I think this finally makes the ranger hold it's own as a class. It is POWERFUL, perhaps even more so than you might think at first glance. But ultimately, it isn't more powerful than fighter, rogue, or paladin. In fact, it finally puts the ranger on par with those classes in mid to high level play. Ranger was always good in low level play, but quickly fell behind and was not really that fun.
First of all, Zephyr Strike goes from being an okay spell to an AMAZING spell. When you don't have to worry about losing Hunter's Mark or saving spell slots for it, having 10 rounds of no OA alone is probably worth a spell slot. Throw in the ability to add a 1d8 and 30 feet of extra movement at a time of your choosing in the next 10 rounds and this is a no brainer for a 1st level spell slot.
Utility casting no longer feels like a trade off. The other UA feature helps with this, but also no having to worry about needing to save spell slots for Hunter's Mark means I don't feel bad about burning a spell slot on animal friendship, rope trick, pass without trace, or whatever. My ranger is suddenly good at utility without sacrificing martial relevancy.
Bonus action rider spells that require concentration like Hail of Thorns, Ensnaring Strike, etc... are also now highly valuable.
The biggest problem with ranger was that it was given a lot of utility, but needed to use Hunter's Mark to keep up with damage, especially with 5e's generally short battles with plenty of short rests. This small change means that Ranger is suddenly much more fun to play, helpful to the party outside of combat, and while not quite doing as much damage as a fighter, barbarian or rogue, or can't Nova like a Paladin, still doing very good damage in combat that keeps them relevant to high levels.
People are massively concerned with the potential for multiclassing dips, but generally hold that the ability is fine, even great, for straight rangers.
I would posit that WIS number of free Hunter's Marks per rest is not really any worse for a one-level dip than the fighter granting an always-on fighting style, the barbarian's Rage turning on at first level, or the Hexblade's mere existence. You still need 13 Wisdom to do it, and unless your Wisdom is unusually high for a multiclass character, you only get two or three 'free' Marks per rest anyways. It's good, but doesn't strike me as overwhelmingly amazeballs forever. yeah okay, Monks can get Hunter's Mark and do more damage, oh noes!
...they're monks. Let them have fun. Building a good monk is an exercise in frustration as it is.
One solution to the MC issue I saw was to keep the free castings at first level, but add the no concentration part at 6th level when Rangers would be getting their second Favored Enemy. Corresponds nice with 2nd level spells.
Hunter's Mark is good but not overpowering. People seriously overestimate how game-breaking this sort of thing would be, especially for low-WIS characters. The damage is decent but nothing outrageous, and only about one table in twenty even remembers Hunter's Mark has other effects. If a character is dipping ranger for free Hunter's Marks to do shit with the tracking and location aspects of Hunter's Mark, by all the gods there ever were, let them do that thing. And cherish the fact that your player is invested enough in the game and their character to create a true HUNTER with their shit.
Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
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Yeah, but that combo's also once a day and does require concentration on the Mark, plus the aforementioned two-bonus-action cost. And it doesn't really scale great with level, as it never stops being a once-a-day combo. Something to have in the toolkit, but it's also a very specific race/class/feat combo, rather than just one class.
It is once per day, but at level one, nothing will beat this combo of Race Class and Feat.
You still will be able to cast hunter's mark no concentration a couple other times a day, and the combo will be even better with crits.
If you get a crit, which is fairly likely if it lasts for one minute, you do 8d6+3 damage, an average of 31 damage, maximum of 51 damage. Not many level one combinations can do this damage at all, let alone possibly multiple times in a combat.
Sure, it is once per day, but so are many other class abilities weaker than this.
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I don't know. It's simply interesting to me that everybody kvetches all the time about how weak the ranger is, and how much the requirement for Hunter's Mark concentration interferes with all the other cool shit they can do.
Wizards: "Okay. here's a version that just gives the ranger Hunter's Mark at level 1 as a basic class feature, the way everybody says it should be. They can cast it without slots or concentration, so they can do their Zephyr Strikes or junk without needing to constantly worry about Mark."
Everybody: "WAIT WHAT NO THAT'S BOGUS THIS TOO STRONK RANGERS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD!"
Man. Heh, it really does feel like nobody is ever going to be happy about this.
I don't know. It's simply interesting to me that everybody kvetches all the time about how weak the ranger is, and how much the requirement for Hunter's Mark concentration interferes with all the other cool shit they can do.
Wizards: "Okay. here's a version that just gives the ranger Hunter's Mark at level 1 as a basic class feature, the way everybody says it should be. They can cast it without slots or concentration, so they can do their Zephyr Strikes or junk without needing to constantly worry about Mark."
Everybody: "WAIT WHAT NO THAT'S BOGUS THIS TOO STRONK RANGERS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD!"
