Guntermench's page

Seems like a slippery slope argument. Any reasonable gm would put a stop to players minecrafting their way through the campaign. Doesn't mean striking shouldn't be used for any other purpose.

The Material Statistics section does include:

Certain structures, particularly thick walls, are so reinforced that you have to break them down over time with tools. (Page 515 has more information on walls.)

Player Core
Page 395: Wish
Lists all four magic skills at Legendary for the Primary Caster, unlike every other Ritual that has an 'or'.

Pretty sure this is a typo.

Finoan wrote:

Other people use 'houserule' to mean 'something that changes the rules'. And often means 'if you are using houserules, then your logic doesn't apply here on the rules forum'.

That is a big concern. The Strike action specifically lets you target one creature within reach or range but doesn't give the option to target one unattended object. There are rules saying you can attack unattended objects, but seemingly none that state that you can Strike unattended objects, and an inability to Strike unattended objects would severely limit what options there are to do so.

Stating that the Strike action does let you target one unattended object is literally a house rule that changes the rules. But we have to allow it or else a lot of other rules just break. And changing the rules tends to complicate rules discussions, as the default assumption in a rules discussion is that there are no such house rules.

Ugh, I just wish the developers would add "or unattended object" to the description of Strike. But it's been four printings and one remaster and this annoying discrepancy is still here.

It's not actually a house rule is the thing. Along with the GMG telling GMs to let it happen, there are feats that specifically call out that it has to be possible.

For example Vandal:

In addition, whenever you hit with a Strike against a trap or an unattended object, you ignore the first 5 points of the object's Hardness.

The game assumes GMs aren't going to be pedantic douchebags. Unfortunately...

SuperParkourio wrote:

Actually, Shattering Strike describes your Strikes shattering objects without actually granting your Strikes the ability to target them in the first place.

So? You can target a creature and hit an object [a shield]. As such, there is no super secret not written alowance for strikes targeting unattended objects. Or you attack a wall spell or hazard or trap. Again, nothing presented alters the targeting of Strike or requires such an alteration.

Guntermench wrote:

It means it's up to the GM.

The GMG had a section on "Saying yes, but" that included this line:

Saying yes, but wrote:

Require a directed attack against an object, then allow foes to attempt saving throws against the object’s effect at a DC you choose. Example: cast a produce flame spell at a barrel of explosives.

Well, yes the DM can houserule anything they want just like they can have stone walls catch fire from a fireball but it's not the default rules.

It's not really a house rule when it's in one of the rulebooks.

It means it's up to the GM.

The GMG had a section on "Saying yes, but" that included this line:

Require a directed attack against an object, then allow foes to attempt saving throws against the object’s effect at a DC you choose. Example: cast a produce flame spell at a barrel of explosives.

Guntermench wrote:

Karneios wrote:

I always guessed the strength requirement on form control was there to be a sorta guide to that if you were gonna use the form controlled forms in combat you'd want high strength anyway to have better accuracy from using your own unarmed attack mod

That only works if you're using a spell that caps out below your current maximum, or on like 4 levels otherwise. Building to use your own bonus is largely pointless if you're using the most recent form spell."

The Form Control feat is significantly more useful for martials dipping into druid than it is for druids. It can let them avoid the 2 action shifting cost a fair bit of the time and, depending on level and group the tradeoff of +2 to hit vs a little lower damage and AC may be a good one.

There is also the issue that. RAW. you MUST always cast wild shape at the highest level. Many GMs ignore that but it IS the rule. Form Control lets you cast the spell 2 ranks lower. Which may be exactly what you need when there just isn't room to be large or huge in the dungeon you're currently in.

The size thing only lasts so long though, then -2 level still caps out the spell.

I always guessed the strength requirement on form control was there to be a sorta guide to that if you were gonna use the form controlled forms in combat you'd want high strength anyway to have better accuracy from using your own unarmed attack mod

That only works if you're using a spell that caps out below your current maximum, or on like 4 levels otherwise. Building to use your own bonus is largely pointless if you're using the most recent form spell."

Xenocrat wrote:

Ryuhi wrote:

Player Core Page 437:

Quote:

Drowning and Suffocating

You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to
5 + your Constitution modifier. Reduce your remaining air
by 1 round at the end of each of your turns, or by 2 if you
attacked or cast any spells that turn. You also lose 1 round
worth of air each time you are critically hit or critically fail
a save against a damaging effect. If you speak (including
Casting a Spell) you lose all remaining air

Given that all spells require incantations now, this really should be cleared up. Are you meant to immediately start suffocating and fall unconscious when casting a spell underwater?

