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Yea I legitimately don't understand why they took spellcasting provoking attacks of opportunity out, or the thing where you could ready an arrow to shoot the wizard in the dick and stop him from casting. That said, the 5e wizard is all about action denial and a counterspell burned is a hypnotic pattern lost for later. I'm not sure what makes counterspell more heinous than spamming hypnotic pattern and being a war mage.
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Oct 10, 2020 04:09
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Twist the dick.
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Oct 10, 2020 06:46
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Yea I legitimately don't understand why they took spellcasting provoking attacks of opportunity out, or the thing where you could ready an arrow to shoot the wizard in the dick and stop him from casting.
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Oct 10, 2020 10:28
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I think, if we go for the scenario where people don't know what spell is being countered, playing up the tension can be good especially if they're fighting a recurring villain or an enemy type that will re appear. What would that have been? What are they capable of? I don't know and I'm glad we don't, but maybe we should know? Hmm
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Oct 10, 2020 13:32
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Frankly I'd love for them to errata counterspell to make it less consistent against high level spells or something. I've had the luck not to have it take over many of my games but it did once. I've had two approaches in the one game where people got too trigger-happy with counterspell. First, my villains just started having underlings who cast defensive spells on the villain and stuff like that. Their main purpose was to fight counterspell with counterspell. A while later everybody agreed they were tired of playing blue control decks in D&D, so I made a house rule that NPCs don't get counterspell, but in exchange, if they have a spell that absolutely must go off for an encounter to work properly, that spell is considered legendary and cannot be counterspelled. You get warning that a legendary spell is going off because we agreed on what one looked like in-universe, as lore-wise in this game they were all cast similarly from the spellbook of an ancient, prodigal wizard tyrant. It was a quick fix that leaned on the fourth wall a little, but it worked. In retrospect it's functionally identical to making it not a spell, but an "ability". Third way out: big spellcaster villains multicast, it can be a legendary action if you want. You can counterspell the first one... but then two more spells happen. I never used this one but it's sensible I think. PastaBakeWizard fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Oct 10, 2020 15:21
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PastaBakeWizard posted:Frankly I'd love for them to errata counterspell to make it less consistent against high level spells or something. I've had the luck not to have it take over many of my games but it did once. If counterspell transformed the effect into a different effect, one that is still detrimental to the casters enemies, just less so, that would be much more interesting. A disruption rather than a cancellation. Yes the bad guy failed to teleport away, because instead he accidentally took you all with him. The beat down continues but now you're all in his sanctum sanctorum half a world away. You pull on the weave of the fireball heading for half your friends, now it's "just" an undodgeable firebolt aimed straight at your face. You disrupted his self heal and now instead of fighting an intelligent, canny opponent you're facing down a rampaging monstrosity of warped magic. You intercept the attempted mind control of your friend, now you and the big bad are staring intently into each other's eyes while mysterious wounds appear on your bodies. Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Oct 10, 2020 15:53
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I've been on the receiving of Counterspell on several occasions and it often had the effect of "gently caress you; you skip your turn," which is pretty frustrating to a new player. Maybe you could give Counterspell the ability to reduce the effect of an incoming spell instead of outright negating it so it just alters combat instead of bringing it to a stop. e. ^^ You said it better than I did.
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Oct 10, 2020 17:58
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Yeah, my experience has been that players don't really like losing their turn especially if it's to the DM's lucky dice roll. More so than when they miss with their own attacks or fail their own saving throws, even if in practice there's little difference, letting a player roll a dice gives them the illusion of control. So I can totally see why counterspell can be really frustrating and why I'd think carefully about giving it to NPCs/monsters over other spells that limit the player. The Rakshasa's spell immunity is much more fun, as it allows for various fiddly shenanigans on both the PC and DM side rather than just being about nothing happening until you've used your superior PC action-economy to burn through the enemy's spell slots.