Man. Heh, it really does feel like nobody is ever going to be happy about this.
No, I'm happy about it. It makes rangers a solid option, and if you really want to min max damage (with some negative consequences) to get the most melee damage at level one, go ahead, it definitely isn't the most broken thing you can do in 5e. I'd say, if you combine Jim's Magic Missile with Hold Person, that is way more broken than this, and you have to wait till level 3 to do that.
5e has much more broken things than the ranger being able to not have to concentrate on hunter's mark, and cast it a few times for free.
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Man. Heh, it really does feel like nobody is ever going to be happy about this.
If we didn’t give the torch-and-pitchfork demographic of the internet (ya know, all of it) something to complain about then they might leave their houses and bother us IRL. I say let Rangers not suck for a bit. They deserve it. Don’t they get to be a “real Class” like the rest of their classmates?
Man. Heh, it really does feel like nobody is ever going to be happy about this.
If we didn’t give the torch-and-pitchfork demographic of the internet (ya know, all of it) something to complain about then they might leave their houses and bother us IRL. I say let Rangers not suck for a bit. They deserve it. Don’t they get to be a “real Class” like the rest of their classmates?
Hopefully they fix the few other needed class fixes soon.
Rangers did need help more than the others, though
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Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
Except you don't have an average of 17 damage, do you? Because you spend 3 rounds getting it up. So 10 damage first round, 13.5 damage 2nd round, 17 damage third round. Over the first 3 rounds, that's only an average of 13.5. Then every time you kill something, it drops back down to 13.5 the next round.
Meanwhile a fighter with polearm master using a 1 handed quarterstaff and dueling fighting style is doing 16 average damage right from round 1 and can use a shield with zero resource management.
Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
Except you don't have an average of 17 damage, do you? Because you spend 3 rounds getting it up. So 10 damage first round, 13.5 damage 2nd round, 17 damage third round. Over the first 3 rounds, that's only an average of 13.5. Then every time you kill something, it drops back down to 13.5 the next round.
Meanwhile a fighter with polearm master using a 1 handed quarterstaff and dueling fighting style is doing 16 average damage right from round 1 and can use a shield with zero resource management.
Well, another good thing with this combination is if you multiclass fighter for 11 levels, and get great weapon master and polearm master, you can get 4 attacks a round, each dealing 1d10 + 2d6 +15 damage, and average of 110 damage in a round with an ordinary glaive or halberd , plus any magic items, or subclass abilities. It stays good at higher levels. Sure, a polearm master fighter can do 2.5 extra average damage with the same race, because variant human is the best race in the game, but this is great compared to pre-this UA rangers.
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Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
Except you don't have an average of 17 damage, do you? Because you spend 3 rounds getting it up. So 10 damage first round, 13.5 damage 2nd round, 17 damage third round. Over the first 3 rounds, that's only an average of 13.5. Then every time you kill something, it drops back down to 13.5 the next round.
Meanwhile a fighter with polearm master using a 1 handed quarterstaff and dueling fighting style is doing 16 average damage right from round 1 and can use a shield with zero resource management.
Well, another good thing with this combination is if you multiclass fighter for 11 levels, and get great weapon master and polearm master, you can get 4 attacks a round, each dealing 1d10 + 2d6 +15 damage, and average of 110 damage in a round with an ordinary glaive or halberd , plus any magic items, or subclass abilities. It stays good at higher levels. Sure, a polearm master fighter can do 2.5 extra average damage with the same race, because variant human is the best race in the game, but this is great compared to pre-this UA rangers.
GWM does have a penalty to hit so your effective DPR is actually kinda low against medium to high AC enemies without some form of Advantage.
Where does it say that hunters mark is not concentration??
In the playtest materials when they define what hunter's mark does for the ranger. If you're looking at the 5e version and not the 6e/OneDND version you're looking in the wrong place.
Where does it say that hunters mark is not concentration??
Hunters mark still is concentration, Rangers can cast the spell in a way that does not require concentration in the playtest. They gain the ability at level 1, which I think is too tempting for dips, even pushing it to level 2 helps a lot imo.
Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
Except you don't have an average of 17 damage, do you? Because you spend 3 rounds getting it up. So 10 damage first round, 13.5 damage 2nd round, 17 damage third round. Over the first 3 rounds, that's only an average of 13.5. Then every time you kill something, it drops back down to 13.5 the next round.
Meanwhile a fighter with polearm master using a 1 handed quarterstaff and dueling fighting style is doing 16 average damage right from round 1 and can use a shield with zero resource management.
You apply the hex or hunters mark in the first round and it effects the first round as its a bonus action, so it would be 13.5 round one, 17 round 2. And And on top of that he went great sword maul for the MC potential of going GWM route eventually. Two weapon style he he hitting 2d6+3, +2d6 round one,(17) 3d6+3, 3d6(24) round two, and at level 2 he'd add his attribute to the second attack so 4d6+6(20) round one, 6d6+6(27) round 2. Both spells last an hour so there is a decent chance it is going for multiple encounters.
It is a lot of bonus action juggling so I am not sure its worth it especially when better concentration spells start coming in for the ranger later game. But early game it is a powerhouse move, but factoring in miss chance its not going to be insane damage every round. And this is the kind of stuff I want to see on the non full casters. I just want to see more of it on the pure martials.
I think it would make more sense to remove concentration from single attack enhancing spells, like Ensnaring Strike, than from Hunter's Mark. That way Rangers can still pair them together for good single-target damage, but you don't have the Hunter's Mark/Hex combo everyone seems freaked out about. To help Hunter's Mark still feel like a core Ranger feature, maybe specify that a Ranger's concentration on Hunter's Mark can only be broken by being incapacitated, and not from taking damage.
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I think this finally makes the ranger hold it's own as a class. It is POWERFUL, perhaps even more so than you might think at first glance. But ultimately, it isn't more powerful than fighter, rogue, or paladin. In fact, it finally puts the ranger on par with those classes in mid to high level play. Ranger was always good in low level play, but quickly fell behind and was not really that fun.
First of all, Zephyr Strike goes from being an okay spell to an AMAZING spell. When you don't have to worry about losing Hunter's Mark or saving spell slots for it, having 10 rounds of no OA alone is probably worth a spell slot. Throw in the ability to add a 1d8 and 30 feet of extra movement at a time of your choosing in the next 10 rounds and this is a no brainer for a 1st level spell slot.
Utility casting no longer feels like a trade off. The other UA feature helps with this, but also no having to worry about needing to save spell slots for Hunter's Mark means I don't feel bad about burning a spell slot on animal friendship, rope trick, pass without trace, or whatever. My ranger is suddenly good at utility without sacrificing martial relevancy.
Bonus action rider spells that require concentration like Hail of Thorns, Ensnaring Strike, etc... are also now highly valuable.
The biggest problem with ranger was that it was given a lot of utility, but needed to use Hunter's Mark to keep up with damage, especially with 5e's generally short battles with plenty of short rests. This small change means that Ranger is suddenly much more fun to play, helpful to the party outside of combat, and while not quite doing as much damage as a fighter, barbarian or rogue, or can't Nova like a Paladin, still doing very good damage in combat that keeps them relevant to high levels.
People are massively concerned with the potential for multiclassing dips, but generally hold that the ability is fine, even great, for straight rangers.
I would posit that WIS number of free Hunter's Marks per rest is not really any worse for a one-level dip than the fighter granting an always-on fighting style, the barbarian's Rage turning on at first level, or the Hexblade's mere existence. You still need 13 Wisdom to do it, and unless your Wisdom is unusually high for a multiclass character, you only get two or three 'free' Marks per rest anyways. It's good, but doesn't strike me as overwhelmingly amazeballs forever. yeah okay, Monks can get Hunter's Mark and do more damage, oh noes!
...they're monks. Let them have fun. Building a good monk is an exercise in frustration as it is.
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One solution to the MC issue I saw was to keep the free castings at first level, but add the no concentration part at 6th level when Rangers would be getting their second Favored Enemy. Corresponds nice with 2nd level spells.
Nah. Let 'em have it.
Hunter's Mark is good but not overpowering. People seriously overestimate how game-breaking this sort of thing would be, especially for low-WIS characters. The damage is decent but nothing outrageous, and only about one table in twenty even remembers Hunter's Mark has other effects. If a character is dipping ranger for free Hunter's Marks to do shit with the tracking and location aspects of Hunter's Mark, by all the gods there ever were, let them do that thing. And cherish the fact that your player is invested enough in the game and their character to create a true HUNTER with their shit.
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Honestly I feel the same way about warlocks's hex.
Have even less spell slots unless your group is reliant on short rests and have also pretty crazy spells requiring concentration
Have a Variant Human level one Ranger, with the Magic Initiate Feat for warlock, take Hex, and whatever 2 cantrips you want.
Now, start combat by hexing an enemy, and attacking them with a greatsword/maul.
Next turn, add on Hunter's Mark, and suddenly your attacks deal 3d6 + 3 bludgeoning/slashing damage + 1d6 necrotic damage, and once you kill them (which you will), you can switch them to another enemy, which does take two consecutive bonus actions, but is well worth it.
An average of 17 damage each attack at level one, with no downsides other than concentration, is really really good.
Rangers are now better than paladins at lower levels for melee combat, but paladins do catch up soon.
