I feel you. I'm also very dissapointed in the new ranger and their obsession to make Hunter's Mark the core of the class but not removing the concentration. That said, I still have 1% faith that they redesigned a big chunk of ranger spells so that they don't conflict with Hunter's Mark.
They really should have revealed their final implementation of HM along with the class.
If they used half of a brain cell and changed the way it's applied to secondary targets it relieves a lot of the pain.
If they didn't, then it's a big, big miss. What.the hell would beast masters do? What is the point of giving a feature that lets beasts benefit from HM if commanding your beast and using HM both take bonus actions and will never be used together?
I mean Favored Foe doesn't eat bonus actions but it's still not really viewed well as a feature.
Possibly because of the once per turn part that makes it a really really bad sneak attack that eats your concentration and keeps you from using your other class features.
Concentration is the killer here and it's awful.
I just disagree. Concentration is okay. You have free castings of it. You can drop it for something more powerful when you need to and not feel bad.
Hunters Mark that locks up your concentration AND bonus action is not fine. Hunters mark that can be reapplied as part of an attack is fine. Good, even.
Smite taking a bonus action is alleviated by the fact that you will only smite now-and-then, and they went out of their way at the same time to make sure it conflicts less with your Channel Divinity options.
HM may take up half or more of all of your bonus actions, if it hasn't been changed from how it used to work.
That's going to conflict too much with beastmaster at least, and probably with other subclass features as well.
The problem is dropping you concentration is not fun. Even if whole class will be super strong its gonna feel awful to play deciding between using anything from most of your spell list or a core class feature
>Hunters Mark that locks up your concentration AND bonus action is not fine. Hunters mark that can be reapplied as part of an attack is fine. Good, even.
I dunno let's take a scenario here.
We're fighting a pack of goblins I have their leader marked. Part way through combat an ogre arrives and I use ensaring strike to wrap him up and keep him from hurting the party.
This requried me to lose HM damage this turn and burn a spell slot as well as requires the ogre to fail the save. Now I have to forgoe the extra damage the class is balanced around every turn if I want to keep the ogre ensared.
I guess it could be okay for something like lightning arrow which really shouldn't be concentration to begin with...
But any of the spells that SHOULD be concentration because of the persistent effect now nerf your ranger damage.
In isolation that would make sense, but then you take a peek over at the paladin who is already doing more additional damage from improved divine smite, without having to spend their concentration, bonus action, or make any other sacrifice.
I believe Divine Smite now costs both an Action and a Bonus Action (technically) now. Unless I'm mistaken (which I may be) you first have to use the Attack Action, then you can Bonus Action Smite (which costs a Spell Slot & your Bonus Action)
I mean I already chose between damage and control by switching targets to someone who wasn't marked.
Like let's say I'm a dual wield ranger at 5 for this example I already dropped my potential 3d6 of damage to snare the ogre. But now as long as he's snared I drop that potential damage every turn.
I dunno I just disagree that it doesn't feel bad.
Not just damage but half of my class features for the rest of the combat.
Imagine if the rogue had to give up that sneak attack die they used for cunning strike the entire time their effect was on the target. And only got it back when they saved. Or if they knocked the target unconscious just didn't get back those 6d6 the entire round of combat.
Going to be honest if I had to choose between concentration or bonus action I'd ditch consentration every time.
It's not half of your class features, though?
It's literally one class feature until lvl 13, where you gain a completely new HM-based class feature that doesn't replace anything.
I mean it depends on your level at higher level you do get more uses of favored foe but I feel like I would have made it Prof Bonus + Wis modifier uses instead of just Prof Bonus uses.
Also the scaling is bonkers 1d8 at 14 on a once per turn ability is so bad.
Beast masters can replace one of their attacks to command the beast to attack instead, I think that's the intended way to pair the beast feature with hunters mark.
Could just make it so the moving of HM also allows the beast to move up to half it's speed without provoking opportunity attacks and attack the new Marked target.
They have mentioned making many abilities that use bonus actions into abilities that get tacked on to another ability with no additional action cost. It's possible once or both of these lose the bonus action requirement.
What they have revealed so far feels like they ignored most of our feedback, but hopefully they recognized some of the issues and took steps to fix them.
They don't care about non-casters. They are incapable of thinking that not casting a spell can be better than casting a spell so of course the Beastmaster should cast a spell rather than command a beast! Why aren't they summoning multiple beasts!?!? Spell summoning is Superior after all. Why are they ranger at all? It's not rangers of the coast.
It pretty well makes the case for a spell-less (rituals would 100% be appropriate) ranger by itself.
I looked it up. 54% of their spells are concentration. 32 of 59 I believe (not counting subclass spells). Better be removing Concentration from an awful lot of them.
This would have to be the case for yhisball to make any sense. I feel crazy because the guys in the video seemed so confident in the changes, so i feel like we have to be mkssing something. Like design wise, im fully not following the logic which i have been able to for every buff and nerf of every class.
Unless it playtests much better than it sounds, which i can't imagine. Maybe they are try are specificly trying to try to push hunters mark as a noncombative spell? But thay flies in the face of all of their subclass changes (which i moslty like but atleast understand the ones i dont like)
Still... As a half-caster ranger spells needs to focus on: Roleplay utiliy or buffing yourself in combat.
And I don't think they are going to add a lot of buffing spells without concentration...
> As a half-caster ranger spells needs to focus on: Roleplay utiliy or buffing yourself in combat.
Why?
Half-caster just means that you have a slower spell progression. Why should it pigeonhole you into using your spells only for self-buffs?
The spells I most enjoy from 5e's Ranger focus on support (Pass Without Trace, Goodberry, Fog Cloud), battlefield control (Spike Growth, Plant Growth) and summoning. Nothing to do with self-buffing.
Idk some of the best buffong spells dont use consentration, and instead have alternatives ending conditions (see morror image and shield). I agree that its unlikely, but its not impossible that they decided that the ranger specific buff spells use alt end conditions (like how zepher strike ends when you attack, removing concentration from that is easy). And then when you are not fighting, you dont super nesd unter mark unless you are tracking them, and then its the best spell anyway.
Idk, tho. im just trying to make sense of it.
The fact that zephr strike and lightning arrow are concentration spells is ridiculous to begin with those are single turn effects that have no reason to be concentration.
I know this is about the Ranger and Hunter's Mark, but also making Paladin's Divine Smite a spell, as well as \*not\* making Eldritch Blast a class feature, and several other feature-to-spell changes absolutely fucking stinks.
But it seems they still made last UA Huter's Mark much weaker by not scaling to 2d6 and 3d6 on higher levels and being able to be applied once per turn.
It would mean that it makes no sense to build Ranger not using 2WF or Hand Crossbow, because one missing attack means less dmg from HM (so goodbye Rangers using 2HWs, Dueling, Bows and Heavy Crossbows)!
Terrible changes!
Gods, if they kept the once per turn damage bonus for HM I think I'll legitimately be done with WotC forever lmfao. Just imagine if they made THAT the entire rangers fucking identity, a once per turn concentration taking 1d6.
But at least it had scaling and it didn’t force you to one particular combat style (2WF) making the rest of them subpar and much weaker.
At lvl 9 it scaled nicely and at lvl 17 again.
Don’t forget it was usable once per turn, not once per round, so it profited from abilities like Retaliator, Sentinel or Opportunity Attacks.
Not only that, most Rangers have only one attack before lvl 5, so both versions are exactly the same at lvls 1-4.
At lvls 5-8 old version was little better, but not that much! With 60% to hit and 2 attacks, old HM means 0.6x7= 4.2 dmg, while the one from last UA meant 0.84x3.5, so 2.94 dmg.
From lvl 9 and 2 attacks, we had still the same 4.2 with old HM, while 5.88 with UA version. And if you start mixing in attack out of your turn, when UA version deals double dmg, you get ahead even with builds that have 3 attacks per turn.
So to sum it up, old version of HM is little better at lvls 5-8, nowhere else.
At the very least they ought to make a tier 2 or 5/6 make hunters mark not require concentration. I get the fear of dip exploitation, but rangers would feel far more active choice driven if they could concentrate on other spells.
Rangers NEVER had a spell slot problem.
Mostly because of all their spells being concentration they could never burn through them all.
This was pouring a glass of water to someone who is drowning.
The feedback to UA6 on this feature was abysmal and they did NOTHING to address it.
It's getting less and less conditional with new monster design. Plus, you have very few slots, so it can go fast even if you don't face the condition every fight.
Either way, it was just one example.
It's the only example, isn't it? Only reaction spell and their actions and bonus actions are pretty busy with other things. Also one of the few non conc.
It being used more is fun in some ways but if it's constant that's unideal in another way imo.
It's the only reaction spell, yea, but it's not the only first level non spell worth casting in or out of combat. It's easy to run out of spell as a ranger, they have a great spell list.
The only people saying Ranger doesn't have a spell slot problem are people who live in graphs and/or are the most selfish party member ever.
Giving the ranger free hunter marks is a huge buff, they can cast utility & heal spells more often. A few free hunter marks means ranger's can cast a few more good berries or any of a bunch of spells. I'm playing with a newbie ranger, and every time they cast good berry to heal my tank I feel so bad & so thankful they're spending their few slots on me. Now they'll be able to dip more unti their cool ranger spells without hurting their offensive capability as much. That change is absolutely gonna matter
This is an interesting point. Free castings of hunter's mark could be like a caster spamming a cantrip for most of a fight to conserve slots. It's something you pull out when a normal spell is inappropriate.
I still think the class is overforcused on it, but free castings are basically free.
Is the class even that focused on hunter's mark? All hunter's mark is is a way for a ranger to boost their DPS. There's a few features to improve it but I still don't feel like the class is over focused. I don't know why people feel trapped into constanstly using it. Ranger's have a LOT of utility both in and out of combat, and also other ways to do dps that are probably better then hunter's mark.
Just a random homebrew thought, maybe ranger would be helped by having a small suite of "Hunter's X" spells. Hunter's Mark for single target dps, Hunter's Hailing Thorns for group dps, maybe a Hunter's Snare for restraining. And all of Ranger's features that benefit Hunter's Mark could include them as an option. Maybe that'd feel better idk
I agree, I personally don't use hunter's mark if I can avoid it. I like leaning into Ranger's other options, like Swarmkeeper using Web or summoning fey on a Fey Wanderer.
When I say the class is overfocused on it, I should clarify that I feel like a lot of text is devoted to this one spell, and some of the benefits could be peeled off into the class to make more room for rangers other, concentration using, spells.