I think this is not very realistic (try talking underwater in a swimming pool for fun, you will not immediately risk drowning) AND not really very fun in play.

It would really be nice to get something on this, especially with the change to spellcasting.

It's pretty clear. And RoE gave us Deep Breath as a cantrip, in addition to Air Bubble as a rank 1 spell. Paizo helps those who help themselves.

Then they should get rid of the "Reduce your remaining air

by 1 round at the end of each of your turns, or by 2 if you
attacked or cast any spells that turn.".

Saying that you loose 2 rounds of air AND all remaining air is completely redundant, given that the case of spells not requiring you to speak does not really exist anymore, save PERHAPS depending on GM fiat for a player who creates a mute character and decides on something like "tap with your staff in a specific sequence" to deal with it.

Subtle spells still exist and can be cast, Bards can still cast via an instrument instead and Sorcerers still (as they haven't been changed yet) have Blood Component Substitution.

SatiricalBard wrote:

I am solidly behind Mark Seifter's probably over-optimistic hope on Reddit for this to bring about a "peaceful conclusion to the discourse")

Yes but unlikely. There will be some who still want the deadlier option.

Mark also posted an explanation.
MarkSeifter
1 hr. ago
Roll For Combat - Director of Game Design

Just because it was intended back 4 years ago doesn't mean they all intended it now. I got a quote from Mike Sayre that what happened here was that three people met, all thought they understood what to do, and had different understandings based on institutional knowledge or lack thereof.

"Three people all in the same room who thought they were on the same page, but that institutional knowledge poisoned the well and created a misunderstanding for one of the inputters."

That sort of incident is remarkably common in life.

The most hilarious thing about this, to me, is that this means it happened twice to Wounded.

When they printed the CRB there was a "consensus", but evidently not. When they printed this everyone thought they were ok the same page, but evidently not.

It also means that, as was noted earlier in that chain, basically everyone on both sides was right to some degree.

Absolutely hysterical.

By necessity Shrink needs to shrink everything inside the target creature otherwise you'd be able to make people explode just because you cast the spell shortly after they ate a sandwich or something.

Disappointing.

But I've tried to remember to put a caveat around that saying "I keep reading people claim this, but I want the receipts".

It's been linked to.

Watching this again, I see that he is saying he got deaths in the hundreds in PF1E, but has had 0 in PF2E.

He actually mentioned that he hadn't (at the time) killed anyone when it first came up on his server as part of that whole conversation that I've linked a couple times.

I believe he said the one that came the closest was Luis Loza once.

He does acknowledge that it's dangerous, but points out a couple of the ways the game is set up to otherwise give the player the greatest chance at survival. Initiative moving so the party has at least one round, hero points existing, persistent not triggering until the end of your turn, etc.

It's only really dangerous if you don't keep it in mind and instead try to just brute force everything.

Guntermench wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Corabee Cori wrote:

Considering how valuable Slowed 1 is seen, having an enemy decide not to attack me and have to move around me to go attack someone else, that still feels like a benefit.

The issue is "the monster expends an action on movement" and "slowed" (literally not having an action at all) are very different things. A monster moving means your PC has to move as well - something which is especially painful for a swashbuckler.

Ignoring adamantine bricks like swashbucklers and monks just isn't that hard.

That's not to say that swashbuckler is a terrible class and people should feel bad about playing one. Just that I've experienced and seen issues with it, and it'd be nice to see some of them patched.

I don't think I ever found having to move to be painful. It was quite often the plan anyway.

Precisely. "Walking past the swashbuckler on the way to the nice juicy wizard" isn't exactly rocket science

.

I meant as someone that played a handful of Swashbucklers for a bit over three years at no point did I find moving to be painful.

With the speed boost I could generally follow easily. If they didn't move away I'd generally get a Riposte off. Frequently I'd be the one tumbling through enemies to go get the nice juicy enemy wizard though, that's what I'd meant by moving being the plan.

Corabee Cori wrote:

Considering how valuable Slowed 1 is seen, having an enemy decide not to attack me and have to move around me to go attack someone else, that still feels like a benefit.

The issue is "the monster expends an action on movement" and "slowed" (literally not having an action at all) are very different things. A monster moving means your PC has to move as well - something which is especially painful for a swashbuckler.

Ignoring adamantine bricks like swashbucklers and monks just isn't that hard.

That's not to say that swashbuckler is a terrible class and people should feel bad about playing one. Just that I've experienced and seen issues with it, and it'd be nice to see some of them patched.

I don't think I ever found having to move to be painful. It was quite often the plan anyway.

It'll be situation dependant, which is a good thing to me.

Sometimes you'll need to get them back in the fight, sometimes you'll want to retreat and need them to run under their own power, sometimes it'll just be too dangerous to revive them again, sometimes it'll just be too dangerous right now so you may want to stabilize them to buy time to get them back in the fight a little later.

Guntermench wrote:

Wounded wrote:

You have been seriously injured.

It's an abstraction to represent that you've been seriously injured in the course of almost dying.

Yet I am still bewildered.

When a character has Dying condition, they have been seriously injured. Wounded is what happened after they are healed partially from dying. They are not newly seriously injured; instead, they are still seriously injured despite regaining hit points. That makes sense to me. And Dying 2 and Dying 3 going to Wounded 1 implies that the deep injury was partly healed.

Yet imagine that a character dropped on the battlefield to Dying 1 due to a knife thrown by an enemy. Then another enemy casts Burning Hands on the area, so the injured character drops to Dying 2. At the beginning of their turn, they make a Recovery check, have a regular failure, and go to Dying 3.

On the other hand, add the extra event that a bard friend cast Soothe on the injured character just after they dropped. The injured character is now conscious and Wounded 1. Alas, before they start their turn, that other enemy casts casts Burning Hands on the area, so the injured character drops to Dying 2 because of the Wounded 1. At the beginning of their next turn, they make a Recovery check, have a regular failure, and go to Dying 4. They are dead.

The Soothe spell did not buy the character any more time; instead, it led to a hasty death due to nasty targetting by the enemy.

That gives the unflavorful impression that magically healing a character makes them more injured, because it makes them more Wounded. The magic forces them awake at a potentially deadly cost.

Guntermench wrote:

Narratively, it seems most likely that the goal is adding tension. Will you win or escape the fight, or will you succumb to your wounds?

The added tension appears to be, "I...

You kind of are newly seriously injured. It's an abstraction of accumulating injuries as you get your teeth kicked in. As you almost die, repeatedly, it leaves a mark. It's like in a movie where one of the characters keeps getting what should be mortal wounds, but keeps fighting anyway and then eventually just falls over dead.

What I like about this rule is it encourages/requires additional thought. Is it safe to get my ally up? If they get up will we continue to fight or retreat? Can we continue to fight without them? Does the enemy have AoE that might kill them anyway? Do I need to reposition either the enemy or my ally before reviving them? Instead of just "Eh, I'll throw a heal, they can go down three more times" and not really thinking about it.

A popular, or at least it used to be, 5e healing strategy was to have a Paladin use Lay on Hands to heal 1 HP at a time to allies that go down. They get Paladin Level x 5 HP that they can distribute however they please and this basically was used as Paladin Level x 5 free revives quite often.

Not sure how popular that still is, but when I played 5e it was in basically every group I saw or played in.

What bothers me about the adding the Wounded value to increases in Dying value while already Dying is that I don't know its purpose

Narratively, it seems most likely that the goal is adding tension. Will you win or escape the fight, or will you succumb to your wounds?

Mechanically, it heavily discourages yo-yo.

Medically, it means you got clocked and it's left you more susceptible to dying. It says what it is on the tin:

You have been seriously injured.

It's an abstraction to represent that you've been seriously injured in the course of almost dying.

Aren't there a lot of places where the rules say If you already have Darkvision, increase the range by 30'?

Cause that would be my goto here.

I don't think there's a single place that specifies vision ranges of any kind in the game. Other senses yes, vision no.

The Raven Black wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

One thing I don't like:

The Changeling and Nephilim heritages are still dead choices for ancestries that already have darkvision built in (like Dwarves,Goblins, and Orcs). Since there's the clause to upgrade low-light vision to darkvision, and fully 3/8 of the ancestries in Player Core 1 have Darkvision, you'd think they'd have a clause for "what happens if you take Changeling as a Versatile Heritage on an Ancestry that has Darkvision already."

