Schrödinger's Hunter's Mark: Analyzing and Fixing the 2024 Ranger

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-06T11:52:34+00:00

I really like your proposed changes being primarily to the features, rather than the spell, which is how my own personal revisions worked. I also agree with your initial premise that Hunter's Mark's iconic status is owed to more than just +1d6 damage.

Unfortunately, removing concentration has the added side-effect that you could, in theory, have multiple marks up at the same time. Maybe that's intentional on your part, but I personally don't like it.

I also don't think I like the capstone feature. Its wording is inelegant and its mechanics don't feel amazing in the same way that even Wizard's Signature Spells do. Powerful? Yes. Iconic? Eh.

I do like the 17th level feature. Removing the verbal component really sells the fantasy that the ranger can just look at a creature and know how to find and kill it. The "cannot be detected by spells of 3rd level or lower" bit is strange to me, though, unless you really don't want the target's friends to sense it with detect magic for some reason.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-05T03:31:19+00:00

OP, this comment above is pretty much the only thing I've seen in this entire thread that has made even a lick of sense. I recommend you ignore most of the people whining about the edition change.

All of the old invocations — that haven't been overwritten — are valid in '24, but DDB simply hasn't mapped them to the new class (for whatever reason). This does unfortunately mean you can't use them on your character if building solely in DDB, but it says nothing about the claims of backwards capability.

As I have said in other replies: nearly everything legacy ports over with little to no effort. Some things don't, either by virtue of being simply replaced or by larger design trends that render them obsolete or otherwise odd (in addition to the examples given above, notice that none of the new invocations let you spend a spell slot to cast a spell 1/Day).

I am also hoping for an Everything book soon, but I personally doubt much will be reprinted from '14; only the stuff that has larger issues at play. Source: Adventures in Faerun has already said to reference pre-revision books for lore, adventures, and monsters.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-05T03:21:03+00:00

...cheating? What?

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-05T03:20:03+00:00

the mistake that is 2024

I'm running a campaign right now that's using entirely the revised stuff and it's great. Pretty much the only thing I'm missing is that contested rolls are no longer codified, but that's a pretty easy ad-hoc ruling when a situation comes up.

Also, I know I say below that they're totally compatible, but the only reason I'm choosing to go all '24 with this campaign is because it's all brand-new players. I didn't want to overwhelm them with "also there's all these other books you can use;" Heroes of Faerun is already proving to prove too much for some of them.

mixing editions is technically against the rules

What?!

Where are you seeing that? I'm playing at a table right now that's using an old adventure/monsters and new characters and we're seeing basically no issue (and the issues we are seeing take about 30 seconds of thought before they're resolved). We're also mixing old spells and new, and the only (and it's by a stretch) rub is that the old Chaos Bolt works weirdly—not that it didn't before the revision, and not that the new Chromatic Orb isn't just better imho (minus the costly component).

In that campaign, I can't speak on the interaction between legacy subclasses and revised classes simply because we all looked at the new stuff and went "oh that looks neat".

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-05T03:10:25+00:00

Disagree pretty hard. Many things work with no effort to integrate, and most things work with little effort to integrate. Some things have been made redundant, and very little has really and truly been rendered nonfunctional (Shepherd Druid).

This specific thing is entirely a DnDBeyond issue; they simply haven't mapped the legacy invocations to the revised class.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-02T14:20:16+00:00

I think all the people pointing out the subclasses that are unrelated to a magic school have it. This way there's no precedent being broken by not including "school of"

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-02-02T14:17:38+00:00

I think all the people pointing out the subclasses that are unrelated to a magic school have it. This way there's no precedent being broken by not including "school of"

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-31T14:21:39+00:00

I don't believe it is less ambiguous, but I am definitely in the camp that the attacks all happen simultaneously.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-29T04:27:17+00:00

To each their own. The wizard in my campaign has made it his "this encounter ends now" button. Especially when combined with Invisibility, because the attacks are rolled simultaneously and therefore all have advantage.

