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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 7573194" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Hunters quarry lasts an hour or more, it may not be wasted casting it. I have seen hand crossbow PCs using it + CBE as well. Even without it throw in horde breaker or colossus slayer and the Ranger is still coming out ahead. The payoff is usually the same round assuming sharpshooter is not used (which at low levels is very risky). Even with a bow you are inflicting +4.5 damage with no penalty (1d8 vs 1d6 + 3.5 hunters quarry), so 2 attacks with that is dealing +9 damage vs a CBE less damae and the 1d6+5 even is still dealing less damage than the longbow and that is not factoring in colossus slayer or hordebreaker. Since you don't use the -5/+10 part all of the time the the bow is actually ahead at this point. Until level 11 the Ranger can also take XBE and SS, the fighter might get the combo up 2 levels earlier or have +1 to hit and damage for a bit which is still less than the ranger. You need an 18 dex to equal the damage a bonus action using for hunters quarry on 2 shots vs taking 3 with XBE. The +10 damage can change that assuming it hits though the -5 does matter. On boss fights you often fire your crossbow, throw on hunters mark and then next round fire 3 shots with +1d6 on each one. At least that is what I saw the player doing. After a few levels hunters quarry is essentially on 100% of the time as its only level 1 or can be made to last a lot longer in higher level spell slots. They are both situational but the Ranger with bow is always good, high AC target the XBE guy is going to be less effective along with longer range combats (I had an airship fight once, the hand crossbow lacked the range to shoot the flying Dragons). Chuck in magic bows being more common in published adventures I wold probably save the feat from XBE and use a bow as a ranger. As I said in a real game with real conditions Ranger> battlemaster fighter archer and that is ignoring the rest of the Ranger package outside combat.</blockquote>

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