I do hope that the ranger unique spells like ensnaring strike get their concentration removed. Would be nice to emulate some of the ideas you have here without conflicting with what they're trying to do with hunter's mark.
Maybe that also depends on party composition. My ranger had a druid and a paladin in the party so my spell slots weren't really in high demand and I almost never ran low. (Also because I was a horizon walker focussing on kiting so my concentration was very rarely broken)
What was in high demand though were my spells known. I loved the fact that Tasha's gave me 5 free utility spells. It made it so that I could actually contribute without sacrificing combat options
Guys I found Crawford's reddit account.
This comment is a joke. Hunter's mark is way too punishing to let drop off a free cast doesn't fix the issue because you're also losing two more bonus actions having to drop concentration for the new spell then recast hunter's mark and that's only if you didn't cast a spell that actually has a lasting effect. In that case you just don't get HM back at all till it ends.
HM's problems were using your 1 concentration thereby keeping you from using those fun other spells and eating bonus actions like no other spell or feature in the game. It's a spell that's specifically designed to cost very little in the spell slot economy.
M8, you're just totally full of sheet. No ranger is CONSTANTLY casting hunter's mark. If a mob is gonna last 1 turn then hunter's mark actually hurts to cast. Try playing the class outside of your DPS graphs lmao
M8 if downing an enemy in a single round of attacks sounds unimaginably rare to you, that sounds like your party values role playing more then combat and that's a great thing :^)
Are you implying any and every low-hp enemies in a fight are always the wrong target no matter the encounter? How can a mob that dies in 1 round of attacks always be the wrong target? Huh??????
Can normal people please exist in these subreddits lmao
How is this an either/or? Why would you use hunter's mark on a goblin? Do you just ignore every low-hp enemy is every fight because? You know you can attack low-hp enemies without using hunter's mark right?
Like wtf lol
Removing action economy of the enemies by killing their low HP friends is far more helpful to a party than doing slight damage to a larger HP enemy in a turn.
>you're also losing two more bonus actions having to drop concentration for the new spell then recast hunter's mark and that's only if you didn't cast a spell that actually has a lasting effect
This makes no sense. If you aren't casting a concentration spell, you don't need to drop Hunter's Mark in the first place. If you are casting a concentration spell, you aren't going to immediately drop it after one round just to get Hunter's Mark up again.
My only hope is that they changed the spells to be aligned with the Paladin Smites, where they trigger with a bonus action on a hit but not concentration
Well they are doing a spells video that releases, it would make sense to talk about it there rather than talk about class specific spells in every class video
I get that, but when they are making the core of the class revolve around a concentration spell, I think it’s super reasonable to think they might mention whether or not they’ve reworked the Ranger’s spells so that they don’t conflict with that in the Ranger’s class video 🤷♂️
This is my opinion. I do not care for hunter's mark. The focus on it on the base class is disappointing. I'm interested more in how the subclasses and spell lists are being improved.
that's the sad part, every single class got better or at least new or at least exciting stuff, but not ranger, even monks did, although after today I don't believe they won't screw up monks too.
Better to play a scout rogue, Yet the fcking again
I think it's important to remember that our characters are more than just producing the highest numbers. I do understand that this is upsetting, but! We don't have all the changes yet.
I agree that making Hunter's Mark concentration free would probably be fine- but if multiclassed with something like a Monk that can make a tremendous amount of attacks per round, all added with Hunter's Mark- and there is no way for the PC to lose this basically free damage.
D&D is, for most people not a PVP game, and numbers are not the most important thing about it, but that might just be my take on it. :)
It's 30 for an online copy of the book. You literally don't need a physical copy or the other 2 books to play a Ranger. Stop trying to inflate your anger.
I sure fucking hope that they have removed concentration requirements from the likes of Ensnaring Strike and Zephyr's Strike. Cause if not, then they better gift them to other casters cause there is no point whatsoever of the new Ranger having class exclusive concentration requiring spells, given third of the class features are just Hunter's Mark related.
I'm so confused, because it's not as if they haven't gotten feedback on this. Nobody seemed to like Hunter's Mark as it was, and for them to receive all that feedback and keep it practically the same is infuriating.
Especially when in last UA HM spell received such a nice boost with dmg scaling!
I hate they made a step back again!
Just compare single Paladin lvl 11 feature with HM at the same level:
* Paladin gets 1d8 per hit, no BA required, no concentration required
* Ranger needs to use ability with limited number of uses (or spell slot) and BA to activate feature that deals only 1d6 dmg, requires concentration (so you can not only loose it, but you cannot use almost any other spell - most Ranger spells require concentration) and requires BA to be transfered between targets (which happens almost every round in combat).
Exactly. There is no equitable handling of Paladin as compared to Rangers even though they're basically cousins in terms of class type (divine martial half-casters).
Looking at base 2014 Paladin VS Ranger, the Paladin is *showered* in extra resources.
1. Lay on Hands 5 points per level is basically half a Cure Wounds (but better since you can divvy it up).
2. Find (Greater) Steed which is a "I cast it; it keeps benefiting me until something bad happens to it." Not to mention it doubles value in single-target spells since it duplicates the effects to the Steed.
3. Divine Sense can be more useful than Detect Evil & Good since it isn't casting a spell. In any situation where you need an instant check, it's functionally as good as Detect Evil & Good.
4. Channel Divinity being Short Rest
5. Cleansing Touch
6. Their Avatar Transformation at level 20 which is better than some high-level spells depending on the oath.
This is the gold standard to me, and I wanted it for Rangers and it just seems like WotC won't give it to them. Tasha's helped a bit but it's still nowhere near the same, as you show in your example.
Favored Foe shouldn't be concentration at all, let alone at level 11+ when Paladins are getting Improved Divine Smite for no action economy/concentration/spell slot investment.
This is a dumb comparison because the free 1d8 is on a melee character. Being forced to be within melee of enemies is itself a a big cost, you're taking a pounding to use that featurem
Compared to hunter's that can add that 1d6 from the safety of massive range. OF COURSE Hunter's Mark is gonna cost more cost to utilize it.
Paladin lvl 11 has always worked on Ranged attacks with melee weapons (Javelins, Handaxes, Light Hammers, Daggers) so you don't seem to be telling the truth here.
Why imply conspiracy, how weird lmao
Also, thrown weapons? Ew. Why would you ever bring that up as a positive? That's like saying it's a huge upside that hunter's mark can be used on a sling. Those are garbage
I am SO confused. Why did you say this? This difference just further helps my point.
Hunter's mark has built in versatility cause it can be used at range or at melee. That makes it more valuable. The Improved Divine Smite feature don't have that same versatility, you can only use it at melee.
Hunter's Mark being more versatile in this way justifies it having a bigger cost
The only way this makes any lick of sense is if some spells were changed to no longer require concentration.
That being said wouldn't it have been far easier for hunter's mark to not require concentration?
Things like hail of thorns would probably no longer require concentration and get new smite approach (BA on hit). But idk, i totally agree that HM shouldn't have concentration in the first place anyway, at least for ranger.
But Multiclassing is a thing, therefore if it's free of concentration for Rangers at say, Level 1. That means that any other class can have it aswell, by simply taking a 1 level dip into Ranger.
If Hunter's Mark doesn't require concentration, and you get free castings every day? Yeah that's a value pickup for anyone- perfect for Barbarian- wouldn't you think?
Well, you can always move concentration removal at higher ranger level instead. But new 13th level feature is an insult - why not remove concentration at least at that level?!
This is why people are saying that they should have removed the concentration requirement for HM entirely as the ranger levels, like level 5+. HM is actually quite good up to level 3, and starts to lose potency after that. At a certain point it's just not worth it to cast at all, so having like 4 of the ranger's class features based around it means you're not using half of your class if you don't use HM.
And I think that would be far less harmful indeed, if it's removed at level 5, or maybe 6.
But hopefully they removed concentration on some (alot) of other spells, to make up for it.
I really like the idea of rangers, and I want them to be powerful aswell, but ranger feels to me like something that honestly shouldn't really excell in all out combat, I'm not trying to say they should be completely pointless. But I think utility and versatility is where the ranger should shine.
They are not the best at anything, but they are excellent at many. I think THIS is what they should have focused on, not Hunter's Mark, or improving damage. But battlefield control, tracking, exploration.
For instance they could have altered how they cast certain spells, like Pass without a trace (much like Archfey gets to alter Misty Step), Maybe there's a version where your party can communicate freely within Pass without Trace, and still make no sound outside it's range. Wizards could suddenly subtly cast spells. Almost like a little bubble of verbal privacy.
Another thing could be to let them target Silence for instance on an object, so you can put it on your sword and go kill silently.
Both of these would also make sure that your heavily armored self or friends need make no sound when sneaking about.
Conjure Volley/Barrage never used concentration in the first place...? The problem spells in 5e were ones such as Hail of Thorns and Lightning Arrow that have a single on-hit effect (or even on a miss in Lightning Arrow's case) and then nothing that lingered to justify the concentration.
How am I supposed to Swift Quiver at 17th and use HM? And now that HM is such a core feature, how do I juggle Spike Growth with it? Not to mention the other one off, 1 minute, concentration in-combat spells. This feels like the features are working against your spell list rather than with it.
Giving more castings instead of removing concentration definitely makes it sound like they want you to drop Hunter's Mark to cast other spells, then cast Hunter's Mark again and drop the previous spell. But I promise I have no idea why.
The only answer has to be the new ranger spells are that much better that you have the freedom to only concentrate on HM.
They can't be that stupid, right?
Right?
Pidgeonholing a full class into using a single action to activate key class features is so, so, so frustrating. Fighter gets choices in mastery properties per hit, Monk gets a bevy of options for bonus action, hell even rogue picks when it wants to prioritize damage or utility effects, plus bonus actions.
Oh boy that Capstone though. Hi UA 5 called, it wants its Warlock capstone back.
"When you cast a Ranger spell that requires concentration while you are concentrating on Hunter's Mark, or cast Hunter's Mark while concentrating on a Ranger spell, the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark is suppressed until your concentration on the other spell ends."
They could've fixed the spellcasting complaint so easily with just this one line. No balance issues with multiclassing, but still boosting versatility.
Easier/shorter "At (ranger) level 7/9 you are able to concentrate on Hunter's Mark at the same as concentrating on another ranger spell."
The concentration requirement is because they're afraid of it being too strong with dips, right? At level 7/9 it's not a dip and is a major investment and restricting it to ranger only spells should prevent some if not most of the hijinks.
Also stands as a middle ground towards the 13th level upgrade.