Do you not take the Heritage for its feats ?

I do not remember players taking this kind of Versatile Heritage just to boost their PC's vision from Low-light to Darkvision.

Sure, but how this works is if you want to play a Changeling and take Changeling feats it works out that if you pick an ancestry other than Dwarf, Goblin, or Orc you get something from your Changeling Heritage that you wouldn't if you picked Dwarf, Goblin, or Orc. So there's an opportunity cost (you only get one heritage) about making your pitborn or angelkin PCs a less-subterranean ancestry.

You can see how they accommodated for some ancestries already having low-light vision, with the clause " you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has lowlight vision." So there's no reason they couldn't have another clause for "what you get if you already have darkvision". They just didn't do that.

The game is generally good about refunding you if you gain a redundant feature through a character choice, so places where this doesn't happen stand out.

Well they weren't going to just hand out Greater Darkvision at level 1. At some point it had to end, you still get to pick from all the other feats and get the flavour.

That's somewhat unfortunate.

If you read the Reload rules there's a difference between reload with a number and reload '-'.

Thrown will generally have '-' which requires an interact action to draw before they can be thrown.

Reload 0 would be when you draw ammunition and attack in the same action, so like a bow or very select number of throwing weapons.

Calliope5431 wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

The scaling is all over the place and it is bizaare.

Let us take Armor Proficiency. It now scales to expert at lvl 13 now, yay! Good improvement, nice for casters.

For martials, it gives them scaling heavy armor.... except for lvl 11-12 and 19-20 for most classes, when they get their proficiency bumps early.

Why on earth? Just make it scale. It is clunky, akward, and makes zero sense to have it scale except for a few levels.

Weapon proficiency is equally strange.

A lvl 1 ancestry feat will give you scaling martial/advanced proficiency AND crit spec.

A general feat will give you caster scaling only.

A lvl 12 class feat with fighter archetype gives you expert?

It makes no sense that these things co-exist.

Blame it on level-based proficiency scaling and differentiating classes via said scaling.

It probably should improve whenever your class bumps it, but I'm sure that could cause other problems.

Given the changes in everything else. I am going to assume that these are editing mistakes or simply changes that are going to be in future books.

Or it's just not aimed at Martials.

Or Sentinel still exists and they don't want a General Feat to be equivalent.

Just to be clear, because I had to reread your post to make sure I understood, Dual-Thrower will make for an effective two weapon thrower build, but won't enable Twin Feint because Twin Feint is not a Dual Weapon Warrior feat. If it were added to the list of feats included in the archetype, then it would work with Dual-Thrower, and enable Twin Feint with thrown weapons.

At first when I read your post I thought you were saying it would work, but you're really just recommending the OP change their build.

That is correct.

I am pointing out a very clear example to show that Twin Feint would not work with thrown weapons, and also providing an alternative that would do roughly what they want (thrown weapons, but minus sneak attack).

Yeah, I also have to chuckle a bit at the person comparing the damage of Confident Finisher to an entire combat round of a different character.

Goading Feint + Dueling Parry is the closest we have to the PF1 Fighting Defensively and Combat Expertise. But doing that defensive fighting combo in PF2 means only having one action left for attacking with.

Fortunately Swashbuckler can load all of their damage into that one attack.

There is more to overall balance than just total damage done during a round.

Yeah, I feel like people are putting too much stock in white room math where people never move.

When I played Swashbucklers for the well over three years that I have I moved around a lot.

Stuff about high saves

Much like casters, you can target multiple saves. Use that. High fort? Trip them or tumble. Even if you can't target the weakest save targetting the mediocre one will work more often than not, especially as you level.

Themetricsystem wrote:

The answer is no, a Weapon stops being a Melee Weapon the moment you decide to use it as a Thrown Weapon, period.

Any other interpretation opens several cans of worms with regard to several feats, runes, rune duplication effects, buff spells, and class features.

Where is there a rule that says that? There is not one. In fact, there are ranged weapons with the thrown trait, and melee weapons with the thrown trait. The classification of melee and ranged is right in the Core Rulebook.

Describe an interaction where this breaks something? Throwing weapons has never been that great. You need to specialize with feats, returning runes, etc. to make it work well.

Dual-Weapon Warrior provides:

Requirements You are wielding two melee weapons, each in a different hand.

And

Requirements You are wielding two one-handed melee weapons, each in a different hand.