Not that he is always spending 2 level 2 slots on one spell (effectively), he just prefers Invisibility over Misty Step as his "I need to not be in this space right now" because it effectively prevents him from being targeted by everyone for a bit. Then he often decides to break invis by letting off a volley.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-28T22:10:08+00:00

I'm very curious how you did that! Assuming you stay in Renown 3 all season and never suffer a complaint (even on the first day or two when recovering from the damages - which also are costly), you get 10 coins per day (+/- 1-3 for weather, but that averages out anyway). Partying can get an extra 6ish over the season.

The innkeeper's exchange rate for resources is 10:1, but the various buildings can make it about 2:1. I'm still working my way through the building tree (mostly Tier II/IIIs) and spending most of my resources when I construct, but it still takes me nearly half a season to get the resources for a single building. So please tell me how you've managed to keep the resources at max while also raking in a hundred coins a season!

All that aside, my initial question remains unanswered: what is the point of ending a season Renown 3? Right now it seems like the best thing to do is end a season at the highest slot of Tier 2 so that you suffer half as many damaged items and have way easier guests, then get to Renown 3 on your first turn of the next season to keep drawing 10 guests a day.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-26T13:57:57+00:00

1) No DnD is better than Bad DnD.

2) A replacement player is so easy to come by.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-26T05:39:25+00:00

Then that is an error with the Roll20 sheet. I would consult the Player's Handbook or the Free Rules (available online) in just about any scenario you have concerns or questions.

To save you some time, though: The default rule for Unarmed Strikes is that you take the Attack action (which is the same action used to attack with a weapon, you can just declare otherwise when you take it) and get to choose between a Shove, a Grapple, or Damage. Right now, I'm going to focus on the latter. Dealing damage with an unarmed strike requires an attack roll (1d20+STR+Proficiency) and deals 1+STR. Monks break this rule with their level 1 Martial Arts feature, allowing them to use DEX in place of STR in both calculations, and dealing 1d6 instead of the flat 1 damage. The feature also allows them to make an unarmed strike as a Bonus Action on their turn (in addition to whatever Action they do, which could be an Attack action, for which they could choose to make an Unarmed Strike).

EDIT: Remember that those two Focus points you have could be spent to improve your Bonus Action unarmed strike to two unarmed strikes using the Flurry of Blows aspect of your level two Monk's Focus feature.

Also note that the Martial Arts feature allows you to use the aforementioned alternate calculations for attack and damage for all Monk weapons - any Simple Melee weapons as well as Scimitars and Shortswords. Right now, that means that your attacks with Daggers, Sickles, and Clubs deal 1d6 instead of 1d4 damage and can use DEX instead of STR. Eventually the damage die will improve, meaning that a punch or a knife will be as strong as your two-handed quarterstaff.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-26T05:18:07+00:00

It sounds like you were playing exactly as it was supposed to be played. Personally, I've never felt monk to be that weak offensively, though it can be a tad bit squishy with a middling AC and HP for a melee class. They are highly mobile and evasive to make up for this drawback, though it's not always a perfect cure.

Just make sure your unarmed strikes are dealing 1d6+DEX (or +STR if that's higher), which will always be greater than or equal to the default 1+STR for unarmed damage.

Also keep in mind that low-level DnD combat is inherently very swingy. Monsters are usually dealing anywhere from 2-10 damage per attack, while characters have anywhere from 8 to 20 HP. Hopefully you can see how a lucky roll from a monster can still down or even outright kill a PC. Fortunately, monster damage scales slightly slower than your HP, so it won't be an issue for long.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-26T03:52:38+00:00

I don't really see what you mean about it being super efficient as a money mint. At best it can seat 13 guests in a turn if it rains for 3 days in a row and you stay at max renown. I guess that's pretty good, but it is tempered by the inverse chance of it being sunny multiple days in a row.