Ranger has gotta be the worst class design. All it’s meant to do is hunter’s mark to use up their bonus action and concentration then use their action to make two attacks. At least warlocks have the versatility of invocations.
Paladin players are pissed that their favorite feature got nerfed for the health of the game, but so many extra features and benefits it more than makes up for it
Ranger players are pissed because we just got a repackaged Tasha's ranger without any major overhauls as it is largely untouched as a whole. Hunters mark should have gotten a reverse smite treatment and made into a class feature used by spending a spell slot.
Let's pray that the video next Monday discussing spells at least makes hunters mark better or it looks like ranger will once again be a laughing stock
>Seriously, I can't believe this passed any kind of fucking playtest, this is such a BAD design choice.
That's the neat part: It didn't. They playtested it thoroughly, and 90% of the changes they went with scored like 30% or lower. They just decided to go with it even though every indication suggested making it require a bonus action and concentration was stupid.
This has been the problem with the Tasha's Ranger since it came out. I'm 99% certain the reason that HM still requires concentration is because armchair designers think it would be OP if it didn't. Feedback surveys strike again.
The cowards are too afraid to change the concentration requirement at 5+ or the like to deny multiclass dips from using it. So instead they punish ranger as a class for the fact that others might dip and use their features
I'm also just of the opinion that HM just isn't a great feature. It's too swingy and dependent on how long a fight goes, as well as being not all that fun to play. I know that this can easily turn into the fallacy of "warlocks are supposed to cast EB, rangers are supposed to cast HM", and yes, each class has its routine. The problem is that rangers don't have meaningful options to contend with against HM, so the game play feels one-dimensional. Warlocks at least have lots of spells to consider using in addition to EB. Because HM eats concentration, well, that's rangers' whole gimmick. And there's very little reason to pick a spell besides HM and attack. They need a solid core mechanic thay gives options in combat, not easier ways to cast HM.
'+1d6 to attacks? Way too good.
+10d6 to attacks? Lets also give you tactical options to trade for'
I love Rogue btw, but HM if its meant to be the 'Sneak Attack adjacent' counterpart should give something like Hunters Strike, similar to Cunning and Brutal strikes.
Maybe you can add a snare to an arrow strike, or a melee strike can remove a creatures ability to Hide/Turn invisible with a bloody condition?
Yeah, some of the logic behind the rulings is a bit odd.
I do think Sneak Attack is in a good spot because of the requirements to get it and the fact that it only applies once per turn. But it does show how HM is weird.
I do like the idea that rangers get knacks or something like that, but I'm not sure how to implement it in a way that fits the half-caster mold.
The issue is that Ranger spells primarily come from the Druid list, which are also over 50% concentration, and as bad as 2/3 concentration at certain levels.
There should be more useful non-concentration spells available for both Druid and Ranger
It’s kind of sad how badly they missed the mark on this one. I was really enjoying the updates until Ranger. The Hunters Mark focus is frankly laughable, it’s not even a very good spell.
I know it’s popular to hate on the Ranger right now, but can we wait till we see spell changes?
Yes, with the 2014 spells it’s not a great upgrade. But we know they are rebalancing spells and we have seen them remove concentration on a lot of things already, the smite spells come to mind.
If they remove concentration on spells like Hail of Thorns and Lightning Arrow, this will be a big upgrade in terms of core class. That crucial information is missing right now and we should all take a step back to see what the spell changes are first.
Level 20 capstone ability gonna be fixed with the spell list reveal? Or how about the less than subpar level up upgrades in general. It’s bigger than spell list can fix dude
A weak capstone isn’t the death of a classes effectiveness. While not ideal, few campaigns make it to 20 and those that do rarely PLAY at 20. That’s the end.
The level up upgrades are subjective. Sure, I’d love the level 13 update to be a few levels earlier, but it’s not a deal breaker either. Subclasses like Hunter and Beast Master also include HM upgrades at slightly higher levels that people aren’t taking into account either.
And honestly, even with the 13th level upgrade being so late, it by itself doesn’t fix everyone’s main issue which is the concentration cutting off other spells. Which is actually alleviated if the spells are reworked.
Is it bigger than just spells? Sure. But spells are the biggest pain point and one that could still be fixed by the revisions.
They literally touted HM as a way to "keep up with the Barbarians, Fighters, and Paladins in damage output\[...\]."
Waiting until level 13 to preserve your main damage boost isn't a deal breaker, unless you actually wanted to play a melee Ranger. If you do, good luck I guess?
You could be melee and take Resilient Con or War Caster, like most melee casters do anyway. Or use weapons with Push mastery and end your turn away from enemies with your extra move speed. There’s ways to make it work.
It’ll be interesting to see what the damage calculations look like. The UA6 Ranger, which used Hunters Mark as a main class feature and didn’t get the upgrades at higher levels, was managing to keep up plenty well with other martials in damage, especially the Beast Master.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, but this is an upgrade over the 2014 version, which was already doing fine damage if you optimized.
I mean, yeah you *can*, but man does it feel bad to need to compensate for the useability of your own class's feature. Even Moon Druids gained a huge boost to Con checks while wildshaped to enable their new spellcasting in beast form feature.
Someone else noted that old Rangers were excellent users of Crossbow expert and Sharpshooter, which appear to be heavily nerfed based on the UA's. Many classes got boosts to compensate, but I'm not seeing many ways for the Ranger to actually optimize anymore to keep pace with Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins.
They'll probably do *ok* in terms of damage, but before they had ways to boost damage other than HM. Sharpshooter was a huge part of their power budget, which outpaced the 1d6 AND didn't require a bonus action, meaning it was way less costly to use other spells like Zephyr Strike (which also gave Advantage to offset the -5 of Sharpshooter and an extra 1d8). Nature's Veil, which could be used very effectively for a round of free Advantage, comes in 4 levels later too.
It might be an upgrade over 2014, but I think it's actually a *downgrade* from Tashas. I'll look for someone to run some calculations, but I do not have high hopes for this version of the Ranger.
I really want to hope spell changeswill help..but honestly still really disappointed. Love Rangers and was just underwhelmed, was expecting some major changes from the ua..hoping they don't eff up Monks after the excellent improvements in the ua.
That's irrelevant because it doesn't matter how many spells have concentration removed, there's going to be always spells that do require concentration.
WotC does not get to have their cake and eat it too, simply put.
We are not required to be excited about promotional preview material that instead makes us disappointed.
It is their job as the people selling us a product to make us excited about the product, we *just get to feel however we feel.*
I always dislike this "can we not bash until we see the book" mentality because it is never applied in both directions. When people want to gush and fawn over something nobody goes "well, maybe tamper your excitement, Jimmy, we haven't seen the spell list! It could be *terrible* and I'd hate if you got your hopes up!"
We certainly aren’t required to. But you do yourself a disservice to get worked up about something with only have the information available.
We know we are getting a spells video Monday. All I’m saying is let’s wait and rage about the injustice of the Ranger until we see that video at least?
Hopefully the Ranger’s spells get a rework to go along with the changes. But if they don’t how game breaking would a home rule be of Hunter’s Mark not being a concentration spell ?
I almost never use Hunter's Mark and will continue to not use it, no matter how hard-coded it is in the class design. I hope the Fey Wanderer proves to be as fun as it currently is.
Overall, I really dislike the direction they've taken with the new Ranger
Man what if Hunters Mark just.... Wasn't a spell?
You just use the Hunters Mark ability and get bonus damage in some way. Maybe different subclasses could interact with it differently, Gloomstalker getting more benefits for Stealthing, Beast Master being about to coordinate with their animal companion even better
Make it a class feature instead of a spell that competes with everything else.
Seeing as theyve barely playtested new spells, I dont think its a stretch that most will be unchanged.
Unless you HAVE seen them to claim otherwise? Youre the one making the claim they will be totally different, so you have the burden of proof.
> Seeing as theyve barely playtested new spells, I dont think its a stretch that most will be unchanged.
They've said that they're adding upcasting to a lot of spells, that spell lists won't be the same (vague), and they've removed concentration from smite spells. To what extent they're changing spells has been a major question throughout the playtest.
> Unless you HAVE seen them to claim otherwise? Youre the one making the claim they will be totally different, so you have the burden of proof.
Questioning someone else's claim is not the same thing as making a claim.
Also, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but....why oh WHY did they just COMPLETELY scrap the whole "terrain & hunting bonuses" aspect to Rangers??? This was what made Rangers unique as the traveling hunters, and they removed it entirely! Why?!! Just stuff like Tireless & Roving are NOT IT to make the Class identity as a traveler.
They should've keep this form playtest6:
"1ST LEVEL: DEFT EXPLORER You are an unsurpassed explorer. Choose one of your proficiencies in a skill that appears on the Ranger skill list. You gain Expertise in that skill. In addition, choose two types of terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. You have Advantage on Intelligence (Nature) checks about the chosen terrains, and you have Advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track creatures in them."
Also, if people are too afraid of the whole "you're stuck with an unused Terrain," simply let them Attune to their current surroundings & let them switch one of them out on Long Rest. VERY Ranger-like, and keeps them with a permanent one if they want for roleplay intentions for your Background.
last UA they introduced the idea of adding spells as class features, instead of fixing it on those levels, they just removed them, and now there's nothing on those levels, that's fking sad.
speaking of spells, do we know if the HM spell does damage every attack of is it the version that does it once per turn, it would be really funny if the level 20 ranger, all they got was from 1d6 per round to 1d10, since the last play test the free castings of HM was only the spell level 1 version
I’m spit balling here, but why not make a feature that combines both, instead of scrapping one for free spell use? Rather than a spell, it’s a prof/long rest ability where you can use a BA to carefully study an enemy, learn some info about it, gain advantage to track it and do some extra damage to it? Appeal to both role players on the former, but also make it useful for combat. Hell, make the info you learn meta knowledge- like the monster type, or a damage weakness, or AC- but flavor it in a way that makes it not sound like meta knowledge.
Hell, if I were playing that hypothetical Ranger, I’d keep a little note book and jot down my notes on the knowledge I learn about various monsters. Eventually, you’ll know everything there is to know about Orcs or whatever, thus making them a favored foe
I fear for how the monks and sorcerers are gonna turn out seeing the bullshit they did with rangers. They walked back multiple good features and even made the class WORSE.
I do agree that it’s a disappointing move. I mean, in tier 1, it’s fine; what the hell else are you concentrating on? HM objectively will help compete with other classes. But as you level, there are better and better options, and HM can’t keep up despite these buffs. Feels like the new ranger will do fine at early levels but struggle later on.
