D&D 5E (2014) Should Hunter's mark (Ranger spell) drop Concentration requirement?

[Mr Fixit]

"Inspired" by all the ranger-bashing going on, I've been doing some tedious number-crunching to see how an archer ranger (hunter)--an iconic character concept as at least some of you will hopefully agree--compares to archer fighter (battlemaster). I'm no mathematician so take these with a grain of salt: for example, champion would perhaps be more pertinent here, but I'm too dense to factor in all those criticals.

Anyway, at low-mid levels the two classes are generally comparable, I won't really delve into numbers here. What I find most interesting is the DPR comparison (every attack hits) over the course of 5 rounds at 20th level.

Fighter (4 attacks per round), using all his superiority dice and both Action Surges is on average dishing out over 320 damage over 5 rounds. Ranger, on the other hand, has 4 attacks per round when using Swift Quiver, but he can't use Hunter's Mark as both require concentration. He also uses Colossus Slayer for an additional d8 once per turn. All this yields him around 210 damage over the course of 5 rounds. If he's using Horde Breaker instead of CS, his damage increases to around 240 to multiple enemies, but he's unlikely to achieve that number in practice as he'll need to have another opponent within 5 feet of the first one at all times.

As if this wasn't enough, I haven't factored in all the additional benefits fighter will reap due to the expended superiority dice. Also, since his SD and Action Surge are essentially encounter powers, he'll start every battle good to go (provided there was a short rest, of course). Ranger, however, has only 2 5th-level spell slots for his Swift Quiver spell. Anything after that and he defaults back to Hunter's Mark which would yield paltry 150 damage over 5 rounds. Sure, there are additional spells there, like Lightning Arrow, Conjure Barrage, etc, but these are either of dubious damage boosting capability (the former) or quite situational (the latter). It just seems extremely problematic when ranger can't even get close to fighter's ranged damage. It's in a completely different ballpark.

How to address it? Maybe lose the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark? With it + Swift Quiver + Colossus Slayer, ranger would dish out around 300 damage in those 5 rounds. That's still lower than what a fighter gets even without taking into account the additional benefits of battle master's superiority dice (not to mention that, as noted, ranger can only cast Swift Quiver twice a day), but it's a start. Combined with other ranger features and spells, I feel things are about evened out. And really, how can someone be a better archer than a goddamn ranger?

 

[Boarstorm]

Any idea how that change would affect an Oath of Vengeance paladin, who also gets Hunter's Mark?

 

[Mistwell]

He will not start every battle good to go. You don't short-rest after every battle. Not by a long shot. That's a good way to get your party caught in a surprise round by monsters that find you. I've found Action Surge comes up about once every 4 battles or so.

In our group, the two-weapon fighting 5th level Ranger with Colossus Slayer and Hunter's Mark wielding dual Battleaxes (dual wielder feat, two weapon fighting style) is destroying our fighter in terms of damage dealt. He's a spinning machine of death.

As for removing concentration from Hunter's Mark - I don't think it would break anything if you allowed it to be cast in a higher spell slot to do that.

 

[SilverfireSage]

How to address it? Maybe lose the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark? With it + Swift Quiver + Colossus Slayer, ranger would dish out around 300 damage in those 5 rounds. That's still lower than what a fighter gets even without taking into account the additional benefits of battle master's superiority dice (not to mention that, as noted, ranger can only cast Swift Quiver twice a day), but it's a start. Combined with other ranger features and spells, I feel things are about evened out. And really, how can someone be a better archer than a goddamn ranger?

A couple of things.
1. Encounter powers are not the same as powers that require a short rest. Remember that in 4e, an encounter power was recharged after a short rest of 15 or so minutes, while in 5E a short rest is one hour. In the average dungeon, I would probably allow no more than one short rest, as there is likely to be only a scant number of times when a party can rest for an entire hour without being interrupted.
2. You are comparing expending absolutely everything for the fighter to a ranger that will still have quite a few options after that. What happens to the fighter's damage output after that 5th round? What happens to the ranger's? A fight could easily last longer than that, and it would be deeply foolish for a fighter to expend all of his options on one flurry of damage.
3. Even with all of this in mind, I can still be ok with a fighter being a better archer than a ranger, simply because that's all a fighter does is deal damage and take it. A ranger has favored enemies, favored terrain, a whole host of other abilities as well as spells, while a battlemaster fighter can simply sit there and bash enemies in. They aren't truly comparable and they shouldn't be.

 

[mcbobbo]

3. Even with all of this in mind, I can still be ok with a fighter being a better archer than a ranger, simply because that's all a fighter does is deal damage and take it. A ranger has favored enemies, favored terrain, a whole host of other abilities as well as spells, while a battlemaster fighter can simply sit there and bash enemies in. They aren't truly comparable and they shouldn't be.