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Oct 10, 2020 20:19
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Okay Wizard A rides the magic carpet. Wizards B and C ride a floating disk that Wizard A cast. A beam is stretched between the disks that B and C cast, to keep them apart horizontally so they take up a wider lane space. D and E each ride one of B and C' s disks and trail their own disks. What you have is a rectangle of floating disks 20ft apart that is as wide as the wooden beam between B and C's disks. With a frame of beams connecting each of the corner disks It'd lift a short ton on its own, but after the weight of all that wood it's not exactly going to be a commuter service just yet. Next we get wizards on the beams in order to stagger the next set of floating disks so that the next rectangle has 4 disks to a 20ft beam. That's a ton per beam, and about time you can start building a little passenger carriage for the wizard train. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Oct 10, 2020 20:46
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Azza Bamboo posted:I think, if we go for the scenario where people don't know what spell is being countered, playing up the tension can be good especially if they're fighting a recurring villain or an enemy type that will re appear. Then you just get "Gotcha" situations where the DM goes "Haha, it was just Firebolt, you wasted your 4th level slot" and that's not really particularly fun either. I actually encountered this once when I introduced a boss with Counterspell to the party. The Wizard was pissed, and he started trying to do it your way, saying "I'm casting a spell but I'm not going to tell you which one until you say you're going to counterspell or not" which is terrible for the game, it slows things way down and it leads to both sides just completely wasting spell slots as they play the dumbest mind games possible. I can recognize why they were frustrated though, but they had been dominating encounters at a consistent rate and I wanted a single encounter where the martials one up on the casters. Also, I don't really see why people have a problem with Counterspell negating a persons turn, but not Shield doing the same thing. If a martial character attacks me and his attack is negated because I used Shield, I'm burning a reaction and a spell slot to prevent their attack action from having any effect. Isn't that the same as burning a reaction and a spell slot (albeit higher level so at a higher resource cost) to prevent a spell action from having any effect? What makes it so different? It's just playing defensively which is a legit playstyle that some people enjoy, avoiding the bad thing can be as satisfying as having a good thing happen. Isaacs Alter Ego fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Oct 10, 2020 21:04
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I think everybody here has their own level and the conversation is going in circles. - not declaring the spell or level Arguments for: the tension of guessing which spell level Arguments against: dickholes changing their mind to save their slots. - declaring the spell level and not the spell Arguments for: Keeps some of the mystery, removes the dickhole situation. Arguments against: now there's no tension in the selection of which slot to use when counterspelling. - declaring the spell and level. Arguments for: my sword is always declared so it's not fair otherwise. Arguments against: blue OP please nerf.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:16
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:I actually encountered this once when I introduced a boss with Counterspell to the party. The Wizard was pissed, and he started trying to do it your way, saying "I'm casting a spell but I'm not going to tell you which one until you say you're going to counterspell or not" Imagine being an adult and responding like this to a challenge during your monthly shared storytelling RPG session. I genuinely believe that D&D casters have been coddled and favored so much throughout every recent edition that a subset of crying baby caster-class players has been created. I've never experienced a Paladin, Fighter, or Rogue pulling poo poo like this, it's always some spellcasting nerd
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Oct 10, 2020 21:18
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I'd say difference between counterspell and shield and why people feel differently about them is how the spells affect the pace of play and the circumstances of the encounter. The effect from shield is quick to resolve, since it just changes the caster's AC, and the effect of a hit or miss is clearly defined and easy to resolve. However, if the party fighter delayed their turn so the wizard could haste them, and that haste gets counter spelled, the entire party now has to change their strategy, causing the fight to grind to a halt. Same thing for a player casting counterspell on an NPC. The DM planned for a big spell every turn of the encounter to escalate the stakes of the fight, and now one player negated that element of tension, and changed the momentum of the fight. However, if you cast shield, then the triggering attack roll is still an attack roll. It's just 25% less likely to not deal damage. Edit: these effects and differences aren't necessarily bad. I just think this is why some people dislike counterspell but don't feel the same way about shield or other defensive reactions. Tenik fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 10, 2020 |
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Oct 10, 2020 21:23