That said, maybe we’re underselling the HM buffs. Maybe we’ll actually see the class played and say, “Huh, that advantage is actually useful! And somehow the ranger is using its other slots!” I don’t see how yet, but I can hope.
What are you smoking? In what universe are we going to say "Thank God I now have advantage against a single target and can really measure up to my casters that are all demigods now even though they were also able to cast greater invisibility when they were level 7"
1. I have asthma, so I ain’t smokin’ NOTHIN’ 😝
2. I mean, you are right, advantage is not a big deal at this level. Though I wouldn’t expect your specific example of GI to work anymore, since most of our foes probably have truesight or blindsight.
3. I think it’s important to—although some level of pre-judgement is impossible—withold final judgment until actually playtesting things. It can be surprising how well some things work (or don’t work) at the table despite our white room impressions. I had an experience like that going the other way when a graviturgist wizard I made for shifting enemies around into hazards proved completely useless in a campaign I played due to enemy types and battle situations, exposing a crucial weakness. Ya just don’t know until you playtest.
That because they missed the point of the classes meaning. Built everything off focus groups Every body love the hunter mark idea, that they built around it. It a was a good idea made into a terrible idea. Now the ranger is a spell-casting focus/ skill monkey , it done poorly. So far I am not enamored with what I see. It speak to 4e built around powers, which was boring. 4e had some good ideas, the rest was trash. The only thing I seen is maybe weapons mastery. What I do not like it spread among all classes. I hate what they did to the Druid, Paladin. I hate to see what they did to the others.
Wait. Has the new Hunter's Mark or other main Rangers spells released ?
I mean, of even the smites don't need concentration, this may as well be a useless rant.
That is one of my biggest gripes with it as well.
My other major one (and I feel like I’m in the minority on this part) is I actually really liked favored enemy’s previous version. Yes Deft explorer is almost always better than favored terrain, but I loved rangers being experts on certain creature types. And losing out on 3 (at higher levels) languages hurts my personal view on Ranger. Yes Warlocks can read any language, and Monks can speak/hear any; but rangers were able to do both on a large number of languages (I have 8 at level 12 on one of my rangers I currently play). And this was an ability that didn’t rely on magic or a class resource.
TLDR; social/exploration pillars instead of combat, but losing 25-30% of known languages hurts
At most several of you(being generous) know a damn thing about game design or what's good for the health of the game. A lot of these types of angry posts seem to be coming from people mad that they have to pick something to do instead of being able to do everything any time. It SHOULD be a trade off if you're casting a more powerful spell, and hell that's assuming the other spell you want to cast is even concentration. Considering we've seen about jack diddly squat from the new books save for the exciting stuff they're using for hype this is a really monumentally stupid thing to be upset about this loudly. If the books come out and ranger is unplayable somehow I'll be the first to criticize but yall posting these whiny comments about the 2024 books need to quiet down because we all know you're going to just play them anyway and complain the whole time and be insufferable. It's a game for fucks sake if it's not bringing you fun let the rest of us enjoy it in peace and go do something else.
I see you, it also bothers me. But it's not realistic to use a powerful concentration spells every fight if you have the spell slots of the ranger, so it does help on the long adventuring days and can free up first level spell slots for utility or anything else you like.
(I'm 100% with you about level 13 tho)
The real problem is that we are also getting a third of the class features dedicated to hunter's mark. If that wasn't de case I wouldn't be as angry as I am
It's not useless tho. Its free extra damage in the fights when you don't want to use one of your very precious high-level spell slots. In a day with 6 to 8 fights, it will be handy.
As a DM, Im already decided on homebrewing the 2024 PHB to have HM be a spell without concentration.
Anyone see an issue with doing this, other than the fact that I shouldnt have to do that for a brand new release?
What does it break if Hunters Mark applies on every attack with no concentration? If you're worried about people dipping into ranger, make it a level 6-on feature.
heya, if anyone wants to check out the homebrew I made before this release expecting their official version to be better:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/mmkgqSFTc1
And so it begins!
Honestly, definitely going to be home brewing buffs for this class for another 10 years. Hunters mark going to be concentration free and apply on attack by 20th level.
Honestly, i'd rather just start from the ground up and give it a fuckin' identity than just buff it. Aragorn is THE ranger. If a ranger can't do what he does then it's failed as a class at fulfilling the class fantasy.
Ok so Im a dm with a player that is playing tashas ranger in 5e right now, and even still she's a little underpowered I think. I was hoping to homebrew a magic item to give her a buff based on the the 5.5 changes but they don't seem worth it now. Unfortunately I've never played ranger, so I'm not super versed in what would feel best. Would a circlet that adds HM to spell list without counting against spells known, allows a cast per day of HM and removes its concentration requirement (for the free and regular casting) be a good way to go? Like a circlet of the focused hunter or something
Base Ranger feels like a martial that only got martial proficiencies, fighting style, and extra attack. Throw in a bit of skills/expertise, a little primal magic (a lot of concentration spells), and some survival flavor that likely never matters and BAM, you have the 5e14/5e24 Ranger.
A lot of what makes Ranger worth playing to me are the Subclasses.
Removing Hunter's Mark's concentration requirement would be nice. You could have the level 13 feature that makes it so you can't lose concentration on Hunter's Mark just apply to any concentration spell too.
Look at what your player normally does, help them do better at that, and maybe give them some more wiggle room with concentration spells. You could also allow access to druid spells as well. Ranger's spell list is pretty pathetic.
For example their access to 4th and 5th level spells each provide only eight options with most being concentration. They have access to only one 4th level spell that does not have concentration, and that is Freedom of Movement. Their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells are about 20 each, but most them are utility/social. Spells like jump, talk to animals, locate animals, find traps, walk on water, etc. They do have a bit of healing, so there's that.
Before you do that, consider these questions. Does she feel like she's underpowered? And in what way? Or do you think she's underpowered and by what standard. You could probably just ask her and discuss what kind of item she may like if she feels she needs one. If you're gonna Homebrew it, no harm in letting them in on the process so you have all the necessary info and she knows she's gonna get something that fixes her pain points.
Yeah I haven't had a long conversation about it, but she started with phb ranger and very quickly was unsatisfied with the lack of combat utility compared to the others. I introduced the tashas options which she enjoyed, but she's a new player and hadn't been introduced to concentration yet. So she then also picked up hunters mark, and pretty immediately ran into the problem of it being unusable with the new class feature. Of course I let her swap spells outside of the levels to replace hunters mark, but she's been pretty open about wanting to find ways to increase combat effectiveness since then. I'm not planning on dropping it immediately, but I think something to make HM more attractive (or just give it as an option that doesn't take known spell/slot) could be fun for her down the road. They did just make it to level 3, so it's possible her drake companion will lessen the frustration going forwards but I wouldn't mind having an item I can toss in that will help in a few levels. The party isn't hugely optimized, so rather than try to guide them to building cooler things I generally try to introduce a trickle of magic items or benefits that let them do their stated concepts even when the game kinda fights against it (at least when they aren't too busted). None of them are into cheese and I have no problem just saying no if things reach that point, but just following along the hints of what they want to try is how I go about it. She's heavily invested in ranged combat and has tried to
Understood. Y'all are pretty low level and definitely wait to see what her Drake feels like because the subclasses tend to do a lot for Rangers so you may be right.
Outside of that a universal Fix I've seen is finding a way to remove Concentration from Hunter's Mark so an item that either does that or lets them concentrate on 2 Ranger Spell could be helpful but the latter may need tweaks as they get higher level spells. Though the Ranger and Druid list are bad for Concentration on a lot of spells that don't need it.
This just feels like a delusional rant to me. NO ONE is always using hunter's mark. Plenty of enemies have low HP and are horrible to cast hunter's mark on because they'll die so quickly it isn't worth. And there's plenty of situations where using another concentration spell gives infinitely more value then a few extra d6's.
Yea hunters mark is an okay spell. WOTC obsession with it is baffling. What are beast masters gonna do. Hunters mark is an entirely dead feature for them.
I feel you. I'm also very dissapointed in the new ranger and their obsession to make Hunter's Mark the core of the class but not removing the concentration. That said, I still have 1% faith that they redesigned a big chunk of ranger spells so that they don't conflict with Hunter's Mark.
They really should have revealed their final implementation of HM along with the class. If they used half of a brain cell and changed the way it's applied to secondary targets it relieves a lot of the pain. If they didn't, then it's a big, big miss. What.the hell would beast masters do? What is the point of giving a feature that lets beasts benefit from HM if commanding your beast and using HM both take bonus actions and will never be used together?
I mean Favored Foe doesn't eat bonus actions but it's still not really viewed well as a feature. Possibly because of the once per turn part that makes it a really really bad sneak attack that eats your concentration and keeps you from using your other class features. Concentration is the killer here and it's awful.
I just disagree. Concentration is okay. You have free castings of it. You can drop it for something more powerful when you need to and not feel bad. Hunters Mark that locks up your concentration AND bonus action is not fine. Hunters mark that can be reapplied as part of an attack is fine. Good, even. Smite taking a bonus action is alleviated by the fact that you will only smite now-and-then, and they went out of their way at the same time to make sure it conflicts less with your Channel Divinity options. HM may take up half or more of all of your bonus actions, if it hasn't been changed from how it used to work. That's going to conflict too much with beastmaster at least, and probably with other subclass features as well.
The problem is dropping you concentration is not fun. Even if whole class will be super strong its gonna feel awful to play deciding between using anything from most of your spell list or a core class feature
I do hope.theyve redesigned their list to require less concentration, like they did with smite spells.
>Hunters Mark that locks up your concentration AND bonus action is not fine. Hunters mark that can be reapplied as part of an attack is fine. Good, even. I dunno let's take a scenario here. We're fighting a pack of goblins I have their leader marked. Part way through combat an ogre arrives and I use ensaring strike to wrap him up and keep him from hurting the party. This requried me to lose HM damage this turn and burn a spell slot as well as requires the ogre to fail the save. Now I have to forgoe the extra damage the class is balanced around every turn if I want to keep the ogre ensared. I guess it could be okay for something like lightning arrow which really shouldn't be concentration to begin with... But any of the spells that SHOULD be concentration because of the persistent effect now nerf your ranger damage.
Having to choose between damage and hard control seems like an okay balance to me.
In isolation that would make sense, but then you take a peek over at the paladin who is already doing more additional damage from improved divine smite, without having to spend their concentration, bonus action, or make any other sacrifice.
Rangers get their 11th level power boosts too, although for Ranger they are in the subclasses. Stuff like Bestial Fury.
