Previously, I hated the constant “Remove Hunter’s Mark” posts, or rolled my eyes at the sheer number of people all pointing out the obvious issue of your core feature just being a 1st-level spell, but I’ve finally switched over to the extreme that the Hunter’s Mark spell just shouldn’t exist at all.
My only defense for keeping it was that it has the clear thematic identity of “Choose your prey, and hunt them down over time,” which I liked for Rangers, (Especially over “Yeah, you’re either mediocre under hyper-specific circumstances, or literally invalidate the rules of the very encounters you’re supposed to be good at.”) but something about it still left me unsatisfied. I’ve finally realized the solution that should have been obvious: Focus on that identity for a feature, but make it something better than “Could I offer you a d6 in these trying times?”
Favored Foe, or Favored Enemy, or even Hunter’s Mark if you really like the name, should take the concept of select a target and apply a personal debuff for a duration, but make it give something other than strictly damage. Have a bonus to hit, or some utility options, or whatever. Make the Ranger’s true damage come from some of the amazing spells they have, but updated to be more usable, like the new Paladin’s Smite feature.
I think the changes to the Paladin smites do present a neat way to change hunter’s mark for the better, as there are a tremendous number of other attack-rider spells that should be able to be looped in to the typical ranger round, in addition to hunter’s mark.
In my own playtest with the ranger, I was absolutely floored with how much damage it can do, so I hesitate to make damage output even easier. It’s not a bad idea to have rangers be the absolute Kings of ranged damage, but only if we’re okay with them having a strictly ranged damage dealer class identity.
However to your point, I think making each attack-rider spell into some permutation of hunter’s mark is the way to go. Perhaps hunter’s mark should be something that is automatically applied if you use any of the primal shots, but only for rangers (or maybe a particular ranger subclass)?
Oh, my idea is to make their bonus action “You are my prey” feature be the Search action, with a special thing where a successful check lets you add a flat bonus to your attack rolls against the target. Consistency over damage, and then have the smite-like spells be the main damage boost option, but with the downside of using up resources.
That’s a fne thought, I was just wondering if there was a way to explicitly link hunter’s mark to the other various spells that improves how they should interact.
I could even see something like being able to move your hunter’s mark to a target you hit with any of the other strike/arrow/shot spells.