Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes. Welcome to the dndtopics.com and today we’re going to take a look at dnd 5e hunter’s mark which is oddly similar to the Hex spell. This hunter’s mark is usable exclusively on the ranger spell list. There are other ways to get it but it’s always gonna be found on the Ranger’s spell list and it is found in the player’s handbook.
This is essentially almost identical to hex in a couple ways, only styled more towards the ranger. There is a little bit of controversy over it as well i don’t get into that later, that being said let’s take a look at it’s mechanics. But if you haven’t checked our other useful spells yet then please go and have a look at them too from here.
Mechanics
- Level: 1st
- Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action
- Range/Area: 90 ft
- Components: V
- Duration: 1 Hour (Concentration)
- School: Divination
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Bludgeoning (…)
The cast time is a very nice a bonus action. The rage is also a decent 90ft, the duration is one hour and it is a concentration spell meaning can only have one of these up simultaneously and the effect at a glance as follows;
Effect: Mark a target. You deal an extra 1d6 damage to them, and of course you’ve advantage on perception and survival checks to find them. Of course upon the target staff you can change the target of your chart or you can change the target of your choice as a bonus action.
The components are just a verbal and that way it is superior to hex then the school is divination which is an interesting thing. In any case let’s move on to the full description here.
Description
In this Hunter’s Mark 5E you do chose a creature which you can see within a range and even mystically mark that it as your quarry. Until the end of this dnd spell, you would deal an extra 1d6 damage to the specific target whenever you are hit it with a weapon attack, of course you have an advantage on any of the wisdom (perception) or else the wisdom (survival) actually check you do make to find it. But, whenever the target would be drop to 0 hit points before the end of this spell and you can use a bonus action on the subsequent turn of yours for marking any of the new creature.
Did you read our latest blog post on phantasmal force 5e spell ? if not you can check it now.
At Higher Levels:
By using the spell slot of 3rd level or 4th level you can cast this dnd 5e hunter’s mark spell, and you can maintain your concentration on the spell for up to 8 hours duration. Whenever you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, then you can maintain your concentration on a spell for the duration of up to 24 hours.
Now I’m gonna kind of note the controversy here. The controversy is whether or not the target knows they’ve been marked. I would say not! for a couple reasons. Firstly you bark it as your quarry implying that, this is some kind of a magical spell that affects both you and the target not exclusively the target.
Second is, the wizards is really good in 5e for letting you know when a creature knows it’s been affected the friends cantrip is a great example of that, it literally says it misspelled. In this case it doesn’t say.
So personally I’m gonna rule on the side of they don’t know. Your DM might disagree and i’d go with whatever their ruling is but as written, i think i can make a stronger case for them not knowing. It is pretty cool stuff though.
Attributes Of Hunters Mark 5e
| Casting Time | 1 bonus action |
| Classes | Ranger |
| Components | V |
| Concentration | Yes |
| Damage | 1d6 |
| Duration | Up to 1 hour |
| Higher Spell Slot Desc | 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. |
| Level | 1 |
| Name | Hunter's Mark |
| Range | 90 feet |
| School | Divination |
| Target | A creature that you can see within range |
Alternative Uses
They are about the same as they were for Hex and it’s because the spells function almost identically the same. Things like gladiatorial combat would greatly benefit this. So any form of competition just because you don’t have to maintain that 90 feet and it can last for 24 hours.
I suppose as well a DM could also use this to have a NPC follow and track down a particular enemy for various story implore later. So there is that too. I really do like this, i think there’s a lot of flavor here. Is it overpowered and broken not overly no i don’t think so at least but does it have a lot of good flavor to it and is it useful still? Yes without a shadow of a doubt.