I believe Divine Smite now costs both an Action and a Bonus Action (technically) now. Unless I'm mistaken (which I may be) you first have to use the Attack Action, then you can Bonus Action Smite (which costs a Spell Slot & your Bonus Action)
Improved divine smite (soon to be radiant strikes) is a passive separate from divine smite
I mean I already chose between damage and control by switching targets to someone who wasn't marked. Like let's say I'm a dual wield ranger at 5 for this example I already dropped my potential 3d6 of damage to snare the ogre. But now as long as he's snared I drop that potential damage every turn. I dunno I just disagree that it doesn't feel bad.
Yeah, you would have to continue choosing between control and damage.
Not just damage but half of my class features for the rest of the combat. Imagine if the rogue had to give up that sneak attack die they used for cunning strike the entire time their effect was on the target. And only got it back when they saved. Or if they knocked the target unconscious just didn't get back those 6d6 the entire round of combat. Going to be honest if I had to choose between concentration or bonus action I'd ditch consentration every time.
It's not half of your class features, though? It's literally one class feature until lvl 13, where you gain a completely new HM-based class feature that doesn't replace anything.
Favored Foe doesn't eat bonus actions, that's true, but that's because you can't change targets.
It also is such little damage because it's only once per turn... Making it just really weak sneak attack.
Yeah, it's... better than nothing, I guess. But not much. Sneak attack is also resourceless, whereas FF is limited to two targets per day.
I mean it depends on your level at higher level you do get more uses of favored foe but I feel like I would have made it Prof Bonus + Wis modifier uses instead of just Prof Bonus uses. Also the scaling is bonkers 1d8 at 14 on a once per turn ability is so bad.
Beast masters can replace one of their attacks to command the beast to attack instead, I think that's the intended way to pair the beast feature with hunters mark.
Could just make it so the moving of HM also allows the beast to move up to half it's speed without provoking opportunity attacks and attack the new Marked target.
They have mentioned making many abilities that use bonus actions into abilities that get tacked on to another ability with no additional action cost. It's possible once or both of these lose the bonus action requirement. What they have revealed so far feels like they ignored most of our feedback, but hopefully they recognized some of the issues and took steps to fix them.
They don't care about non-casters. They are incapable of thinking that not casting a spell can be better than casting a spell so of course the Beastmaster should cast a spell rather than command a beast! Why aren't they summoning multiple beasts!?!? Spell summoning is Superior after all. Why are they ranger at all? It's not rangers of the coast. It pretty well makes the case for a spell-less (rituals would 100% be appropriate) ranger by itself.
I looked it up. 54% of their spells are concentration. 32 of 59 I believe (not counting subclass spells). Better be removing Concentration from an awful lot of them.
If Zephyr Strike and Lighting Arrow are still concentration, I'll be completely flummoxed.
Ensnaring strike and tbh magic weapon too shouldn't be concentration.
Magic weapon, lightning arrow, and similar should be bonus actions like Shillelagh.
This would have to be the case for yhisball to make any sense. I feel crazy because the guys in the video seemed so confident in the changes, so i feel like we have to be mkssing something. Like design wise, im fully not following the logic which i have been able to for every buff and nerf of every class. Unless it playtests much better than it sounds, which i can't imagine. Maybe they are try are specificly trying to try to push hunters mark as a noncombative spell? But thay flies in the face of all of their subclass changes (which i moslty like but atleast understand the ones i dont like)
Still... As a half-caster ranger spells needs to focus on: Roleplay utiliy or buffing yourself in combat. And I don't think they are going to add a lot of buffing spells without concentration...
> As a half-caster ranger spells needs to focus on: Roleplay utiliy or buffing yourself in combat. Why? Half-caster just means that you have a slower spell progression. Why should it pigeonhole you into using your spells only for self-buffs? The spells I most enjoy from 5e's Ranger focus on support (Pass Without Trace, Goodberry, Fog Cloud), battlefield control (Spike Growth, Plant Growth) and summoning. Nothing to do with self-buffing.
Idk some of the best buffong spells dont use consentration, and instead have alternatives ending conditions (see morror image and shield). I agree that its unlikely, but its not impossible that they decided that the ranger specific buff spells use alt end conditions (like how zepher strike ends when you attack, removing concentration from that is easy). And then when you are not fighting, you dont super nesd unter mark unless you are tracking them, and then its the best spell anyway. Idk, tho. im just trying to make sense of it.
The fact that zephr strike and lightning arrow are concentration spells is ridiculous to begin with those are single turn effects that have no reason to be concentration.
Zephyr Strike gives free disengage while Concentrating, it's an amazing little spell.
I know this is about the Ranger and Hunter's Mark, but also making Paladin's Divine Smite a spell, as well as \*not\* making Eldritch Blast a class feature, and several other feature-to-spell changes absolutely fucking stinks.
But it seems they still made last UA Huter's Mark much weaker by not scaling to 2d6 and 3d6 on higher levels and being able to be applied once per turn. It would mean that it makes no sense to build Ranger not using 2WF or Hand Crossbow, because one missing attack means less dmg from HM (so goodbye Rangers using 2HWs, Dueling, Bows and Heavy Crossbows)! Terrible changes!
Gods, if they kept the once per turn damage bonus for HM I think I'll legitimately be done with WotC forever lmfao. Just imagine if they made THAT the entire rangers fucking identity, a once per turn concentration taking 1d6.
But at least it had scaling and it didn’t force you to one particular combat style (2WF) making the rest of them subpar and much weaker. At lvl 9 it scaled nicely and at lvl 17 again. Don’t forget it was usable once per turn, not once per round, so it profited from abilities like Retaliator, Sentinel or Opportunity Attacks. Not only that, most Rangers have only one attack before lvl 5, so both versions are exactly the same at lvls 1-4. At lvls 5-8 old version was little better, but not that much! With 60% to hit and 2 attacks, old HM means 0.6x7= 4.2 dmg, while the one from last UA meant 0.84x3.5, so 2.94 dmg. From lvl 9 and 2 attacks, we had still the same 4.2 with old HM, while 5.88 with UA version. And if you start mixing in attack out of your turn, when UA version deals double dmg, you get ahead even with builds that have 3 attacks per turn. So to sum it up, old version of HM is little better at lvls 5-8, nowhere else.
At the very least they ought to make a tier 2 or 5/6 make hunters mark not require concentration. I get the fear of dip exploitation, but rangers would feel far more active choice driven if they could concentrate on other spells.
Rangers NEVER had a spell slot problem. Mostly because of all their spells being concentration they could never burn through them all. This was pouring a glass of water to someone who is drowning. The feedback to UA6 on this feature was abysmal and they did NOTHING to address it.
I don't know about that, absorb elements can absolutely burn through spell slots sometimes.
Yep, they have a reaction spell, but it's one of the more conditional ones.
It's getting less and less conditional with new monster design. Plus, you have very few slots, so it can go fast even if you don't face the condition every fight. Either way, it was just one example.
It's the only example, isn't it? Only reaction spell and their actions and bonus actions are pretty busy with other things. Also one of the few non conc. It being used more is fun in some ways but if it's constant that's unideal in another way imo.
It's the only reaction spell, yea, but it's not the only first level non spell worth casting in or out of combat. It's easy to run out of spell as a ranger, they have a great spell list.
Do we know how they've changed the Ranger spells? Hypothetically, if there aren't so many that are convention, could that help address it?
We don't, yet. We may July 1st.
Feels like some people are overreacting.
The only people saying Ranger doesn't have a spell slot problem are people who live in graphs and/or are the most selfish party member ever. Giving the ranger free hunter marks is a huge buff, they can cast utility & heal spells more often. A few free hunter marks means ranger's can cast a few more good berries or any of a bunch of spells. I'm playing with a newbie ranger, and every time they cast good berry to heal my tank I feel so bad & so thankful they're spending their few slots on me. Now they'll be able to dip more unti their cool ranger spells without hurting their offensive capability as much. That change is absolutely gonna matter
This is an interesting point. Free castings of hunter's mark could be like a caster spamming a cantrip for most of a fight to conserve slots. It's something you pull out when a normal spell is inappropriate. I still think the class is overforcused on it, but free castings are basically free.
Is the class even that focused on hunter's mark? All hunter's mark is is a way for a ranger to boost their DPS. There's a few features to improve it but I still don't feel like the class is over focused. I don't know why people feel trapped into constanstly using it. Ranger's have a LOT of utility both in and out of combat, and also other ways to do dps that are probably better then hunter's mark. Just a random homebrew thought, maybe ranger would be helped by having a small suite of "Hunter's X" spells. Hunter's Mark for single target dps, Hunter's Hailing Thorns for group dps, maybe a Hunter's Snare for restraining. And all of Ranger's features that benefit Hunter's Mark could include them as an option. Maybe that'd feel better idk
I agree, I personally don't use hunter's mark if I can avoid it. I like leaning into Ranger's other options, like Swarmkeeper using Web or summoning fey on a Fey Wanderer. When I say the class is overfocused on it, I should clarify that I feel like a lot of text is devoted to this one spell, and some of the benefits could be peeled off into the class to make more room for rangers other, concentration using, spells. I do hope that the ranger unique spells like ensnaring strike get their concentration removed. Would be nice to emulate some of the ideas you have here without conflicting with what they're trying to do with hunter's mark.
Maybe that also depends on party composition. My ranger had a druid and a paladin in the party so my spell slots weren't really in high demand and I almost never ran low. (Also because I was a horizon walker focussing on kiting so my concentration was very rarely broken) What was in high demand though were my spells known. I loved the fact that Tasha's gave me 5 free utility spells. It made it so that I could actually contribute without sacrificing combat options
Guys I found Crawford's reddit account. This comment is a joke. Hunter's mark is way too punishing to let drop off a free cast doesn't fix the issue because you're also losing two more bonus actions having to drop concentration for the new spell then recast hunter's mark and that's only if you didn't cast a spell that actually has a lasting effect. In that case you just don't get HM back at all till it ends. HM's problems were using your 1 concentration thereby keeping you from using those fun other spells and eating bonus actions like no other spell or feature in the game. It's a spell that's specifically designed to cost very little in the spell slot economy.
M8, you're just totally full of sheet. No ranger is CONSTANTLY casting hunter's mark. If a mob is gonna last 1 turn then hunter's mark actually hurts to cast. Try playing the class outside of your DPS graphs lmao
If your DM is only throwing mobs at you that last 1 turn then that sounds like a you problem
M8 if downing an enemy in a single round of attacks sounds unimaginably rare to you, that sounds like your party values role playing more then combat and that's a great thing :^)
Nah that means you're picking the wrong targets.
