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

[SilverfireSage]

Let's get this out of the way. I've been nothing but respectful in each and every post in this thread and on the boards at large. So why this veiled aggression?

I apologize. I was being rather rude, but I have done an awful lot of defending for the poor, ganged up on ranger, so for some reason I feel a little protective. That didn't excuse my actions and I apologize.

Realizing that I likely made some mistakes, I went back and did every calculation again just to make sure that I did everything right, and you're correct, a battlemaster fighter that uses both action surges and all of his superiority die over five rounds deals a far greater amount of damage than the ranger over five rounds.

28d8 (4 attacks per round x5 + 8 attacks for both action surges) +140 (+5 dexterity x 28 attacks) +6d12 (superiority die and pushing attack) = an average of 305 damage. (Btw, I used maximum damage, because in your example, you did as well. I wanted to keep parity.)

For the ranger this is far less. Using Swift Quiver

20d8 (2 attacks x 5 + 2 swift quiver x 5) +100 (+5 dex x 20 attacks)= 190

The fighter is dealing almost twice the damage! Crazy right? Well, except the fact that at that point, the fighter has absolutely nothing else he can do, whereas the ranger only used one spell. But then I thought, wait, doesn't the ranger have something more powerful he can do? In fact, he does! It's a wonderful little spell called Conjure Animals. Say the ranger decides to cast it as a 5th level spell. That means he can summon 16 beasts of challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. A wolf is challenge rating 1/4. So the ranger conjures 16 wolves to attack. Now let's see the damage over 5 rounds.

10d8 (2 attacks x 5) +50 (+5 dex x 10 attacks) + 160d4 (16 wolves, 2d4 per attack, 5 rounds) +160 (+2 damage on wolves attacks) =655 average damage. And at that point, the ranger can keep that up for as long as the encounter lasts, flooding the area with wolves. If some die, he can keep conjuring more.

I really don't think the ranger has any trouble doing damage.

 

[Mr Fixit]

I apologize. I was being rather rude, but I have done an awful lot of defending for the poor, ganged up on ranger, so for some reason I feel a little protective. That didn't excuse my actions and I apologize.

Thanks. Don't sweat it.

It's a wonderful little spell called Conjure Animals. Say the ranger decides to cast it as a 5th level spell. That means he can summon 16 beasts of challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. A wolf is challenge rating 1/4. So the ranger conjures 16 wolves to attack. Now let's see the damage over 5 rounds.

10d8 (2 attacks x 5) +50 (+5 dex x 10 attacks) + 160d4 (16 wolves, 2d4 per attack, 5 rounds) +160 (+2 damage on wolves attacks) =655 average damage. And at that point, the ranger can keep that up for as long as the encounter lasts, flooding the area with wolves. If some die, he can keep conjuring more.

I really don't think the ranger has any trouble doing damage.

Well... hmmmh... who the hell made wolves CR1/4?

 

[SilverfireSage]

Thanks. Don't sweat it.



Well... hmmmh... who the hell made wolves CR1/4?

Yeah kind of ludicrous... then again, you could also make the argument that not all of those wolves are attacking at once. But against a couple giants with an AC of 16, they're going to chew them up very very quickly.

 

[Zalabim]

Conjure Animals takes an action to cast, though it lasts plenty of time to have ready pre-battle. The ranger gets 16 wolves one time only. Any that die cannot be replaced piecemeal. With their lower attack bonus, their damage does not have the same value as damage from the archer. With their great numbers, they cannot all attack the same target or maneuver in a dungeon unless it is sufficiently large. With their melee range and low hp, they're completely unsuitable for attacking some creatures. Against large, grounded creatures without area or retaliatory damage, where you've got the wolves cast ahead of time, they will far exceed the performance of swift quiver for your 5th level slots. This makes the ranger more like Aquaman than Hawkeye.

 

[SilverfireSage]

Conjure Animals takes an action to cast, though it lasts plenty of time to have ready pre-battle. The ranger gets 16 wolves one time only. Any that die cannot be replaced piecemeal. With their lower attack bonus, their damage does not have the same value as damage from the archer. With their great numbers, they cannot all attack the same target or maneuver in a dungeon unless it is sufficiently large. With their melee range and low hp, they're completely unsuitable for attacking some creatures. Against large, grounded creatures without area or retaliatory damage, where you've got the wolves cast ahead of time, they will far exceed the performance of swift quiver for your 5th level slots. This makes the ranger more like Aquaman than Hawkeye.

It was a hypothetical. The point is, Rangers aren't simply archers, they have a variety of things they can do at any moment. Although, since a fighter would use a whole quiver's worth of arrows in just a few rounds, I'd love to see the look on his face when the archer with swift quiver continues to peg the target again and again.

 

[Mistwell]

With their lower attack bonus, their damage does not have the same value as damage from the archer.

Well one of those trip attacks will work, and all the ones that come after it are at advantage, so that +4 attack becomes roughly +9 attack. Not really so bad.