[5e] Ranger Fighting Style for Hunter's Mark

[Segev]

Hunter's Mark is generally considered deceptively bad. It looks great, but costs too much action economy compared to other build options, such as TWF or Crossbow Expert, and has the perennial problem that Ranger spells require Concentration and are rarely as good as the Druid spells they can also get that require Concentration. This is an attempt to alleviate this at least a little.

Mystic Hunter
You learn Hunter's Mark. If you already know it, you may learn another first level Ranger spell of your choice.

When you mark a creature with Hunter's Mark, you may make a weapon attack against that creature as part of the same action used to mark it.

I am tempted to also make this remove the Concentration requirement from Hunter's Mark, but that might be too much for a fighting style.

As an additional option, would something that just lets a Ranger concentrate on as many Ranger spells as he wants to be broken, considering the relative weakness of Ranger casting? I know that's a couple of Druid crowd control spells as well, but I still think even multiclassing a primary caster wouldn't overpower this since it only works on Ranger spells.

As an example:
Primal Focus
Second level optional ranger feature
Whenever you cast a Ranger spell that requires Concentration, you may instead Concentrate on your connection to nature. While you Concentrate on your connection to nature, your Ranger spells do not require Concentration. If you lose your Concentration on you connection to nature, any of your active Ranger spells that require Concentration also end.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Removing concentration of ranger spells will break the game. Doing that sets up spell combo's that would normally be not allowed due to concentration requirements such as Zephyr Strike and Guardian of Nature.

Frankly I don't see why people get upset on Hunter's Mark as it is a spell for extra damage and some effects that is the same as how Smite spells work for Paladins. Though if you are trying to do this, would not a more simple salution be just remove the damage die portion of the spell and take the additional effects of Hunter's Mark and throw it on the Favored Foe alternative class feature?

If you are going the route of the removal of concentration then I would limit it to just one spell that can only be done while in the Ranger's chosen favored terrain via the Natural Explorer class feature.

[Saelethil]

Removing concentration of ranger spells will break the game. Doing that sets up spell combo's that would normally be not allowed due to concentration requirements such as Zephyr Strike and Guardian of Nature.

Frankly I don't see why people get upset on Hunter's Mark as it is a spell for extra damage and some effects that is the same as how Smite spells work for Paladins. Though if you are trying to do this, would not a more simple salution be just remove the damage die portion of the spell and take the additional effects of Hunter's Mark and throw it on the Favored Foe alternative class feature?

If you are going the route of the removal of concentration then I would limit it to just one spell that can only be done while in the Ranger's chosen favored terrain via the Natural Explorer class feature.

The difference between Hunter’s Mark and the Paladin’s smite spells is that if a paladin wants to concentrate on something else they still have their basic divine smite which does not require concentration. I think a less drastic change would be to just remove concentration from Hunter’s Mark. Rangers still wouldn’t be able to nova to the same degree as paladins but the damage would be incredibly dependable without having to worry about concentration being lost while also giving the option to nova a little bit more with some of their other concentration spells.
I haven’t done the math to compare what a 5th level Ranger with a concentration free Hunter’s Mark would look like next to a 5th level Paladin but I would suspect it wouldn’t be outrageous.

[Segev]

So maybe just make Mystic Hunter remove concentration, as well?

Mystic Hunter
You learn hunter's mark. If you already know it, you may learn another first level Ranger spell of your choice. Hunter's mark does not require concentration for you.

When you mark a creature with Hunter's Mark, you may make a weapon attack against that creature as part of the same action used to mark it.

[Yakk]

TWF is a trap as you may have noticed.

XBE/PAM's problem is that they don't have rivals.

Make some feats for Archers, Throwers, Blademasters, Hammer users and Axe users that are incompatible with XBE/PAM (by improving different weapon sets), and don't require a bonus action.

Similarly, you can probably rework the TWF feat to drop the bonus action requirement for the extra attack. Maybe drop the "larger weapons", or make it a choice (it doesn't require the bonus action if you use light weapons).

[Segev]

TWF is a trap as you may have noticed.

XBE/PAM's problem is that they don't have rivals.

Make some feats for Archers, Throwers, Blademasters, Hammer users and Axe users that are incompatible with XBE/PAM (by improving different weapon sets), and don't require a bonus action.