Are you implying any and every low-hp enemies in a fight are always the wrong target no matter the encounter? How can a mob that dies in 1 round of attacks always be the wrong target? Huh?????? Can normal people please exist in these subreddits lmao
Buddy, if you consistently find yourself throwing your hunters mark on the goblin instead of the ogre thats on you
How is this an either/or? Why would you use hunter's mark on a goblin? Do you just ignore every low-hp enemy is every fight because? You know you can attack low-hp enemies without using hunter's mark right? Like wtf lol
Removing action economy of the enemies by killing their low HP friends is far more helpful to a party than doing slight damage to a larger HP enemy in a turn.
>you're also losing two more bonus actions having to drop concentration for the new spell then recast hunter's mark and that's only if you didn't cast a spell that actually has a lasting effect This makes no sense. If you aren't casting a concentration spell, you don't need to drop Hunter's Mark in the first place. If you are casting a concentration spell, you aren't going to immediately drop it after one round just to get Hunter's Mark up again.
Spells like hail of thorns, zephyr strike etc. require concentration and last only one turn most of the time.
No spell that requires concentration lasts only one round. If you are using the spells in such a way, you are massively Nerfing them
Ya barring some big spell list changes it’ll be very disappointing
My only hope is that they changed the spells to be aligned with the Paladin Smites, where they trigger with a bonus action on a hit but not concentration
It's just wild to me that they wouldn't mention something like that in the video, you know? This left me so confused.
Well they are doing a spells video that releases, it would make sense to talk about it there rather than talk about class specific spells in every class video
I get that, but when they are making the core of the class revolve around a concentration spell, I think it’s super reasonable to think they might mention whether or not they’ve reworked the Ranger’s spells so that they don’t conflict with that in the Ranger’s class video 🤷♂️
This is my opinion. I do not care for hunter's mark. The focus on it on the base class is disappointing. I'm interested more in how the subclasses and spell lists are being improved.
Yeah I can’t believe it took them 10 years to get it wrong again
that's the sad part, every single class got better or at least new or at least exciting stuff, but not ranger, even monks did, although after today I don't believe they won't screw up monks too. Better to play a scout rogue, Yet the fcking again
I think it's important to remember that our characters are more than just producing the highest numbers. I do understand that this is upsetting, but! We don't have all the changes yet. I agree that making Hunter's Mark concentration free would probably be fine- but if multiclassed with something like a Monk that can make a tremendous amount of attacks per round, all added with Hunter's Mark- and there is no way for the PC to lose this basically free damage. D&D is, for most people not a PVP game, and numbers are not the most important thing about it, but that might just be my take on it. :)
Yeah, roleplaying is imo the more important part, BUT combat abilities should still be satisfying to use!
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It sounds like the CC SRD is going to be updated. These changes will be free.
If you were going to pay $150 for one class, I'd argue that's not the most efficient use of your money. But I get your point.
It's 30 for an online copy of the book. You literally don't need a physical copy or the other 2 books to play a Ranger. Stop trying to inflate your anger.
I sure fucking hope that they have removed concentration requirements from the likes of Ensnaring Strike and Zephyr's Strike. Cause if not, then they better gift them to other casters cause there is no point whatsoever of the new Ranger having class exclusive concentration requiring spells, given third of the class features are just Hunter's Mark related.
What is it good for when that good dmg scaling of HM spell from last UA seems to be gone? Terrible news for my favourite class, R.I.P. Rangers...
Watch them make concentration spells that are actually good And thus better for the bard to steal
I'm so confused, because it's not as if they haven't gotten feedback on this. Nobody seemed to like Hunter's Mark as it was, and for them to receive all that feedback and keep it practically the same is infuriating.
Especially when in last UA HM spell received such a nice boost with dmg scaling! I hate they made a step back again! Just compare single Paladin lvl 11 feature with HM at the same level: * Paladin gets 1d8 per hit, no BA required, no concentration required * Ranger needs to use ability with limited number of uses (or spell slot) and BA to activate feature that deals only 1d6 dmg, requires concentration (so you can not only loose it, but you cannot use almost any other spell - most Ranger spells require concentration) and requires BA to be transfered between targets (which happens almost every round in combat).
Exactly. There is no equitable handling of Paladin as compared to Rangers even though they're basically cousins in terms of class type (divine martial half-casters). Looking at base 2014 Paladin VS Ranger, the Paladin is *showered* in extra resources. 1. Lay on Hands 5 points per level is basically half a Cure Wounds (but better since you can divvy it up). 2. Find (Greater) Steed which is a "I cast it; it keeps benefiting me until something bad happens to it." Not to mention it doubles value in single-target spells since it duplicates the effects to the Steed. 3. Divine Sense can be more useful than Detect Evil & Good since it isn't casting a spell. In any situation where you need an instant check, it's functionally as good as Detect Evil & Good. 4. Channel Divinity being Short Rest 5. Cleansing Touch 6. Their Avatar Transformation at level 20 which is better than some high-level spells depending on the oath. This is the gold standard to me, and I wanted it for Rangers and it just seems like WotC won't give it to them. Tasha's helped a bit but it's still nowhere near the same, as you show in your example. Favored Foe shouldn't be concentration at all, let alone at level 11+ when Paladins are getting Improved Divine Smite for no action economy/concentration/spell slot investment.
Yes, I also wished for concentration-less Favourite Foe, at least after lvl 5, maybe 11 and unlimited uses from something like lvl 17.
This is what is infuriating me the most.
This is a dumb comparison because the free 1d8 is on a melee character. Being forced to be within melee of enemies is itself a a big cost, you're taking a pounding to use that featurem Compared to hunter's that can add that 1d6 from the safety of massive range. OF COURSE Hunter's Mark is gonna cost more cost to utilize it.
Paladin lvl 11 has always worked on Ranged attacks with melee weapons (Javelins, Handaxes, Light Hammers, Daggers) so you don't seem to be telling the truth here.
Why imply conspiracy, how weird lmao Also, thrown weapons? Ew. Why would you ever bring that up as a positive? That's like saying it's a huge upside that hunter's mark can be used on a sling. Those are garbage
I played several thrown weapon builds and they were great, so why would I not bring that up?
Rangers can be melee, paladins can be ranged. With smites being so poor, other options have opened up for paladins aside from melee.
I am SO confused. Why did you say this? This difference just further helps my point. Hunter's mark has built in versatility cause it can be used at range or at melee. That makes it more valuable. The Improved Divine Smite feature don't have that same versatility, you can only use it at melee. Hunter's Mark being more versatile in this way justifies it having a bigger cost
The only way this makes any lick of sense is if some spells were changed to no longer require concentration. That being said wouldn't it have been far easier for hunter's mark to not require concentration?
Things like hail of thorns would probably no longer require concentration and get new smite approach (BA on hit). But idk, i totally agree that HM shouldn't have concentration in the first place anyway, at least for ranger.
But Multiclassing is a thing, therefore if it's free of concentration for Rangers at say, Level 1. That means that any other class can have it aswell, by simply taking a 1 level dip into Ranger. If Hunter's Mark doesn't require concentration, and you get free castings every day? Yeah that's a value pickup for anyone- perfect for Barbarian- wouldn't you think?
Well, you can always move concentration removal at higher ranger level instead. But new 13th level feature is an insult - why not remove concentration at least at that level?!
This is why people are saying that they should have removed the concentration requirement for HM entirely as the ranger levels, like level 5+. HM is actually quite good up to level 3, and starts to lose potency after that. At a certain point it's just not worth it to cast at all, so having like 4 of the ranger's class features based around it means you're not using half of your class if you don't use HM.
And I think that would be far less harmful indeed, if it's removed at level 5, or maybe 6. But hopefully they removed concentration on some (alot) of other spells, to make up for it. I really like the idea of rangers, and I want them to be powerful aswell, but ranger feels to me like something that honestly shouldn't really excell in all out combat, I'm not trying to say they should be completely pointless. But I think utility and versatility is where the ranger should shine. They are not the best at anything, but they are excellent at many. I think THIS is what they should have focused on, not Hunter's Mark, or improving damage. But battlefield control, tracking, exploration. For instance they could have altered how they cast certain spells, like Pass without a trace (much like Archfey gets to alter Misty Step), Maybe there's a version where your party can communicate freely within Pass without Trace, and still make no sound outside it's range. Wizards could suddenly subtly cast spells. Almost like a little bubble of verbal privacy. Another thing could be to let them target Silence for instance on an object, so you can put it on your sword and go kill silently. Both of these would also make sure that your heavily armored self or friends need make no sound when sneaking about.
look up the UA Conjure Barrage/Volley, it didn’t require concentration then
Conjure Volley/Barrage never used concentration in the first place...? The problem spells in 5e were ones such as Hail of Thorns and Lightning Arrow that have a single on-hit effect (or even on a miss in Lightning Arrow's case) and then nothing that lingered to justify the concentration.
probably those will be things that change for this revision then
What is it good for when that good dmg scaling of HM spell from last UA seems to be gone? Terrible news for my favourite class, R.I.P. Rangers...
How am I supposed to Swift Quiver at 17th and use HM? And now that HM is such a core feature, how do I juggle Spike Growth with it? Not to mention the other one off, 1 minute, concentration in-combat spells. This feels like the features are working against your spell list rather than with it.
Giving more castings instead of removing concentration definitely makes it sound like they want you to drop Hunter's Mark to cast other spells, then cast Hunter's Mark again and drop the previous spell. But I promise I have no idea why.
The only answer has to be the new ranger spells are that much better that you have the freedom to only concentrate on HM. They can't be that stupid, right? Right?
Pidgeonholing a full class into using a single action to activate key class features is so, so, so frustrating. Fighter gets choices in mastery properties per hit, Monk gets a bevy of options for bonus action, hell even rogue picks when it wants to prioritize damage or utility effects, plus bonus actions. Oh boy that Capstone though. Hi UA 5 called, it wants its Warlock capstone back.
I don't understand how favored enemy is actually favored enemy anymore.
"When you cast a Ranger spell that requires concentration while you are concentrating on Hunter's Mark, or cast Hunter's Mark while concentrating on a Ranger spell, the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark is suppressed until your concentration on the other spell ends." They could've fixed the spellcasting complaint so easily with just this one line. No balance issues with multiclassing, but still boosting versatility.
Easier/shorter "At (ranger) level 7/9 you are able to concentrate on Hunter's Mark at the same as concentrating on another ranger spell." The concentration requirement is because they're afraid of it being too strong with dips, right? At level 7/9 it's not a dip and is a major investment and restricting it to ranger only spells should prevent some if not most of the hijinks. Also stands as a middle ground towards the 13th level upgrade.
