Level
1st
Casting Time
1 Bonus Action
Range/Area
90 ft
Components
V
Duration
Concentration
1 Hour
School
Divination
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Force
You magically mark one creature you can see within range as your quarry. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 Force damage to the target whenever you hit it with an attack roll. You also have Advantage on any Wisdom (Perception or Survival) check you make to find it.
If the target drops to 0 Hit Points before this spell ends, you can take a Bonus Action to move the mark to a new creature you can see within range.
Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. Your Concentration can last longer with a spell slot of level 3–4 (up to 8 hours) or 5+ (up to 24 hours).
Behold, three of the ranger's class features
I really wish they took out concentration on this spell. Why did they give rangers 20+ other concentration spells when their features are going to force them to just use hunters mark? 2024 rangers look somehow even worse than the original 2014 version.
In case anyone is interested, ~43% of ranger spells have concentration, making almost half of the ranger spell list useless for four of the ranger's class features. By spell level, that is (all rounded):
Yes, that means that every fourth level spell bar one is invalidated by or invalidates three whole ranger class abilities.
My recommendation is to take away concentration from hunter's mark and change Relentless Hunter, maybe making it so that, if you take damage from the target of your hunter's mark, you can use your reaction to make an attack against them, or something similar to that. Anything other than "you don't have to concentrate on hunter's mark, but it's still a concentration spell".
I'm going with:
Once per long rest, when you cast Hunter's Mark, you may cast it on any creature that you know of, as long as it's on the same plane, and it lasts until your next long rest. If cast in this way, it does not require concentration, and you cannot cast Hunter's Mark any other way until you finish a long rest.
This way, you can wake up, investigate the site of the owl bear attack, and track it back to its lair, and hunt it, all in a way fitting of a ranger while still being able to use the features as written the rest of the time.
Crazy. Those numbers are NUTS!
I like your idea with the Relentless Hunter update. Concentration has to go for the core Ranger ability.
Those level 4 spell slots are so you upcast Hunters Mark and concentrate on it longer.
Four actually; levels 1, 13, 17, and 20.
Thank you, I appreciate it. Since then I've also added that you'd have a number of uses based on your wisdom modifier, you regain them after a short or long rest, and I'm going to test out having it so that you regain one use when you roll initiative if you have no uses left.
I love this idea! I must say, though, I'm very surprised that Hunter doesn't have this as a feature, or something similar. I think this could also be great for its own subclass, like a tracker or maybe even a cowboy ranger subclass. It would be fun to play around with that a bit, see what people could come up with.
Would like to see concentration removed for Rangers as a level feature, say level 6 etc. That way it's not free fro a measly 1 level dip or whatever and Paladins (Oath of Vengeance) or other classes who took Hunters Mark would still require concentration. Level 14 Relentless Hunter could read "Taking damage does not break your concentration on any spell".
I personally don't believe that hunter's mark would be super broken if it's non-concentration at level 1, and it feels pretty bad to have a single level of ranger just for hunter's mark, especially since the only other things you're getting from that are an extra proficiency, possibly martial weapon proficiency, and two more weapon masteries. I think, by the time you're thinking of taking a one level dip into ranger, that 1d6 extra damage on every hit isn't going to matter, especially with how many better bonus actions there are in other classes in the new edition. I would agree, however, that a lack of concentration should only exist for rangers, even if that means multiclassing. It's just that so much of ranger relies on concentration to be a useful class that there's no reason to use hunter's mark if you can't concentrate on it and also another spell which would, in most cases, be far more useful.
They tried to balance it, but everyone freaked out when it only applied damage to the first hit. That version would have worked with no concentration.
We have to accept that we will never get a concentration free version as long as it applies to every hit. I dunno why people pretend they don't understand why this is, but anyone who can do a little bit of basic arithmetic understands why it requires concentration as is. The next time they attempt to reduce the number of times it applies damage, take a deep breath and let it happen. Because I would LOVE to have hunter's mark for the first hit, and then concentrate on something else for every additional hit. Or god forbid, how awesome it would have been to combine lightning arrow or a smite spell and hunters mark for 1 glorious hit.