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Yeah, but that combo's also once a day and does require concentration on the Mark, plus the aforementioned two-bonus-action cost. And it doesn't really scale great with level, as it never stops being a once-a-day combo. Something to have in the toolkit, but it's also a very specific race/class/feat combo, rather than just one class.
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It is once per day, but at level one, nothing will beat this combo of Race Class and Feat.
You still will be able to cast hunter's mark no concentration a couple other times a day, and the combo will be even better with crits.
If you get a crit, which is fairly likely if it lasts for one minute, you do 8d6+3 damage, an average of 31 damage, maximum of 51 damage. Not many level one combinations can do this damage at all, let alone possibly multiple times in a combat.
Sure, it is once per day, but so are many other class abilities weaker than this.
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Heh.
I don't know. It's simply interesting to me that everybody kvetches all the time about how weak the ranger is, and how much the requirement for Hunter's Mark concentration interferes with all the other cool shit they can do.
Wizards: "Okay. here's a version that just gives the ranger Hunter's Mark at level 1 as a basic class feature, the way everybody says it should be. They can cast it without slots or concentration, so they can do their Zephyr Strikes or junk without needing to constantly worry about Mark."
Everybody: "WAIT WHAT NO THAT'S BOGUS THIS TOO STRONK RANGERS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD!"
Man. Heh, it really does feel like nobody is ever going to be happy about this.
Please do not contact or message me.
No, I'm happy about it. It makes rangers a solid option, and if you really want to min max damage (with some negative consequences) to get the most melee damage at level one, go ahead, it definitely isn't the most broken thing you can do in 5e. I'd say, if you combine Jim's Magic Missile with Hold Person, that is way more broken than this, and you have to wait till level 3 to do that.
5e has much more broken things than the ranger being able to not have to concentrate on hunter's mark, and cast it a few times for free.
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If we didn’t give the torch-and-pitchfork demographic of the internet (ya know, all of it) something to complain about then they might leave their houses and bother us IRL. I say let Rangers not suck for a bit. They deserve it. Don’t they get to be a “real Class” like the rest of their classmates?
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Hopefully they fix the few other needed class fixes soon.
Rangers did need help more than the others, though
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Except you don't have an average of 17 damage, do you? Because you spend 3 rounds getting it up. So 10 damage first round, 13.5 damage 2nd round, 17 damage third round. Over the first 3 rounds, that's only an average of 13.5. Then every time you kill something, it drops back down to 13.5 the next round.
Meanwhile a fighter with polearm master using a 1 handed quarterstaff and dueling fighting style is doing 16 average damage right from round 1 and can use a shield with zero resource management.
Well, another good thing with this combination is if you multiclass fighter for 11 levels, and get great weapon master and polearm master, you can get 4 attacks a round, each dealing 1d10 + 2d6 +15 damage, and average of 110 damage in a round with an ordinary glaive or halberd , plus any magic items, or subclass abilities. It stays good at higher levels. Sure, a polearm master fighter can do 2.5 extra average damage with the same race, because variant human is the best race in the game, but this is great compared to pre-this UA rangers.
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GWM does have a penalty to hit so your effective DPR is actually kinda low against medium to high AC enemies without some form of Advantage.
Where does it say that hunters mark is not concentration??
In the playtest materials when they define what hunter's mark does for the ranger. If you're looking at the 5e version and not the 6e/OneDND version you're looking in the wrong place.
Hunters mark still is concentration, Rangers can cast the spell in a way that does not require concentration in the playtest. They gain the ability at level 1, which I think is too tempting for dips, even pushing it to level 2 helps a lot imo.
You apply the hex or hunters mark in the first round and it effects the first round as its a bonus action, so it would be 13.5 round one, 17 round 2. And And on top of that he went great sword maul for the MC potential of going GWM route eventually. Two weapon style he he hitting 2d6+3, +2d6 round one,(17) 3d6+3, 3d6(24) round two, and at level 2 he'd add his attribute to the second attack so 4d6+6(20) round one, 6d6+6(27) round 2. Both spells last an hour so there is a decent chance it is going for multiple encounters.
It is a lot of bonus action juggling so I am not sure its worth it especially when better concentration spells start coming in for the ranger later game. But early game it is a powerhouse move, but factoring in miss chance its not going to be insane damage every round. And this is the kind of stuff I want to see on the non full casters. I just want to see more of it on the pure martials.
I think it would make more sense to remove concentration from single attack enhancing spells, like Ensnaring Strike, than from Hunter's Mark. That way Rangers can still pair them together for good single-target damage, but you don't have the Hunter's Mark/Hex combo everyone seems freaked out about. To help Hunter's Mark still feel like a core Ranger feature, maybe specify that a Ranger's concentration on Hunter's Mark can only be broken by being incapacitated, and not from taking damage.