Huh, I wonder if using it to mop up is something that having some free uses of it would be nice for, you know, so you don't use up spell slots for your other 1st level spells.
Also, love how hilarious some of these are. Swift Quiver is going to give you two bonus action attacks, for a total of four, and add 2d8+10 or 19 damage.
Most builds that will use Swift Quiver will do 4d10+4xdex+2xproficiency bonus using a heavy crossbow with 4xpush on top of that. At the level they get swift quiver this is usually going to be 4d10+20+12.
If they choose not to optimize and they don't get XBE they will do 4d8+4xdex+2xproficiency (4d8+32) using a longbow and cut 40 off of their movement.
The base damage from these are:
57 (heavy crossbow)
53 (longbow)
This is before they add any Ranger subclass damage.
This is my big problem with the class design, it discourages any sort of builds due to the reliance on Hunter's Mark
Hunter's Mark for a dual-wielder is adding 4d6 or 14 damage, plus advantage on every attack, which ups the DPR, making it very close (13.3 vs 11.76). At the d10 mark it is 4d10 which is 22 higher than Swift Quiver.
It is not higher than swift quiver unless you design that specific character to use dual wielder and if you do that you are doing less damage oveall (because your damage is much lower on your actions). Since we are talking about hit percentage, keep in mind the +2 you get from archery.
Using light weapons and dual wielding and the TWF feat and nick your damage is 48, which is less damage than will be done with heavy weapons using swift quiver and you don't get the +2 to for archery and you are getting much worse weapon mastery effects.
Also most light weapons are going to give you Vex, which makes this advantage you are getting largely redundant on dual wielding builds (and generally worse than a flat +2). This is a case where the advantage bonus for HM works best on builds that are NOT optimized to get the most damage out of HM.
Finally let's remember that even in your lower damage dual wielding white room this damage has to be against a single target and you need to give up an attack every single time you move your hunter's mark.
You are doing less damage if you are attacking 1 enemy and you are doing much less damage on turns you need to attack more than 1 enemy or move your mark.
Conjure animals is a dex save vs 3d10 damage, no damage on a success. That is less than the 4d10 as well.
It is 3d10 to every enemy within 10 feet. It is usually going to be more damage than you will add with Hunter's Mark.
This is especially true when you combine it with attacks.
Below 20th level this is a dex save for 3d10 in addition to all the damage I do with my action. This is usually going to be better than what I would get from Hunter's Mark.
Conjure Woodland beings is ACTUALLY better,
Of course it is, most spells are.
Nothing has made me hate the phrase RAW more than the reaction to the release of 2024. Sure, defend the bloody hill that you were technically playing RAW. But they wouldn't have given the ability concentration and a 1/turn limit if it was meant to be used on every attack on the same turn. You know it was unintentional and an exploit.
If we are discussing the rules then the rules DO matter and I find it disingenuos that you are now arguing that this was not intended or not the right way to play instead of simply admitting you are wrong.
Arguing that I should have been using your characters as an example, when I responding to the idea of giving up an attack to use Hunter's Mark is not demonstrating my math is incorrect.
You replied to a post about two of my characters specifically, called them out by name and then stated the difference in damage. On top of this I specifically referenced level 20 WRT one of them.
My point, which you clearly missed is that by giving up that 4th attack... the ranger does more damage. Meaning that they didn't "give up" or "lose" anything by deciding to cast Hunter's Mark instead.
And your point is not factually, objectively true. ESPECIALLY at high levels like you are talking about.
And yes, many rangers get abilities to add to damage at level 3, not as much at level 17, and those are typically once per turn abilities, so "giving up" an attack doesn't make a difference.
It does actually make a difference because it affects the chance to hit.
Lena: 4 attacks: total 5d6+4d4+28 - Would mean she has a floating d6 from Fey Wanderer, then that makes each attack 1d6+1d4+7.... and you claim that dropping an attack would lose her 1d6+1d4+6?
Yes she used a dragontooth dagger that did 1d6+1d4+1 and had a gauntlet of Giant Strength that gave her a +6 strength bonus. So droping the bonus attack would have lost 1d6+1d4+7. If I put +6 that is because I forgot the magic bonus on the dagger.
Chromescale: 4 attacks: total 8d6+10 -- This is just bizzare. You dealt +2.5 on the mod per attack?
He had Druidic Warrior
attack 1 shillelage: 2d6+5
attack 2 shilleage: 2d6+5
nick: scimitar: 1d6 (no TWF fighting style)
dual wielding shillelagh: 2d6 (no TWF fighting style)
Fey Wanderer: 1d6
That doesn't make sense so you must be combining wisdom and dexterity.
No I am using Wisdom exclusively on the attacks that get a bonus to damage and 16 dexterity on the nick attack that doesn't.
However when casting shillelagh as a bonus action on your turn, you drop the damage to 5d6+10, meaning that not using the bonus action attack is 3d6? None of this makes sense.
When I cast Shillelagh:
shillelagh: 2d6+5
Shillelagh: 2d6+5
Nick scimitar: 1d6
I did forget the fey Wanderer damage.
I understand you think this is bad class design, but you are basing that entirely off "I want to play a ranger who does not make attack rolls" with a dose of "but they have better spells, so this is bad" Neither of which make the design bad.
I don't just think this is a bad design, I know it is a bad design and it has nothing to do with what I
Honestly, I think people are underestimating how this ranger is going to end up working at the table.
I know exactly how it is going to work at the table.
People are still stuck in the old paradigms of abilities and spells, and I think they are going to be awfully surprised to find how effective and good to play this ranger is going to be.
Being effective does not make it a good class design.
Also you seem to be stuck in a paradigm where higher level players are running out of spell slots. That does not happen a whole lot at many tables, and tables that have a lot of spell slots left are not going to have a lot of uses for these class features when better spells are available.
The only truly bad design is in the capstone. The more I look at the rest, the more it seems perfectly fine.
Three of the four abilities tied to Hunter's Mark are a bad design. The first one (free casting) is ok. The others are really bad.
It would be different if they dropped the concentration requirement. If they did that instead of the damage concentration immunity it would actually be ok. The problem with it how it is now is that high level abilities are tied to a very weak spell that precludes the use of other, better spells if you want to use those abilities.