This is my view as well. DPR should be lower, probably always. How much lower is debatable, but to use the WoW parlance, Rangers are "hybrids".

 

[Mr Fixit]

A couple of things.
1. Encounter powers are not the same as powers that require a short rest. Remember that in 4e, an encounter power was recharged after a short rest of 15 or so minutes, while in 5E a short rest is one hour. In the average dungeon, I would probably allow no more than one short rest, as there is likely to be only a scant number of times when a party can rest for an entire hour without being interrupted.

Fair enough. But those things cut both ways. Maybe the fighter doesn't expend all his SD nor uses his AS, but then neither does the ranger use his best limited-use features. We're again down to fighter dishing out over 200 damage with his attacks only (it's only going up, he'll probably use at least an SD or two), while the ranger is stuck at 150. And this of course supposes rare short rests with a bunch of encounters per day. Some campaigns/groups use the short rest more liberally and are not so fighting-heavy, so it's more likely for PCs to nova on a more regular basis.

2. You are comparing expending absolutely everything for the fighter to a ranger that will still have quite a few options after that. What happens to the fighter's damage output after that 5th round? What happens to the ranger's? A fight could easily last longer than that, and it would be deeply foolish for a fighter to expend all of his options on one flurry of damage.

Sure, but 5E does tend to have somewhat shorter battles. As for the longer ones, what do you think will be the Champion's contribution there? I feel it would be even worse for our poor ranger.

3. Even with all of this in mind, I can still be ok with a fighter being a better archer than a ranger, simply because that's all a fighter does is deal damage and take it. A ranger has favored enemies, favored terrain, a whole host of other abilities as well as spells, while a battlemaster fighter can simply sit there and bash enemies in. They aren't truly comparable and they shouldn't be.

This I would be OK with if other ranger features were all that great. Sadly they aren't. Favoured enemy is woefully inadequate and other features are just as situational/on the weak side. Just look at his 20th level "ultimate" ability!

 

[mcbobbo]

This I would be OK with if other ranger features were all that great. Sadly they aren't. Favoured enemy is woefully inadequate and other features are just as situational/on the weak side. Just look at his 20th level "ultimate" ability!

So this is an unenviable position to find yourself in:

On the one hand one could easily say "then make a fighter". You're saying yourself that the non-fighter things aren't attractive.

On the other you seem to be asserting that, since the other stuff isn't desirable the Ranger doing more damage would compensate. That's tough for me because I would think you fix poor abilities by fixing them directly instead of buffing some unrelated thing.

 

[Mr Fixit]

So this is an unenviable position to find yourself in:

On the one hand one could easily say "then make a fighter". You're saying yourself that the non-fighter things aren't attractive.

On the other you seem to be asserting that, since the other stuff isn't desirable the Ranger doing more damage would compensate. That's tough for me because I would think you fix poor abilities by fixing them directly instead of buffing some unrelated thing.

I get what you're saying and I agree, but I had to limit this thread in some way: a consideration of Hunter's Mark seemed interesting to me. But yes, I think that ranger as a whole seems mechanically dubious. His core features are very bland and uninspiring, not to mention supremely situational, while his combat options, while very good at lower levels, scale poorly. Once we get to higher levels, I get the impression the ranger is in that old bardlike unenviable position of "jack of all trades". He fights adequately, though not nearly on the level of other martial classes, he has some spellcasting--though many of his spells seem to be martial features disguised as spells for some reason, taking slots, and spells known, what few he has, away from other things--and he has some utility features that are pretty weak. I mean, a rogue can be a better tracker and survivalist than a ranger!

 

[Joe Liker]

I am of the opinion that both hunter's mark and the warlock's hex spell could do without the concentration requirement.

Both are derived from similar class abilities in 4e, but the concentration requirement is new in 5e. Neither of these classes has a ton of spell slots to work with, so when concentration is broken on the one spell that is most necessary, it's pretty debilitating. If hex is broken, for example, the warlock only has 3 more spell slots to work with -- and that's at high levels. If he's under level 10, it's only one more slot!

Concentration is a great tool for limiting powerful effects, but those effects are generally assumed to last for only a single combat, or even just a few rounds. Hex, on the other hand, is supposed to last all day once you hit level 9. So if a warlock wants to maintain hex, he can forget about ever using half the tools in his arsenal, including a number of thematically wonderful invocations.

I find it rather absurd to expect anyone to maintain concentration that long. I think it's a mild abuse of an otherwise brilliant design tool.

 

[Mr Fixit]

I am of the opinion that both hunter's mark and the warlock's hex spell could do without the concentration requirement.

I dislike that Hunter's Mark is a spell at all; it seems like a pretty core feature for the class after all. Maybe de-spell it and make it a martial feature, no concentration required, available for, let's say, Wis modifier times per day or some such.