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I can think of a poo poo ton of reasons. Weapon attacks are not a finite resource, and spell slots are. A shield spell can be over-ridden if you succeed hard enough, and a character with multiple attacks has more chances to do that, or could just redirect them to someone else in range. Losing an attack to a shield spell still requires you to make an attack roll, and counterspell is a flat No. Also, if you want the counterspell level-guessing poo poo to not slow things down so much, take a 1-9 plus whatever you want for cantrips out of a deck of cards for each player. the person casting a spell sets a card face-down corresponding to the level of the spell, the person counterspelling set a card face down corresponding to the level of the counterspell, both flip at the same time.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:26
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Maybe the players should adapt to the idea that 'strategy' can't just be pinned around a single spell at the right time anymore post party level 5, and that it makes incredibly good sense for actual threats to be aware of the existence of spellcasters. Casters have counterplay as well, they can stay out of range or stay unseen, or wait until the reaction has been spent. I try my best to make counterspelling interesting by making it cause some kind of backfire, but I'll readily admit I have zero patience for casters who mope that they couldn't just mindlessly cast some big spell and have it go unchallenged.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:28
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This is literally breaking down into MTG "no I should be able to get my cool game winning combo off, I would have won if you didn't counter that!" Like, adapt on the fly, guys.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:32
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please knock Mom! posted:Maybe the players should adapt to the idea that 'strategy' can't just be pinned around a single spell at the right time anymore post party level 5, and that it makes incredibly good sense for actual threats to be aware of the existence of spellcasters. Casters have counterplay as well, they can stay out of range or stay unseen, or wait until the reaction has been spent. I try my best to make counterspelling interesting by making it cause some kind of backfire, but I'll readily admit I have zero patience for casters who mope that they couldn't just mindlessly cast some big spell and have it go unchallenged.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:36
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Splicer posted:I'm not going to say that nobody has ever argued what you're strawmaning here, but I don't any of them are in this thread. "However, if the party fighter delayed their turn so the wizard could haste them, and that haste gets counter spelled, the entire party now has to change their strategy,"
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Oct 10, 2020 21:40
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Also why would a fighter hold a action to get hasted smh You only get one attack off a held action
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Oct 10, 2020 21:45
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Tenik posted:I'd say difference between counterspell and shield and why people feel differently about them is how the spells affect the pace of play and the circumstances of the encounter. The effect from shield is quick to resolve, since it just changes the caster's AC, and the effect of a hit or miss is clearly defined and easy to resolve. However, if the party fighter delayed their turn so the wizard could haste them, and that haste gets counter spelled, the entire party now has to change their strategy, causing the fight to grind to a halt. Same thing for a player casting counterspell on an NPC. The DM planned for a big spell every turn of the encounter to escalate the stakes of the fight, and now one player negated that element of tension, and changed the momentum of the fight. Well, Counterspell isn't a 100% success rate for stuff above level 3, right? The enemy can burn more resources (depending on level) to make the spell harder to counter, just in a more limited way than martial attacks because spells are typically much more powerful. Or the Wizard can burn more resources to make it a definite success but, I don't know, that seems fair to me. And I find no issue in plans being derailed because someone decided to burn a high-level spell slot. The haste plan still goes to poo poo, in an even worse way, if instead of counterspelling, the big bad uses magic missile to force the wizard to make a whole bunch of concentration saves and almost definitely fail one of them. Then not only did your Haste plan not work, but now the fighter's next turn is just gone. The DM planning for a big spell changing the outcome of a fight isn't a very good reason, either; counterspell is one way to give player some agency here because now the big bad doesn't just get to say "I cast gently caress You and you all probably die", counterspell means there's a way to spend resources to change the flow of the game, which is...good? That's how it's supposed to be. And if a DM is really, really determined to have an effect go off and the players aren't allowed to muck with it, they can just have the enemy stand 61 feet away, know counterspell themselves, or have it be a spell-like ability rather than a spell.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:48
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please knock Mom! posted:"However, if the party fighter delayed their turn so the wizard could haste them, and that haste gets counter spelled, the entire party now has to change their strategy,"  I'll eat crow on that one
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Oct 10, 2020 21:49
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Sorry, that was a bad example, and the point was tangential to the overall conversation on Counterspell. I wrote that in response to why people feel differently on Shield and Counterspell. Even though they are both spells cast using a reaction, and they can be used defensively, the two spells can have very different impacts on the overall encounter.
