Hunter’s Mark: Track and Attack

Usable By: Ranger

Spell Level: 1

School: Divination

Casting Time: 1 bonus action

Range: 90 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

Components: V

You choose a creature you can see within range and mystically mark it as your quarry. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack, and you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find it. If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to mark a new creature.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd or 4th level, you can maintain your concentration on the spell for up to 8 hours. When you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, you can maintain your concentration on the spell for up to 24 hours.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

I have lamented over many ranger spells. This poor little half-caster class has been the butt of many jokes, and is widely looked at as a poor performer among its martial alternatives. If you’re looking to compete with your rogues and fighters, while you don’t HAVE to take Hunter’s Mark, it will certainly help tremendously.

At its baseline, Hunter’s Mark rewards having a high quantity of attacks. At 2nd through 4th level, most ranged rangers will be getting basically a bonus d6 on every attack you hit. Its cast and move cost being just a bonus action means it's incredibly easy to keep it up and on targets. It locks in the fantasy of tearing down big monsters by encouraging you to lock onto one target and hit it a bunch until it dies.

If you want to get more out of it before extra attack, you can build towards two-weapon fighting. The builds here tend to risk a lot more, as your bonus action is going to bounce between Hunter’s Mark and off-hand attacks. It can reward you with huge amounts of damage each round, but at the cost of having the risk of dropping concentration from being hit in more dangerous positions. This kind of play style likely is worse, but I find it to be an absolute blast. Its dangerous, offers some interesting decisions throughout the game, and rewards clever positioning and playing more of the skirmisher archetype. Going in and hitting the big bad for 4d6+3 a round at level two? Sign me up!

The tracking bits of the spell will rarely crop up. Sure, it's nice to have, but as a class whose whole identity is tracking and finding things in your favored terrain it's really just gravy. Most of the time the things you're marking are dying. If something does happen to escape, though, you better believe you’ll have no problem tracking that thing down.

Hunter’s Mark probably should have just been a 1st level class feature, as it can be integral in so many builds. The optional options added in Tasha’s even include a worse, but similar marking feature for 1st level rangers. In conjunction with that, this might be overkill, but you still may consider using it in place of the new feature, as it sets up easier and has a higher damage output. If you’re looking mainly at the PHB it fits incredibly well as a 1st level spell in the class, scales well with a variety of builds and subclasses, and can be greatest to up-cast for its extended duration. This is not just a build defining spell but a class defining one, and is something I’d recommend you put on basically every ranger you ever play should damage be the primary thing you want to do.

5e Spells

Hunter’s Mark: Track and Attack