Similarly, you can probably rework the TWF feat to drop the bonus action requirement for the extra attack. Maybe drop the "larger weapons", or make it a choice (it doesn't require the bonus action if you use light weapons).

This doesn't really address the flaw(s) with hunter's mark and its own competition with XBE/PAM/TWF/other new bonus-action-using feats.

[Yakk]

This doesn't really address the flaw(s) with hunter's mark and its own competition with XBE/PAM/TWF/other new bonus-action-using feats.
Sure, but not every spell needs to work with every feat?

PAM/TWF/XBE all add extra taps. This makes a per-tap spell stronger. Having them both compete for bonus action economy is not a bad thing.

The problem I see is that non-PAM/TWF/XBE is sufficiently worse than HM+not-that ends up being worse than just using those.

If HM + some Archery feat beat out XBE and the Archery feat didn't have a bonus action cost, then the "problem" evaporates.

Only if your goal is to make HM work specifically with XBE/PAM/TWF does the problem require fixing them.

I don't see a reason why a hand crossbow ranger should be the optimal ranged damage dealing ranger, do you? Or that a spear + shield ranger should outdamage all other rangers using a shield?

A bonus-action contention free HM+PAM/XBE makes those work crazy well together, so much so that the alternatives really pale in comparison. At level 5, spear PAM + HM is 2d8+1d4+3d6+stat*3; call it +3 stat = 31 damage.

Sword + HM is 2d8+2d6+stat*2; at 18 stat that is 24. A pretty big gap, more than making up for the lost accuracy.

Similarly, Longbow+HM at 18 dex is 24 damage at +9 to hit. XBE+HM at 16 dex (without bonus action contention) is 30 at +8 to hit (+25% damage for -1 accuracy)

Toss in SS LB becomes 44 at +4; XBE becomes 60 at +3 (+36% damage for -1 accuracy).

Taps are already crazy good. HM makes taps even better. More taps and HM both require bonus actions. That is _good_ in my book.

I mean, you could boost HM to 1d12 instead of making it no-contention. Then LB+HM is 2d8+2d12+8=30, and XBE+HM where 3/4 of XBE extra attacks are lost is 29.25. Similar boost to XBE/PAM/etc, but more boost to other styles; on single big monsters, far more than 1/4 of the bonus action attacks will happen.

[Segev]

What sort of Ranger build do you see working well with hunter's mark?

By "working well," I mean that it is competitive with builds that use some sort of bonus action attack in terms of DPR. It doesn't have to use a bonus action attack, itself, and in fact may well not so that the loss of the bonus action to casting the spell and shifting the mark doesn't impact the dpr. But it should be on par with those others.

And DPR is the focus here because that is the primary reason to cast the spell. The advantage to noticing the marked target is nice, but mostly a ribbon.

[Yakk]

My point is that stripping BA contention is one way to boost HM. But that way focuses the boost in cases that where already strong - XBE/PAM.

If you change HM to be 1d12 (!) but keep BA cost it gives roughly the same boost to XBE/PAM builds, but gives a larger boost to ranger builds that don't use BA for an extra tap.

I get that making HM more useful is good; but we should be consequentialist about it.

Rangers using longbows, greatswords, two weapons and sword+board shouldn't be dominated by PAM/XBE builds. So care should be taken to avoid boosting PAM/XBE too much.

Now there is a problem in that TWF double short swords mechanics are very similar to XBE hand crossbow mechanics.

How about HM deals 1d12 damage, once per weapon per turn? That distingingushes XBE from TWF. It boosts lower-tap builds more than higher-tap builds, and barring 100% accuracy is an improvement for 2 swings per turn d6 per hit.

Or make it 2d6 per weapon per target.

Hunter's Mark:
You deal +2d6 damage to a creature when you hit it with a given weapon for the first time on a turn.

That might, however, be too good at level 2.

It could be 1d6 1/turn/weapon/target but scale with slot level? So a 2nd level slot does 2d6 etc. Cap at 5d6.

The concentration limit is a pain. I could see a class feature that removes it specifically for that spell, maybe level 11.

And/or have class features that add 1d6 to HM damage at 5/11/17.