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Oct 10, 2020 23:53
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(speaking quietly in the thread to not get murdered in the crossfire) i think counterspell is fun
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Oct 11, 2020 00:04
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pog boyfriend posted:(speaking quietly in the thread to not get murdered in the crossfire) i think counterspell is fun Splicer fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 00:57
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They should've attached a rider to it of some kind, like counterspelling an evocation spell causes an explosion, enchantment stuns in an area, etc. I might just do that myself and make it a monster ability or a version of counterspell the players have to find in a book or something
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Oct 11, 2020 01:52
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If we're spitballing ideas for how to change it I have some dumber ones: Make it give the option to take X debilitating amount of damage plus Y for every level the spell is above 3rd to not have the spell countered. Then instead of being a cancel it's a gambit. The spell that was countered hangs in the air as a crystal in the center point between the two casters. It'll set off on the start of the guy's next turn unless someone wants to grind it into a powder, snort it, and thereby become the target when it goes off. At the end of the extradimensional dungeon the counterspell bank flushes and every countered spell takes effect.
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Oct 11, 2020 03:39
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:I actually encountered this once when I introduced a boss with Counterspell to the party. The Wizard was pissed, and he started trying to do it your way, saying "I'm casting a spell but I'm not going to tell you which one until you say you're going to counterspell or not" which is terrible for the game, it slows things way down and it leads to both sides just completely wasting spell slots as they play the dumbest mind games possible. I can recognize why they were frustrated though, but they had been dominating encounters at a consistent rate and I wanted a single encounter where the martials one up on the casters. Yeah, that wizard was me. My bad. I had been running with disadvantage from exhaustion for multiple sessions which resulted in me hilariously-in-retrospect failing to sneak past bats multiple times among other things, so I was a little tilted. e: also, most of the time I tried to avoid blowing up encounters myself, I usually went for things like Grease and Web instead so the martial melees could smack around prone foes and anyone could kill the crap out of restrained enemies. Also that game ended up getting blown up because two of the players outed themselves as open fascist-sympathizer dickbags, which is unfortunate. As an aside, the party I'm DMing for is planning on fighting a young green dragon next session. I'm a little nervous about pasting them within a couple turns; they don't have a full caster healer, but they do have ways-ish to mitigate damage? ZZT the Fifth fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 03:49
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ZZT the Fifth posted:As an aside, the party I'm DMing for is planning on fighting a young green dragon next session. I'm a little nervous about pasting them within a couple turns; they don't have a full caster healer, but they do have ways-ish to mitigate damage? Sounds like a perfect reason for them to run into a bard/spirit/priestess who can reward them all with a free cast of Heroism.
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Oct 11, 2020 04:15
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I've been building up my book collection now that I have a regular group. I think I have all the must haves, and am thinking of branching into some of the campaign books. That said, I've also been also thinking of buying some older edition books for the world building. I used to have a big 3/3.5 collection back in the day, but unfortunately sold them all years ago. I remember some books had a lot of good material, like the 3rd Ed Forgotten Realms book. Are there any other books from previous editions like that which are particularly great for lore and flavor which I should consider?
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Oct 11, 2020 04:16
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Kaal posted:Sounds like a perfect reason for them to run into a bard/spirit/priestess who can reward them all with a free cast of Heroism. The only NPC in the area is a druid who is accompanying them to the fight. (Jade, if you're reading this thread, please don't read this spoiler) Also they're level 3 and the dragon is CR 8 
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Oct 11, 2020 04:30
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ZZT the Fifth posted:The only NPC in the area is a druid who is accompanying them to the fight. This sounds like Lost Mines of Phandelver? If so, if it helps at all, my group unexpectedly annihilated that dragon; it didn't even get a chance to flee.
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Oct 11, 2020 04:35
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disaster pastor posted:This sounds like Lost Mines of Phandelver? If so, if it helps at all, my group unexpectedly annihilated that dragon; it didn't even get a chance to flee. Did you have a full group of 5? My group is 4 players, and they're not running hyper-optimized characters.
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Oct 11, 2020 04:45
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ZZT the Fifth posted:Did you have a full group of 5? My group is 4 players, and they're not running hyper-optimized characters. Five, yes, but also not hyper-optimized characters. I'm not saying the dragon can't waste them, it can. But if they're spread out enough that they don't all eat the poison breath, or they find an advantage after that, the action economy is going to work in their favor and they're probably going to snowball.
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Oct 11, 2020 05:14
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ZZT the Fifth posted:Yeah, that wizard was me. My bad. I had been running with disadvantage from exhaustion for multiple sessions which resulted in me hilariously-in-retrospect failing to sneak past bats multiple times among other things, so I was a little tilted. Woops, I absolutely did not mean to call you out there, I didn't realize you read this thread! Sorry about that, just thought that it illustrated that the whole Counterspell mystery thing leads to some weird mind games. I will say despite my vigorous defense of Counterspell, I probably wouldn't deploy it on players these days. Cancelling out an NPC's turn out is whatever, the DM has more turns, but cancelling a player's feels pretty bad for them. Isaacs Alter Ego fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 07:09
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I’ve seen like maybe 5 counterspells and been playing D&D for almost 30 years.
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Oct 11, 2020 08:57
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I want to play with this idea that countered spells go somewhere. There's some corner of the feywild that's soaking up every failed fireball, or a pit in the abyss that's collecting the wasted magic for its nefarious deeds.
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Oct 11, 2020 15:00
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I wonder to what extent experience of counterspell is coloured by the size of people's groups. Like, losing your turn sucks, but if you're in a group with 3 PCs, you get another go in a minute or two. If you're in a party of six, getting counterspelled basically says "might as well go on your phone for the next 10 minutes". That's maybe one of the reasons I don't care so much about being counterpelled by the players as a DM (to the point where I don't require checks or anything to identify a spell, combat with NPC casters is already slow enough), I'm always going to be taking a more time for my turns since I'm controlling multiple creatures, and I'm probably getting more than one turn per round.
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Oct 11, 2020 15:46
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please knock Mom! posted:They should've attached a rider to it of some kind, like counterspelling an evocation spell causes an explosion, enchantment stuns in an area, etc. I might just do that myself and make it a monster ability or a version of counterspell the players have to find in a book or something
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Oct 11, 2020 16:15
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A magic trinket that lets you reflect spells you've countered like... 50%? 25%? of the time would be awesome for DMs trying to get their players to think strategically about shutting down enemy spellcasters. Our level 8 wizard has still never used it despite asking me if they could learn it from an NPC.
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Oct 11, 2020 16:34
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 06:37 |
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Splicer posted:You could make a list of options the caster can choose from. Like, if you counter a single target spell aimed at an ally you can redirect it to another ally OR cause the caster to /also/ suffer the effects OR weaken the effect etc. You could include a flat "nope" option on a 20, so even though it's technically a nothing it feels like a something because people love their 20s. So make it lovely, but at will or as a short rest resource. But really, why nerf one of the few things a player can do to avoid scary magic?
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Oct 11, 2020 17:43
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