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):

• 43% of first level spells
• 44% of second level spells
• 31% of third level spells
• 86% of fourth level spells
• 33% of 5th level spells

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. 

Quote from Trewill91 >>

Behold, three of the ranger's class features

 Four actually; levels 1, 13, 17, and 20.

Quote from Beerbarian >>

I like your idea with the Relentless Hunter update. Concentration has to go for the core Ranger ability.

 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.

Quote from lexgamer >>

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.

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".

Quote from Mike1878 >>

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. 

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.