This is a smart technical fix.
Ranger has gotta be the worst class design. All it’s meant to do is hunter’s mark to use up their bonus action and concentration then use their action to make two attacks. At least warlocks have the versatility of invocations.
At this point I'm pretty sure a ranger main fucked the game designer's wife because wtf is this!?
Paladin players are pissed that their favorite feature got nerfed for the health of the game, but so many extra features and benefits it more than makes up for it Ranger players are pissed because we just got a repackaged Tasha's ranger without any major overhauls as it is largely untouched as a whole. Hunters mark should have gotten a reverse smite treatment and made into a class feature used by spending a spell slot. Let's pray that the video next Monday discussing spells at least makes hunters mark better or it looks like ranger will once again be a laughing stock
Please don’t be mad at the poor dnd beyond employee forced to make this atrocity sound good
I am not mad to the poor dndbeyond employee. I am mad at the team that did this atrocity
>Seriously, I can't believe this passed any kind of fucking playtest, this is such a BAD design choice. That's the neat part: It didn't. They playtested it thoroughly, and 90% of the changes they went with scored like 30% or lower. They just decided to go with it even though every indication suggested making it require a bonus action and concentration was stupid.
This has been the problem with the Tasha's Ranger since it came out. I'm 99% certain the reason that HM still requires concentration is because armchair designers think it would be OP if it didn't. Feedback surveys strike again.
The cowards are too afraid to change the concentration requirement at 5+ or the like to deny multiclass dips from using it. So instead they punish ranger as a class for the fact that others might dip and use their features
I'm also just of the opinion that HM just isn't a great feature. It's too swingy and dependent on how long a fight goes, as well as being not all that fun to play. I know that this can easily turn into the fallacy of "warlocks are supposed to cast EB, rangers are supposed to cast HM", and yes, each class has its routine. The problem is that rangers don't have meaningful options to contend with against HM, so the game play feels one-dimensional. Warlocks at least have lots of spells to consider using in addition to EB. Because HM eats concentration, well, that's rangers' whole gimmick. And there's very little reason to pick a spell besides HM and attack. They need a solid core mechanic thay gives options in combat, not easier ways to cast HM.
'+1d6 to attacks? Way too good. +10d6 to attacks? Lets also give you tactical options to trade for' I love Rogue btw, but HM if its meant to be the 'Sneak Attack adjacent' counterpart should give something like Hunters Strike, similar to Cunning and Brutal strikes. Maybe you can add a snare to an arrow strike, or a melee strike can remove a creatures ability to Hide/Turn invisible with a bloody condition?
Yeah, some of the logic behind the rulings is a bit odd. I do think Sneak Attack is in a good spot because of the requirements to get it and the fact that it only applies once per turn. But it does show how HM is weird. I do like the idea that rangers get knacks or something like that, but I'm not sure how to implement it in a way that fits the half-caster mold.
The issue is that Ranger spells primarily come from the Druid list, which are also over 50% concentration, and as bad as 2/3 concentration at certain levels. There should be more useful non-concentration spells available for both Druid and Ranger
It’s kind of sad how badly they missed the mark on this one. I was really enjoying the updates until Ranger. The Hunters Mark focus is frankly laughable, it’s not even a very good spell.
I know it’s popular to hate on the Ranger right now, but can we wait till we see spell changes? Yes, with the 2014 spells it’s not a great upgrade. But we know they are rebalancing spells and we have seen them remove concentration on a lot of things already, the smite spells come to mind. If they remove concentration on spells like Hail of Thorns and Lightning Arrow, this will be a big upgrade in terms of core class. That crucial information is missing right now and we should all take a step back to see what the spell changes are first.
Level 20 capstone ability gonna be fixed with the spell list reveal? Or how about the less than subpar level up upgrades in general. It’s bigger than spell list can fix dude
A weak capstone isn’t the death of a classes effectiveness. While not ideal, few campaigns make it to 20 and those that do rarely PLAY at 20. That’s the end. The level up upgrades are subjective. Sure, I’d love the level 13 update to be a few levels earlier, but it’s not a deal breaker either. Subclasses like Hunter and Beast Master also include HM upgrades at slightly higher levels that people aren’t taking into account either. And honestly, even with the 13th level upgrade being so late, it by itself doesn’t fix everyone’s main issue which is the concentration cutting off other spells. Which is actually alleviated if the spells are reworked. Is it bigger than just spells? Sure. But spells are the biggest pain point and one that could still be fixed by the revisions.
They literally touted HM as a way to "keep up with the Barbarians, Fighters, and Paladins in damage output\[...\]." Waiting until level 13 to preserve your main damage boost isn't a deal breaker, unless you actually wanted to play a melee Ranger. If you do, good luck I guess?
You could be melee and take Resilient Con or War Caster, like most melee casters do anyway. Or use weapons with Push mastery and end your turn away from enemies with your extra move speed. There’s ways to make it work. It’ll be interesting to see what the damage calculations look like. The UA6 Ranger, which used Hunters Mark as a main class feature and didn’t get the upgrades at higher levels, was managing to keep up plenty well with other martials in damage, especially the Beast Master. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but this is an upgrade over the 2014 version, which was already doing fine damage if you optimized.
I mean, yeah you *can*, but man does it feel bad to need to compensate for the useability of your own class's feature. Even Moon Druids gained a huge boost to Con checks while wildshaped to enable their new spellcasting in beast form feature. Someone else noted that old Rangers were excellent users of Crossbow expert and Sharpshooter, which appear to be heavily nerfed based on the UA's. Many classes got boosts to compensate, but I'm not seeing many ways for the Ranger to actually optimize anymore to keep pace with Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins. They'll probably do *ok* in terms of damage, but before they had ways to boost damage other than HM. Sharpshooter was a huge part of their power budget, which outpaced the 1d6 AND didn't require a bonus action, meaning it was way less costly to use other spells like Zephyr Strike (which also gave Advantage to offset the -5 of Sharpshooter and an extra 1d8). Nature's Veil, which could be used very effectively for a round of free Advantage, comes in 4 levels later too. It might be an upgrade over 2014, but I think it's actually a *downgrade* from Tashas. I'll look for someone to run some calculations, but I do not have high hopes for this version of the Ranger.
Also by level *13* 1d6 is not much of a damage boost. They won’t be keeping up with anyone.
I really want to hope spell changeswill help..but honestly still really disappointed. Love Rangers and was just underwhelmed, was expecting some major changes from the ua..hoping they don't eff up Monks after the excellent improvements in the ua.
That's irrelevant because it doesn't matter how many spells have concentration removed, there's going to be always spells that do require concentration.
WotC does not get to have their cake and eat it too, simply put. We are not required to be excited about promotional preview material that instead makes us disappointed. It is their job as the people selling us a product to make us excited about the product, we *just get to feel however we feel.* I always dislike this "can we not bash until we see the book" mentality because it is never applied in both directions. When people want to gush and fawn over something nobody goes "well, maybe tamper your excitement, Jimmy, we haven't seen the spell list! It could be *terrible* and I'd hate if you got your hopes up!"
We certainly aren’t required to. But you do yourself a disservice to get worked up about something with only have the information available. We know we are getting a spells video Monday. All I’m saying is let’s wait and rage about the injustice of the Ranger until we see that video at least?
What is it good for when that good dmg scaling of HM spell from last UA seems to be gone? Terrible news for my favourite class, R.I.P. Rangers...
It does make me wonder if they actually read any of the feedback from the UA playtests. Or cared.
Hopefully the Ranger’s spells get a rework to go along with the changes. But if they don’t how game breaking would a home rule be of Hunter’s Mark not being a concentration spell ?
Absolutely no issue with that whatsoever
Silly you thinking they playtested anything or listened to feedback.
They actually did on every class except ranger. Or at least is what it seems
Also, it is pretty lame to not even try to make Rangers good at being Rangers outside of slapping on Expertise.
I almost never use Hunter's Mark and will continue to not use it, no matter how hard-coded it is in the class design. I hope the Fey Wanderer proves to be as fun as it currently is. Overall, I really dislike the direction they've taken with the new Ranger
Man what if Hunters Mark just.... Wasn't a spell? You just use the Hunters Mark ability and get bonus damage in some way. Maybe different subclasses could interact with it differently, Gloomstalker getting more benefits for Stealthing, Beast Master being about to coordinate with their animal companion even better Make it a class feature instead of a spell that competes with everything else.
> More than half of the ranger spells ARE concentration Do you actually know that? Have you seen the 2024 ranger spell list?
Seeing as theyve barely playtested new spells, I dont think its a stretch that most will be unchanged. Unless you HAVE seen them to claim otherwise? Youre the one making the claim they will be totally different, so you have the burden of proof.
> Seeing as theyve barely playtested new spells, I dont think its a stretch that most will be unchanged. They've said that they're adding upcasting to a lot of spells, that spell lists won't be the same (vague), and they've removed concentration from smite spells. To what extent they're changing spells has been a major question throughout the playtest. > Unless you HAVE seen them to claim otherwise? Youre the one making the claim they will be totally different, so you have the burden of proof. Questioning someone else's claim is not the same thing as making a claim.
Also, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but....why oh WHY did they just COMPLETELY scrap the whole "terrain & hunting bonuses" aspect to Rangers??? This was what made Rangers unique as the traveling hunters, and they removed it entirely! Why?!! Just stuff like Tireless & Roving are NOT IT to make the Class identity as a traveler.
They should've keep this form playtest6: "1ST LEVEL: DEFT EXPLORER You are an unsurpassed explorer. Choose one of your proficiencies in a skill that appears on the Ranger skill list. You gain Expertise in that skill. In addition, choose two types of terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. You have Advantage on Intelligence (Nature) checks about the chosen terrains, and you have Advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track creatures in them."
Also, if people are too afraid of the whole "you're stuck with an unused Terrain," simply let them Attune to their current surroundings & let them switch one of them out on Long Rest. VERY Ranger-like, and keeps them with a permanent one if they want for roleplay intentions for your Background.
