Hunter's Mark weirdness

I'm not sure this is the right place but something seems weird with the way Hunter's Mark works with the 5E OGL sheet. When you drop the spell from the compendium into the sheet, it puts an entry into the "attacks and spellcasting" box.  That's fine, but:    - When you click on "Hunter's Mark", it rolls 1d6.  This is technically wrong.  Hunter's Mark only applies IF you hit.  It's not an attack on its own.    - The number of slots available decrements by one.  This is correct the first time you cast it.  But, the spell continues for an hour and can apply every time you hit.  If you click on the spell in the "attacks and spellcasting" box to roll the die on every hit, you end up decreasing the number of slots available by one every time which is incorrect.     - If the answer is not to click the spell when you get a hit, and to roll the die manually, then what's the point of putting the spell in the "attacks and spellcasting" box in the first place? This seems like a bug to me, or at least a poor implementation, or maybe misinterpretation, of the spell. Can anyone explain and make sense of this for me? Thanks.

There are many different ways to handle this.  You can just roll a d6.  You could cast from the spell sheet.  You could go in to the sheet settings and enable global attack modifiers and then click the hunters mark on the sheet before attacking.  I think no matter what it will be a two part answer.  If you want the spell to tick off when it's cast the first time then use the attack which was created or cast from the spell page, both of which will do the same thing.  If you want a nicely formatted attack that only gets used on use (not every attack) and doesn't burn a spell slot, create an exact copy of the spell and mark it as innate and use it for all of the follow up attacks beyond the first.  Abilities and or macros could be created that would make all of this easier of course.  Oh, I forgot hunters mark goes off on every hit.  So, the global method would be good as long as you were only targeting the marked target.  The Colossus Slayer will be another matter.

Patrick, I understand all of that.  What I was asking was: Why does Roll20 put Hunter's Mark into the "Attacks and Spellcasting" section?  It doesn't make any sense to do so.  Also, Why does it roll a d6 when you click on it?  Hunter's Mark only applies AFTER there is a hit, just like regular damage.  When you click on a weapon in the "Attacks and Spellecasting" box you don't roll the damage only.  Hunter's Mark is not an attack.  It's added damage to an attack IF the attack hits.  So putting it into that box doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe there's a reason for it that I'm not understanding.  I'm hoping someone can explain that reasoning.  Or, maybe someone will see this is a "bug" and fix it.  Hunter's Mark shouldn't be in the "Attacks and Spellcasting" box as far as I can tell.  But, like I said, maybe I'm missing something here.

Any spell that has a roll for damage ends up on an attack card by default I believe.  So since it has that d6, it gets an attack.  If you don't like that, go into the spell settings for that spell and change it to a spell card rather than an attack.  Also, think of it this way.  If you were to create abilities for frequently used things on the attributes and abilities tab, they'd be up at the top of the page when the player clicked on his token.  He'd have one for his bow and one for hunter's mark (along with others) he'd click the bow and if it hit he'd also click the hunters mark... 2 clicks resolved 2 minutes of table top rolls in 2 seconds.  When you get it going, you can really accomplish a lot of playing in roll 20 in a much shorter time than you do at the table.

Except that what you're saying doesn't work, according to the rules.  Here's why:  Hunter's Mark is a concentration spell.  As long as it's up and running, you add 1d6 to every damage roll when you hit and use only one spell slot  - at the time you first cast it.  Your method, and the method used by Roll20, is that Hunter's Mark gets cast EVERY TIME you take a shot  That means you eat up your slots.  And, if you do it Roll20s way, you roll the damage die even when there's no hit.  That's not how Hunter's Mark works in 5E.

As I stated in my first post.  I place an exact copy of that spell in the spell sheet and mark it as innate (takes no slots to cast). I also put (ongoing) in the title of the spell. It's a little extra info on the sheet, one extra token action and all the problems are solved.  Also, what does it matter if there is a damage roll on a miss?  It doesn't auto apply to anything.  You just ignore the damage if it's a miss.

There's no way of marking a spell as innate as far as I can tell on the 5E OGL sheet.  And the fact that it rolls damage on a miss DOES matter when you're dealing with players who are unfamiliar with roll20 and get easily confused.  The same holds true for having multiple copies of the same spell listed. And I'd **STILL** like an answer from someone as to why it's done the way it's currently done.  It still doesn't make sense, to me.

There are some similarities between how you might use Hunter's Mark and also Spiritual Weapon in the 5E sheet. If you add ANY text in the "Innate" field, the sheet will not use a spell slot when it's rolled. So for spells that have duration rolls that don't use spell slots, you can set up two spell listings, one  listing with "already cast" or something in the Innate field so you can just roll the attack/damage. You could change Hunter's Mark to a spellcard if you don't want it to roll dice when you cast it.

Here is another way to handle it. Change the spell to spell card output so that it is still there to be cast and use up a slot. Set up a Global Damage Modifier for Hunters Mark. Change Character Settings so that damage is not rolled automatically. Have the player make their attack. Then if the roll is a hit, have the player click on the word Longbow (or whatever weapon they're using) in the attack in the chat window and it will roll the damage including the global damage as long as it's checked on the sheet. And for the record, here is the line for innate... I type "Ongoing" in there when I make a copy of the spell.

Patrick, Wouldn't setting up a global damage modifier mean that the extra 1d6 is rolled EVERY time, including when Hunter's Mark is NOT in use like when he runs out of slots to cast it?  And, btw, I already have the sheet set to not auto roll damage but it does anyway for Hunter's Mark when it's set to "ATTACK". I think I'm going to solve this another way (or try to, anyway):  - I removed the spell from "Attacks and Spellcasting".  - I set the spell on the spell sheet to "Spellcard" as you indicated.  - I set up token actions (using the "Token Actions" script) that gives the player a "spell" button. (Removing it from "Attacks and Spellcasting" means that no action button is set up specifically for the spell) This way, he can cast the spell by clicking "spell" and choosing Hunter's Mark from the list.  It will still decrement the number of slots remaining.   There are some pluses and minuses to doing it this way:    - It now asks him what level to cast the spell at.  This is a wash because, while that might be useful for other spells, for this spell it only changes the length of time that he can concentrate on the spell.  But, knowing that I can force this question to pop up by setting it to "SPELLCARD" is useful knowledge.    - [Plus] It now says in the chat that he's concentrating on the spell which is a nice reminder.  I don't know why this doesn't happen when the spell is set to "ATTACK".  It would be nice if it did.    - [Minus] It prints out the spell description every time.  This could easily get annoying.    - [Minus] He will have to roll the 1d6 manually on every hit. I think this might be a compromise that we all can live with.  And maybe developer's should take note for future changes/upgrades/redesign...

There is a check box on the global attack.  You check it when the spells up.  Uncheck it when the spell is down.

Patrick,  I don't think you're getting what I've been trying to put down.  I need to make this as SIMPLE as possible.  Telling the player they have to open the sheet, and check or uncheck a box under various circumstances is not SIMPLE.  This is someone for whom telling him to open the sheet and click "Advantage" or "Disadvantage" as needed was too much which is why I've now set it to always roll.  If that doesn't work, I'll set it to "query".  I need to make things really SIMPLE.