Both of these have the same requirements as Twin Feint:

Requirements You are wielding two melee weapons, each in a different hand.

In order to use them ranged you are required to take Dual Thrower

Whenever a dual-weapon warrior feat allows you to make a melee Strike, you can instead make a ranged Strike with a thrown weapon or a one-handed ranged weapon you are wielding.

Emphasis mine.

Clearly when something calls out that it requires a melee weapon you are making a melee attack.

For the OP I would recommend Dual-Weapon Warrior for this build over Rogue. It'll take just as long to throw two things at once as if Twin-Feint was allowed, and you get two attacks with no/less MAP earlier.

It would be within the caster's reach.

To clarify, I think there's a good chance that this particular wording is a mistake by developers.

You think or you want?

It seems most of the people that think it's a mistake moreso want it to be a mistake.

That said, I've read a lot of people claiming Mark has this stance and has said this - but no one has provided links with the proof.

I have actually. They're comments in his Discord.

Here's one place in the forum's I posted dates.

This post linked directly to a couple comments.

Don't really expect them to change your mind however as you seem very invested in this being a mistake.

Oh, I hadn't actually read the new rules. Yeah, adding 2 or more to your dying value on a failed recovery check while you're wounded doesn't sound right. Probably not the right interpretation.

It's not really an interpretation when it's spelled out though.

They seem, even with the less lethal rules, to still be things you aren't really expected to survive getting off more than once or twice a fight.

I don't think those are arguing against the rules at all. They're just high risk mediocre reward, or a nice to have in case you go down.

Now on a new thought.

We need clarification of one of two things:

Either:

A. The recovery check parenthetical is a mistake.
B. The Wounded Condition is a mistake.

Which one of this is a correct statement?

Given that the two are in conflict, one of them is incorrect.

Option 3: they're all intended and cover different situations.

The Wounded condition only covers gaining and losing the condition and when you first gain the Dying condition.

The Recovery Check section is correct and covers recovery checks.

The Taking Damage While Dying section, while oddly worded, is intended to add Wounded when you get bonked.

Which does make Agile Maneuvers a bit pointless.

It's likely to go, or provide a further bonus.

Some people don't like it*.

Some people don't care, some people do like it.

He has several comments on it on his Discord. 31/10/2023 he has a short discussion about how people seem to think not just zerg rushing a boss and allowing it to get 3rd action attacks off is apparently advanced tactics. 13/10/2023 he has a short discussion about the team being on board with the more lethal rules because they don't kill you immediately but increase tension. 1/4/2020 has just first discussion on it where he says:

It does look like the wording on recovery checks is not perfectly clear because of the use of "gain" vs "gain or increase". But damage while dying definitely has the reminder.

He's pretty clear overall that it was intended as "gain or increase".

I have a question, has anyone ever had a party TPK because one or more characters died too quickly, instead of just staying unconscious?

Wasn't a TPK but it was a close thing and also turned into a five hour fight when we kept trying to save our Barbarian last month. We did not succeed, and callous as it sounds we likely would have been in a better spot overall as a party if they had died faster.

The reminders on page 411 to not forget the wounded condition are not intended to mean that you add it every time your dying condition goes up, I believe, but rather to remind you not forget to account for it in your total dying condition calculation (that is, you only ever add it once per dying state upon gaining said state).

EDIT: Added clarifying verbiage (shown in bold).

Why would they tell you to remember to add it only to the first instance in the section about when you're already dying and you get hit again?

They can also be outclassed in speed by a Swashbuckler with a Jerkin of Liberation or anyone with a Prey Mutagen.

Sad days. Fortunately neither of those are Common and are from APs.

I have a Swashbuckler PC at level 12 in a game I am running. I see she has two big problems. The first is that she can't Bon Mot because whatever we are fighting doesn't speak common. The other issue is she never uses Opportune Reposte because she holds on to her reaction for Charmed Life instead.

If you pick the Bon Mot option you definitely want someone to cast Tongues on you or to grab more languages, but that's the same as anyone that wants to use that.

The literal only thing I personally think Swashbuckler needs is that Braggart should be able to get Panache more than once a fight with Intimidation against single enemies before level 9.

Even if that means they make some Intimidation check that is a pseudo demoralize and doesn't cause Frightened.

