. But then that's 3 features at 1st level. I guess if one is situational, it should be okay. And yeah... it does have a problem of being too combat-focused and situational. However, I did think of it as a bonus on top of mark of the ranger (since it is a specialty, kinda like Turn Undead?), so I rationalized that it was fine. For the flavor and out-of-combat abilities, more of Natural Explorer & Favored Enemy should be breathed back into this.
I was most out of my element here, because I did kind of not want to stray far from the RAW ranger capstone ability. Another thought was doubling the mark dice (e.g. 1d10 to 2d10; 2d10 to 4d10 for specialist).