Or, you know, just keep complaining. Maybe one day the designers will forget that Swift Quiver is in the spell list and accidently let us have both up at the same time because everyone FEELS it wouldn't be that broken. #copium
11 levels of Fighter, 1 level of Ranger, use 2 feats to get hex + xbow expert. Every round is 4 ranged attacks with +2 to hit (Achery mastery of course), 12d6 per round for 2 lvl 1 spell slots for 1 hour, and this is with a 50gp basic hand xbow and not factoring in Fighter options. Any version of any magical weapon, which at level 12 you should have, makes the problem that much worse. This isn't even the most broken version of the problem, it's just the easiest to explain in 1 breath.
No concentration HM when it applies to every attack is broken. Pretending you don't understand any of this doesn't change how broken it is. They're never going to give it, no matter how fiercely the community complains while ignoring the basic math behind the decision. Something else has to be changed about equation to remove concentration, or (As many people do suggest) hunter's mark shouldn't be a core part of the class identity. Personally, I like having Hunter's Mark as a core feature, it's always been tied to the Ranger identity in one way or another and I would love to see it improved.
Insisting no concentration is the answer is just such a waste of everyone's time, imo. Suggest something else.
They literally get a feature that lets them ignore half the functionality of concentration. Divine Favor does one less damage on average and doesn't require concentration, multiple subclasses have the ability to turn concentration spells into versions that don't require concentration.
If I'm not mistaken, 1 minute is 10 rounds, so that means:
During my sessions, combat rarely lasts longer than 10-15 rounds. I've heard of someone doing a combat session of 25 rounds, but it took over 9 hours IRL time.
Are there any combat sessions that would last over 600 rounds? It seems quite rare, or I must be missing something? Are there situations where it's actually beneficial for it to last longer than 600 rounds?
Most spells with this amount of durations are utility spells for out-of-combat, or social interactions. Hunter's Mark does have "You also have Advantage on any Wisdom (Perception or Survival) check you make to find it." but I doubt that's the main purpose of the spell and I'm not sure whether that needs such a long duration either.
It seems the Hex spell is in a similar boat though. Wouldn't it be better to keep the concentration, but have Hunter's Mark and Hex add +1d6 damage per spell slot? Or is that's too much: 2d6 at 3rd level, and 3d6 at 5th level and up?
If that's done, Foe Slayer (level 20 Ranger feature) could increase the damage at a 1st level spell slot to 1d10, 3rd level 2d10 and 5th level 3d10? (so d10s instead of d6s) That way, I figured it would still be underwhelming, but not as bad as it is now.
I'm not sure if this actually fixes or breaks anything else though.
Hey that's not fair!
It's four of the class features XD
I think it would have been better if they reworked the effect of the original favored foe without inserting hunter's mark into it.
It's too bad you can't use a BA to move your Hunter's Mark at will. Then when combat is done you could move it to a party member allowing you to keep track of them and then, when you get into combat again before the 8- or 24-hour mark, move it to a new foe without having to re-cast it. But as it stands the target needs to drop to 0 hp before you can move it.
I agree that the damage should scale up at higher levels. This makes it more balanced with the capstone of other classes. (Level 20 Bard gets power word kill always prepared which is auto-kill to up to 2 creatures that have 100 hp or less or 12d12 damage to anything with more than 100).
I like that the 2024 version specifies "attack roll", making it much more versatile than the 2014 version which specifies "weapon attack".
It's 1 damage per attack. That's always the problem with these spells. But mostly, it's the 1 minute duration vs 60 minutes. Drop Hunter's Mark's duration down to 1 minute, and you're definitely in the ballpark for removing concentration. The abuse around HM is very much balanced by limited spells slots, and the hour duration on Hunter's Mark is a huge part of it's value in multiclassing.
As for features that circumvent concentration, it's EXTREMLY rare. You seem to be trying to spin it like it's this common thing, but it isn't common at all and it's a huge deal when it's impacted. Concentration is one of the core tenants of 5e design, and Hunter's Mark has always been at the center of the discussion. I'll go ahead and quote the DMG as a reference:
Edit: I found one of the subclass features you were talking about, and the duration is EXACTLY what changes, from 1 hour down to 1 minute if you remove concentration, just like the difference between HM/Hex and Divine Favor. I think this is a pretty good starting point if you want to remove concentration in homebrew: