Or, better yet, a use of the Spellcraft skill so that magical monsters can do it too?
Please?
The PCs have no way to get rid of an ongoing spell effect if they're below 5th or 7th level (or if they don't have a dedicated caster around, or if no one remembers to prepare it), and I find that there are many times when they're expected to. Not the least of which being when a villian drops a high-powered enchantment spell or a long-lasting debuff on the party.
By way of reinforcing this request,
Does anyone actually use counterspelling?
|
By way of reinforcing this request,
Does anyone actually use counterspelling?
I think I can count the number of times I've seen it used on one hand. Nobody wants to "hold their action to do something so lame when I can pop off a 10d6 fireball" is the mentality I see too often.
On the other hand, the other DM in my group has seen this too, and recently started counterspelling against us. Man it bites to see your spells go "poof" like that. Now if only I could find more uses for bardic counterspelling.
I would do counterspells if it had a rider that I still got to take my action, even if they didn't cast a spell. It blows to ready to counterspell, only to have the enemy take a full attack that round. But I realize doing that might introduce some problems.. like, why *wouldnt* I counterspell every round?
Sure counterspelling is pretty sound against Wizards and Sorcerers (though, maybe not so anymore with each class now having a host of non-spell attacky abilities through Bloodlines and Schools), but the number of times you face one of those are not that great. More likely you'll face monsters (spell-likes, or have good full attacks to back up spell casting) or Clerics/Druids both of which have good options other than casting, making casting extremely dubious as to whether or not you will actually get to try to counter the spell.
Even if a spell is cast, there are still bad things that happen.
DM: "Ok, Cleric BBEG casts Blasphemy"
Me: Counterspell! Oh.. wait.. I guess I don't have Blasphemy prepared..."
Now you have 2 options, if you actually dedicated an entire *feat* to counterspelling, you can use a spell of the same school (Necromancy, if you've got one of those prepped at higher than 7th level, and also, manage to make that DC 15+spell level spellcraft check to properly identify the enemy spell), or you can try with Greater Dispel/ Dispel. But then you have to make a dispel check. Against many enemies (especially if they're single monsters) the enemy caster level will be higher than yours, making your dispel check difficult. Even if they are equal caster level, you have now just accomplished a 50-50 shot at doing something this turn. Roll bad on that 1d20, and you've still wasted your turn, plus you've burned a 6th level spell slot, slightly worse than doing nothing.
Counterspelling is just too risky, I mean, yeah, I'd rather hit them with a 10d6 fireball. Barring fire resistance or SR or anything, I'm garunteed to do some damage. At any rate, I'll be able to *find out* if the enemy has fire resistance or SR, which will help me plan future actions; this is not the case with counterspelling.
Point being, the mechanic for counterspelling basically makes the action as unattractive as it could possibly be.
But I've blabbed about that enough, in response to the original poster, I respectfully disagree. 3.P introduced the rogue's Dispelling Attack, which certainly seems on paper like it could blow through magic resistances without having a wizard in the party. Second, all primary casters can learn dispel magic and even Greater Dispel Magic. That means your party would have to be without a Druid/Cleric/Sorc/Wiz/ *and Bard for this to come up, a rarity, and a party without any magic at all (say, you've got a Barb/Fight/Monk/Rog as your group) should expect to encounter such difficulties. But they should make up for it with their brute strength! And -if they didnt have it prepared that day- is not an excuse... they should prepare it! It's a good spell! That is PC error, not system error.
I happen to like Dispel Magic just the way it is, and don't want to see monsters with it unless of course they have caster levels.
By way of reinforcing this request,
Does anyone actually use counterspelling?
Works like a charm against Sorcerers. If you can figure out what spells they know, that is if you are attacked by say a goblin sorc, and they become a reoccurring villain, just knowing that they cast fireball is enough for any Wiz to cripple them in a later battle.
Also, crafty GMs can cause much consternation by counterspelling the players....that means you Uriel!!!!
|
I think I can count the number of times I've seen it used on one hand. Nobody wants to "hold their action to do something so lame when I can pop off a 10d6 fireball" is the mentality I see too often.
I liked the suggestion posted somewhere around here to make counterspelling a Swift action; seems like it would become a lot more accessible.
I think I can count the number of times I've seen it used on one hand. Nobody wants to "hold their action to do something so lame when I can pop off a 10d6 fireball" is the mentality I see too often.I liked the suggestion posted somewhere around here to make counterspelling a Swift action; seems like it would become a lot more accessible.
Yet, much more brutal....Hmmm....I think I like it. If you could scale the Counterspell ability up so that, like a feat, with Improved and Greater versions of it, it actually deflected damage or caused Wild Magic effects on the original caster when diffused, then it would go a long way to making it a viable alternative to a 10d6 blast...and perhaps be more cinematically pleasing.
The F
And -if they didnt have it prepared that day- is not an excuse... they should prepare it! It's a good spell! That is PC error, not system error.
Actually, I think that's a system error.
If there is one spell in the book that the PCs always need prepared at all times, that's a system error. If you're the only caster around, you need to take it. If you're a sorcerer you need to burn a spell known. If you're a wizard you need to learn it. And if abjuration is an opposed school you're screwed.
It's a violation of game balance; no single option should be a "must have". There should be alternatives.
The problem isn't that dispel magic is a broken spell, it's that it has a monopoly on the field of removing magic. There's really no other way until higher levels, and no way period (since you don't even have dispel yet) at lowers levels.
Yea, you can usually buy a wand, but needing to get the item isn't that much better than needing to get the spell.
Well, there is Dispel, Greater Dispel, Antimagic Feild, Mages Disjunction, rods of Absorbsion/Cancellation, Spell Resistance, Spell Turning, and Break Enchantment are all effective forms of anti-magic in their own respects.
Not to mention the lowly but extremely effective lvl-1 spell "silence". I hardly think that Dispel has a monopoly in this department.
Well, there is Dispel, Greater Dispel, Antimagic Feild, Mages Disjunction, rods of Absorbsion/Cancellation, Spell Resistance, Spell Turning, and Break Enchantment are all effective forms of anti-magic in their own respects.
Not to mention the lowly but extremely effective lvl-1 spell "silence". I hardly think that Dispel has a monopoly in this department.
I'm not talking about blocking spells. I'm talking about when the evil sorcerer DOES get off that dominate person, your barbarian starts hacking up your theif, and you need to make him stop.
Or better yet, after the fight is over, when you realize that your own hold person spell is going to expire nine days, twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and three rounds sooner than that sorcerer's domination spell. And that the sorcerer's last order was to hack the theif.
Or (and I've seen this happen) when the fighter has 3 hitpoints left and the heat metal spell on his armor is going to last another four rounds.
Or, hell, when you've discovered that one wall of the dungeon is an illusion and want to take it down to see what's behind it, or when you've realized that a magic item's aura is fake but want to see what the real one is, or when you encounter an important NPC and make your sense motive check to realize he's under the influence of an enchantment.
Getting rid of magic is easy if you have that one spell prepared and impossible if you don't (unless you've prepared a higher-level derivative of the same spell).
Thus a lot of adventures and situations seem to assume you have it prepared (because if they assumed you didn't, you would just dispel effects that weren't ment to be removed; it's safer to assume you can than to assume you can't).
And thus, you need to prepare it.
YEah, and it would actually be really thematic for canceling magic to be just something spellcasters know how to do, rather than a specific spell. Perhaps counterspelling requires an immediate action that uses up your standard action next turn as well as blowing a spell slot of the same level as the spell being cast + a roll, and ending an ongoing magical effect needs a full-round action and a roll with a chance of the effect rebounding on you (which could be damage + daze + knockback, or something). Maybe there's always that chance of rebound when not using dispel magic which gets worse if you don't blow a spell slot.
There are quite a few feats/abilities (mostly in splats and such) that allow a person to "spontaneously" counterspell someone. My current mage has done so at least once every 2-3 game sessions.
I've yet to "hold an action" to do so. (mine takes an immediate action, so is less problematic).
Otherwise- spell preparation is part of the game. It's unfortunate, true, but it is there just the same. Dispel Magic (and GDM) are both something that most casters should have at least one of on the roster. Or a scroll.
Or both.
There are a few spells out there that are just that handy to have and if the caster sacrifices that for more blast, SOD or battle field control then it can indeed turn into a sacrifice.
Rather than toss every full caster the ability to churn out DM or GDM I would suggest rather that casters expecting casters, or who really don't know what specifically to expect, to keep one or both of those spells handy.
-S
ending an ongoing magical effect needs a full-round action and a roll with a chance of the effect rebounding on you (which could be damage + daze + knockback, or something). Maybe there's always that chance of rebound when not using dispel magic which gets worse if you don't blow a spell slot.
Yea, that's kinda what I was thinking. Either it's unreliable, your caster level sucks, or it takes more than a full-round action (like a spellcraft-based purging ceremony of some sort). Dispel magic should make you a lot better at it, but it should be a basic action for any wizard.
In combat, I wonder if a weak targeted dispel could be balanced just by the standard action cost?
Maybe one targeted dispel (i.e, one spell effect that you have identified with spellcraft) at your caster level -5? Considering it's at will, you could take 20 out of combat, meaning you can dispel anything up to your own caster level +5 without needing spell slots (but after that, you need dispel magic).
As for counterspelling, it's hard for me to speak for it because I've never really seen it in play. I don't know why; I've played casters, and I've dm'd for casters, but for some reason it just never came up.
My impression, though, is that it would be really powerful if it were made more viable, and I don't mind characters having to pay feats or class features for that power (just like tripping and grappling).
I wouldn't mind if one of those feats were in the core rules, though.
Otherwise- spell preparation is part of the game. It's unfortunate, true, but it is there just the same. Dispel Magic (and GDM) are both something that most casters should have at least one of on the roster.
That would make this, for you, what I would call an accepted imbalance. As I expected, this seems to be how a lot of (well, several) people see it.
There are a lot of these in the system that we all accept, and it really isn't such a terrible thing. I feel no need to nerf magic missile, for example, even though you could make a case for calling it a third (or at least second) level spell. Readying that spell in two or three slots is just part of the game.
I just wish there were more options for getting rid of spells, preferably availiable before 5th or 7th level. So at this point I guess we're just agreeing to disagree.
I'm not talking about blocking spells. I'm talking about when the evil sorcerer DOES get off that dominate person, your barbarian starts hacking up your theif, and you need to make him stop.
Or better yet, after the fight is over, when you realize that your own hold person spell is going to expire nine days, twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes and three rounds sooner than that sorcerer's domination spell. And that the sorcerer's last order was to hack the theif.
Or (and I've seen this happen) when the fighter has 3 hitpoints left and the heat metal spell on his armor is going to last another four rounds.
Or, hell, when you've discovered that one wall of the dungeon is an illusion and want to take it down to see what's behind it, or when you've realized that a magic item's aura is fake but want to see what the real one is, or when you encounter an important NPC and make your sense motive check to realize he's under the influence of an enchantment.
Getting rid of magic is easy if you have that one spell prepared and impossible if you don't (unless you've prepared a higher-level derivative of the same spell).
Thus a lot of adventures and situations seem to assume you have it prepared (because if they assumed you didn't, you would just dispel effects that weren't ment to be removed; it's safer to assume you can than to assume you can't).
And thus, you need to prepare it.
Dispel magic is not exactly a sure thing. I've played in games where the caster check was high enough that it was almost-but-not-quite unreachable. Rather than focus on Dispel Magic as an essential, we should probably look at magic as a whole, since there are any number of spells that there are no solutions for. Counterspelling would stop being seen as such a wasted action if there was no Dispel Magic waiting to clean up the aftermath of the enemy's spells. In another thread, people were arguing that wizards should have to fear low hit dice because the party is supposed to protect them properly. I can see the same logic being applied to Dispel and counterspelling, though I don't know that I agree with it.
Dispel Magic is an incredibly versatile but not necessarily reliable way of removing magical effects. You can dispel all of the buffs an enemy has going, try to remove an ongoing spell from a comrade, or prepare it as a counterspell against anything about to be cast. If it's essential, it's only because BBEGs beefed up with five or more buff spells are commonplace and because there are more than enough magical effects to doom your party if a caster doesn't have it prepared... if that's the only solution the party can come up with. Often it is the only solution they think of because it's the easiest.
I've personally never seen Dispel used to counter or even to remove an effect successfully from a PC. Most of the time when our characters get dominated, someone has to subdue them with nonlethal damage. If it's the tank of the party, running away is a viable option since all that heavy armor doesn't exactly help your running speed.
Dispel magic is not exactly a sure thing. ...
...
You're right, of course.
It's not sure, and it's not supposed to be. It's fair.
Any built-in magic cancelations should be no more sure. Actually, they should probably be less sure, to still be fair (after all, you aren't gambling a slot when you use it).
I personally haven't seen it used to null baleful spells before either, but I prefer mid levels, when PCs are just getting Dispel Magic and that 3rd/4th level slot is still precious.
I predict that this dynamic changes some as dispel (or, later, greater dispel) becomes easier to cast. I know I always prepared one or two of them in Baulder's Gate II (at least, before I got that paladin variant guy who can cast it instantly multiple times per day. That was pretty rad).
Debuffing your enemies as an area attack is a powerful offensive (well, debuff) tactic worthy of a mid-level spell slot. That's not so much what I'm talking about, and I wouldn't give an area dispel for free.
I'm not talking about blocking spells. I'm talking about when the evil sorcerer DOES get off that dominate person, your barbarian starts hacking up your theif, and you need to make him stop.
Just to be facetious, I am reminded of an old shadowrunner's aphorism:
"Magical superiority through faster firepower."