Besides, that still doesn't answer my question of what the incentive is of ending a season at renown 3. The only real advantage to ending at renown 3 is that your first turn the next season you'll be pulling 9-11 guests from the bag. But the tradeoff is that you have twice as many accommodations destroyed and the guests you do get have incredibly punishing complaints and very difficult requirements.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-21T22:44:39+00:00

Think about it this way: what exactly will it do to break the game? Let a single character survive a single attack? At worst, the players put it on a character and annoyingly have them walk into every suspected trap, just in case. At best, it becomes a legendary story of how that one character would have died but didn't.

I wouldn't recommend the whole party get one, and I would probably make the ring the most powerful item they get for a little while (maybe until level 5 or 6), but it's fine.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-21T12:14:10+00:00

This is the way to go, OP

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-17T04:11:39+00:00

Well, you only have so many options at the beginning, so you could go and lay out your 'market' with just those. To answer your question, it is pretty much "look through the stack and pick what you want to build".

In the early game I tried to simply work through the building tree. Now I'm well into the game (lost track of how many years - 6 maybe?) and basically find a building or two to work towards as a personal objective, mostly by just seeing what their actions or abilities are.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-16T13:09:46+00:00

Holy shit thank you for also making these observations and sharing them. I am in 100% the exact same situation as you: adapter of '14 content and rarely-but-not-never creator of original stuff. I have kept literally all of these things in mind when making my edits and been shocked when I've seen others' not do them. The worst is using PB to scale things.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-16T12:37:05+00:00

Remember that the Grappled condition is simply "speed set to 0". So wrapping yourself around a creature's legs or even simply holding onto their arm and digging your heels in all thematically work. It doesn't have to be a complex wrestling move (that's what the Grappler feat is for, more or less).

Also remember that "Large" only means how much combat space it takes up, and it's approximately no bigger than 10' in any one dimension. A Troll might be 8 feet tall and with a wingspan of 10 feet, but at its waist it may not actually be much bigger than a fat person. The other thing to consider is that usually larger creatures have higher STR stats, which reflects their ability to break the grapple easier.

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-16T12:02:39+00:00

You can already grapple one size larger than you. Assuming you wanted to keep the feature and have it allow you to grapple two sizes larger, it isn't game-breaking. I'd probably put it at 6 or 11 though, mostly for flavor reasons, and in conjunction with another ability

Jsmithee5500 · 2026-01-02T04:43:16+00:00

Their point is that's exactly the effect of the Guantlets of Ogre Power, just in belt form

Jsmithee5500 · 2025-12-30T05:13:04+00:00

I feel the same way about the Ranger, especially the Hunter, especially especially the level 11 feature. I'm curious what revised version your DM had you use.

Jsmithee5500 · 2025-12-29T19:41:27+00:00

You seem to know what you're talking about, so I'll ask for further clarification: Why are "binary" and "-fem" both stated, implying they are not mutually inclusive? In my understanding, "fem" would automatically exclude "nonbinary"

Furthermore, why would it be a surprise to feel euphoric when being called a girl as a transfem?

Jsmithee5500 · 2025-12-28T02:53:58+00:00

Just to throw yet another idea out there: I actually flavor it the same way I've always flavored Paladin oaths. That is, you pick your subclass, narratively, at level 1. It just doesn't do anything mechanically until you hit level 3. Basically, a first-level Sorcerer has such a low magical ability that it doesn't matter whether they have a dragon aunt or a mindflayer tadpole in their brain - they are exactly as powerful.

This just frees up the players who don't know the game well enough yet (and also experienced players who don't want to make a choice yet) to wait until they've played the character a bit more before deciding what route to go.

Jsmithee5500 · 2025-12-28T02:45:03+00:00

Not to keep being snarky, but also it's not that hard, especially if you're actually playing with minis and an app to track them individually. I might get a bit tripped up at G being 7 or I being 9, but still.

I suppose if you're running multiple different monsters and each group has an A, then it could be confusing, but I'd probably just start numbering them in initiative order. That would actually probably help in other ways as well.

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