I heavily dispute any assertion that the Monk, as it stands now (or even before the Remaster versions of other Classes dropped) is anywhere NEAR okay even if Ki Spells are HEAVILY buffed but I'll leave that discussion alone for now because it's a pointless one to make since we basically already have confirmation the Class is up for a SERIOUS rework.

The Monk is in PC2 and we also know that it is being reimagined as a Class that will have set class paths instead of them being a general grab-bag pick-a-Feat Class (like the Fighter is) due to the announcement explanation of the PC2 specifically stating that all of the Classes in it will each "contain multiple character paths" and because of that it follows that a TON of the Monk is going to necessarily be in for a huge shakeup as the entire Feat list will, at a minimum, have to be carved up into the distinct niches/flavors of Monk they create Paths for which will then in all likelihood be mutually exclusive or in the least require you have said path chosen at 1st level or by way of opting into taking/learning that path later on ala how Order Explorer works for Druid.

I don't think that necessarily means what you think it means for Monk about multiple paths.

It already has multiple paths.

You can go full in on Ki, you can go full in on multiple stances, you can pick one stance and some ki, you can go reasonably heavily into maneuvers, etc. That already exists. They can change literally nothing and it would still meet the "has multiple paths" statement.

Guntermench wrote:

and at no point did I feel like I didn't contribute.

That feels like a really low bar though.

Alright: I spent a couple levels with some (very) mild panache issues, then was doing about the same damage as anyone else (unless I wasn't trying to do damage), then I was doing more damage as we went up in levels. Bleeding Finisher at 8 and Perfect Finisher at 14 are great.

At no point was I significantly behind enough to warrant concern.

Guntermench wrote:

I'm just going to quickly put in my 2¢ that really I disagree they need an overhaul. Tweaks at most.

I've played multiple Swashbucklers to various levels, one all the way to 20, and at no point did I feel like I didn't contribute. Only really had issues with Panache at levels 1 and 2, after that it wasn't a problem.

Even if you didn't have problems with panache, you have to admit, being FORCED to level up two skills and in order to remain competitive is suboptimal.

Not really. I picked my subclass based on the skills I was already planning to level.

I'm just going to quickly put in my 2¢ that really I disagree they need an overhaul. Tweaks at most.

I've played multiple Swashbucklers to various levels, one all the way to 20, and at no point did I feel like I didn't contribute. Only really had issues with Panache at levels 1 and 2, after that it wasn't a problem.

Noting that I am using pre-Remaster rules for this. So if Counteract has changed...

Level 6 Shadow Siphon would have a counteract level of 8 because of its specific ability to be 2 higher than normal.

Level 16 frost dragon would have a counteract level of 8 because of the half-rounded-up conversion between creature level and counteract level.

Character using Shadow Siphon will roll a check with their counteract bonus. Their counteract bonus is most likely going to be equal to their spell attack bonus. Unless something is specifically modifying spell attack rolls (which wouldn't apply to counteract checks) or counteract checks (which wouldn't be accounted for in spell attack roll value).

The DC of the counteract check will be the DC of the ability - the breath weapon in this case.

Because the counteract levels are equal, the character will need to succeed or better in order to successfully counteract.

If the character somehow got a level 7 Shadow Siphon, then the counteract level would be 9, which is higher than the counteract level 8 breath weapon. Which means that the character could successfully counteract by rolling a fail or better on the check.

It looks like the only thing that's changed is they added a table that shows what degree of success would counteract what rank for each rank, and the associated level range. If that makes sense.

That would likely be the most clear it can get.

Do you all feel the new dying rules make stuff like toughness, orc ferocity, die hard, or bounce back strong options?

It certainly makes Cheat Death even more attractive.

Gotta say, this sounds like someone should check if their dice are balanced.

Guntermench wrote:

Counterspelling is kind of a pain in the butt anyway.

You, as far as I can tell, have to guess what the spell you're countering is and pray. Since Recognize a Spell is a reaction, Quick Recognition makes that a free action, but Counterspell is also a reaction. You can only use action action per trigger, so you can't do multiple of them at once.

since you need a spell equipped to counter it, it should be covered by the below rule and have no need for Recognise Spell.

"If you notice a spell being cast, and you have prepared that spell or have it in your repertoire, you automatically know what the spell is, including the level to which it is heightened."

Cool.

I guarantee no caster knows every spell. You're still going to, especially when facing enemies higher level than you, run into spells you don't have rather frequently.