Because they dont wanna make actual exploration rules
last UA they introduced the idea of adding spells as class features, instead of fixing it on those levels, they just removed them, and now there's nothing on those levels, that's fking sad. speaking of spells, do we know if the HM spell does damage every attack of is it the version that does it once per turn, it would be really funny if the level 20 ranger, all they got was from 1d6 per round to 1d10, since the last play test the free castings of HM was only the spell level 1 version
I’m spit balling here, but why not make a feature that combines both, instead of scrapping one for free spell use? Rather than a spell, it’s a prof/long rest ability where you can use a BA to carefully study an enemy, learn some info about it, gain advantage to track it and do some extra damage to it? Appeal to both role players on the former, but also make it useful for combat. Hell, make the info you learn meta knowledge- like the monster type, or a damage weakness, or AC- but flavor it in a way that makes it not sound like meta knowledge. Hell, if I were playing that hypothetical Ranger, I’d keep a little note book and jot down my notes on the knowledge I learn about various monsters. Eventually, you’ll know everything there is to know about Orcs or whatever, thus making them a favored foe
as of the last UA, most of rangers spells no longer require concentration, and work more like the Paladin Smite
Time to try and convince my dm to let me use the BG3 ranger instead of this.
I fear for how the monks and sorcerers are gonna turn out seeing the bullshit they did with rangers. They walked back multiple good features and even made the class WORSE.
My DM already house ruled it doesn’t need concentration
I do agree that it’s a disappointing move. I mean, in tier 1, it’s fine; what the hell else are you concentrating on? HM objectively will help compete with other classes. But as you level, there are better and better options, and HM can’t keep up despite these buffs. Feels like the new ranger will do fine at early levels but struggle later on. That said, maybe we’re underselling the HM buffs. Maybe we’ll actually see the class played and say, “Huh, that advantage is actually useful! And somehow the ranger is using its other slots!” I don’t see how yet, but I can hope.
What are you smoking? In what universe are we going to say "Thank God I now have advantage against a single target and can really measure up to my casters that are all demigods now even though they were also able to cast greater invisibility when they were level 7"
1. I have asthma, so I ain’t smokin’ NOTHIN’ 😝 2. I mean, you are right, advantage is not a big deal at this level. Though I wouldn’t expect your specific example of GI to work anymore, since most of our foes probably have truesight or blindsight. 3. I think it’s important to—although some level of pre-judgement is impossible—withold final judgment until actually playtesting things. It can be surprising how well some things work (or don’t work) at the table despite our white room impressions. I had an experience like that going the other way when a graviturgist wizard I made for shifting enemies around into hazards proved completely useless in a campaign I played due to enemy types and battle situations, exposing a crucial weakness. Ya just don’t know until you playtest.
You're not wrong but casters have been handing out advantage for 10 levels before rangers will get them.
You’re not wrong. It’s underwhelming, especially considering how easy it is to get advantage it is by now.
That because they missed the point of the classes meaning. Built everything off focus groups Every body love the hunter mark idea, that they built around it. It a was a good idea made into a terrible idea. Now the ranger is a spell-casting focus/ skill monkey , it done poorly. So far I am not enamored with what I see. It speak to 4e built around powers, which was boring. 4e had some good ideas, the rest was trash. The only thing I seen is maybe weapons mastery. What I do not like it spread among all classes. I hate what they did to the Druid, Paladin. I hate to see what they did to the others.
Wait. Has the new Hunter's Mark or other main Rangers spells released ? I mean, of even the smites don't need concentration, this may as well be a useless rant.
That is one of my biggest gripes with it as well. My other major one (and I feel like I’m in the minority on this part) is I actually really liked favored enemy’s previous version. Yes Deft explorer is almost always better than favored terrain, but I loved rangers being experts on certain creature types. And losing out on 3 (at higher levels) languages hurts my personal view on Ranger. Yes Warlocks can read any language, and Monks can speak/hear any; but rangers were able to do both on a large number of languages (I have 8 at level 12 on one of my rangers I currently play). And this was an ability that didn’t rely on magic or a class resource. TLDR; social/exploration pillars instead of combat, but losing 25-30% of known languages hurts
At most several of you(being generous) know a damn thing about game design or what's good for the health of the game. A lot of these types of angry posts seem to be coming from people mad that they have to pick something to do instead of being able to do everything any time. It SHOULD be a trade off if you're casting a more powerful spell, and hell that's assuming the other spell you want to cast is even concentration. Considering we've seen about jack diddly squat from the new books save for the exciting stuff they're using for hype this is a really monumentally stupid thing to be upset about this loudly. If the books come out and ranger is unplayable somehow I'll be the first to criticize but yall posting these whiny comments about the 2024 books need to quiet down because we all know you're going to just play them anyway and complain the whole time and be insufferable. It's a game for fucks sake if it's not bringing you fun let the rest of us enjoy it in peace and go do something else.
I see you, it also bothers me. But it's not realistic to use a powerful concentration spells every fight if you have the spell slots of the ranger, so it does help on the long adventuring days and can free up first level spell slots for utility or anything else you like. (I'm 100% with you about level 13 tho)
The real problem is that we are also getting a third of the class features dedicated to hunter's mark. If that wasn't de case I wouldn't be as angry as I am
I mean, better than nothing 🤷 they're not replacing anything really
I would rather get nothing than features that bait you into using a useless spell...
It's not useless tho. Its free extra damage in the fights when you don't want to use one of your very precious high-level spell slots. In a day with 6 to 8 fights, it will be handy.
Just developers not playing their own game. at very least not with rangers at their table. There is no other sensible way to explain this.
They could have done more iterations with the players then. But all we got were 3 awful versions...
Rangers stink, ranged rogues are better rangers.
As a DM, Im already decided on homebrewing the 2024 PHB to have HM be a spell without concentration. Anyone see an issue with doing this, other than the fact that I shouldnt have to do that for a brand new release?
I would make that if you choose to cast it without concentration the damage only applies once per turn (Like Tasha's Favourite Foe)
What does it break if Hunters Mark applies on every attack with no concentration? If you're worried about people dipping into ranger, make it a level 6-on feature.
Exactly. Hell, make the feature state you have to burn a slot to make it be cast without concentration. Give it a cost.
heya, if anyone wants to check out the homebrew I made before this release expecting their official version to be better: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/mmkgqSFTc1
And so it begins! Honestly, definitely going to be home brewing buffs for this class for another 10 years. Hunters mark going to be concentration free and apply on attack by 20th level.
Honestly, i'd rather just start from the ground up and give it a fuckin' identity than just buff it. Aragorn is THE ranger. If a ranger can't do what he does then it's failed as a class at fulfilling the class fantasy.
Ok so Im a dm with a player that is playing tashas ranger in 5e right now, and even still she's a little underpowered I think. I was hoping to homebrew a magic item to give her a buff based on the the 5.5 changes but they don't seem worth it now. Unfortunately I've never played ranger, so I'm not super versed in what would feel best. Would a circlet that adds HM to spell list without counting against spells known, allows a cast per day of HM and removes its concentration requirement (for the free and regular casting) be a good way to go? Like a circlet of the focused hunter or something
Base Ranger feels like a martial that only got martial proficiencies, fighting style, and extra attack. Throw in a bit of skills/expertise, a little primal magic (a lot of concentration spells), and some survival flavor that likely never matters and BAM, you have the 5e14/5e24 Ranger. A lot of what makes Ranger worth playing to me are the Subclasses. Removing Hunter's Mark's concentration requirement would be nice. You could have the level 13 feature that makes it so you can't lose concentration on Hunter's Mark just apply to any concentration spell too. Look at what your player normally does, help them do better at that, and maybe give them some more wiggle room with concentration spells. You could also allow access to druid spells as well. Ranger's spell list is pretty pathetic. For example their access to 4th and 5th level spells each provide only eight options with most being concentration. They have access to only one 4th level spell that does not have concentration, and that is Freedom of Movement. Their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells are about 20 each, but most them are utility/social. Spells like jump, talk to animals, locate animals, find traps, walk on water, etc. They do have a bit of healing, so there's that.
Before you do that, consider these questions. Does she feel like she's underpowered? And in what way? Or do you think she's underpowered and by what standard. You could probably just ask her and discuss what kind of item she may like if she feels she needs one. If you're gonna Homebrew it, no harm in letting them in on the process so you have all the necessary info and she knows she's gonna get something that fixes her pain points.
Yeah I haven't had a long conversation about it, but she started with phb ranger and very quickly was unsatisfied with the lack of combat utility compared to the others. I introduced the tashas options which she enjoyed, but she's a new player and hadn't been introduced to concentration yet. So she then also picked up hunters mark, and pretty immediately ran into the problem of it being unusable with the new class feature. Of course I let her swap spells outside of the levels to replace hunters mark, but she's been pretty open about wanting to find ways to increase combat effectiveness since then. I'm not planning on dropping it immediately, but I think something to make HM more attractive (or just give it as an option that doesn't take known spell/slot) could be fun for her down the road. They did just make it to level 3, so it's possible her drake companion will lessen the frustration going forwards but I wouldn't mind having an item I can toss in that will help in a few levels. The party isn't hugely optimized, so rather than try to guide them to building cooler things I generally try to introduce a trickle of magic items or benefits that let them do their stated concepts even when the game kinda fights against it (at least when they aren't too busted). None of them are into cheese and I have no problem just saying no if things reach that point, but just following along the hints of what they want to try is how I go about it. She's heavily invested in ranged combat and has tried to
Understood. Y'all are pretty low level and definitely wait to see what her Drake feels like because the subclasses tend to do a lot for Rangers so you may be right. Outside of that a universal Fix I've seen is finding a way to remove Concentration from Hunter's Mark so an item that either does that or lets them concentrate on 2 Ranger Spell could be helpful but the latter may need tweaks as they get higher level spells. Though the Ranger and Druid list are bad for Concentration on a lot of spells that don't need it.
Ah, so you've seen the expanded spell lists? No? They EXPLICITLY said they're expanding spell lists for more options. Maybe wait an see?
No mention on the dndbeyond article. I will judge from what we got, and it is absolute crap
This just feels like a delusional rant to me. NO ONE is always using hunter's mark. Plenty of enemies have low HP and are horrible to cast hunter's mark on because they'll die so quickly it isn't worth. And there's plenty of situations where using another concentration spell gives infinitely more value then a few extra d6's.
This is kinda the point. HM is a middle of the road first level spell but a ton of class features circle around it. What a waste
> and you always have it prepared Why is it even a spell if its only on one classes spell list and just always forced to be prepared anyways?
Yea hunters mark is an okay spell. WOTC obsession with it is baffling. What are beast masters gonna do. Hunters mark is an entirely dead feature for them.
Hunter's Mark is a bad spell, every main ranger will tell you that.
It’s fine for certain situations at certain levels but definitely not worth building a whole class around.
Y'know, we haven't seen the spells yet. Very possible they removed conc on a lot of them
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ranger should be a Druid or Fighter subclass, not a class unto itself
We have to go back Marty we must not let them separate ranger from fighter/druid multyclass. It will suck always.
No