I'm sort of interested: how many people actually ever use counterspelling in any way? Do you ever ready actions to counterspell things as you wander through dangerous areas? Do you give you NPC parties counterspell specialists? Or is it just a complete waste of time for you, something that's so rare that it might as well not happen?
We never use it. Against a single spellcasting enemy it could possibly be effective, but we have never tried, and almost certainly never will.
I've always wanted to use it ...
Fireball is my Counterspell.
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Fireball is my Counterspell.
"The pyromancer summoned up her mightiest onslaught of fire and rage. Jace feigned interest."
If only counterspells in Pathfinder could do that reliably anyway.
Never seen it used. Readying an action to deal damage is about the closest thing I've eve seen.
Nope. Never seen it used either.
It's definitely something that needs tweaking in order to be a more attractive option.
I've used it, but only on one situation.
Facing Karzoug, right at the end. He'd been enhanced markedly to cope with our party. We reckoned that if we could prevent him casting magic, we'd win. So my Wizard and our Cleric both readied to counterspell using Greater Dispel Magic (from custom staffs I'd made specifically for this fight). We both needed to do it because K was casting twice per round (quickened spells plus normal) and we negated 2 rounds worth of his casting, and occupied his successful spells before we died to his Timestop + multiple Delayed Blast Fireballs - our Protection vs Fire spells were overwhelmed and so were our hit points; this was the 2nd time that my wizard was killed in that fight, the cleric used Breath of Life the first time, but that put us next to each other.
However, this bought enough time for our melee characters to reach him, disposing of his assistants and very difficult terrain en route, and kill him. Paladin smite evil, lance charges, etc, all did him in.
Apart from that, no we've not used counterspelling.
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My situation involved a certain creature that had quickened wall of fire as an SLA. My Life Oracle had little offense to offer against a fire immune creature considering her role as party medic and Blackened curse. So she used Quick Channel to heal as a move and readied her standard to counterspell. When the quickened spell went off, she had exactly what she needed to stop it. It was a rather nice spot in an otherwise nail-bitingly close encounter.
I had a druid in 3.5 that had the Improved Counterspell feat. It was really useful. I once stymied an encounter with rakshasas by using some flame strikes to counter their fireballs and [/I]lightning bolts[/I]. I used it a bunch of other times too with that character.
Depending on the campaign, I would definitely play a spellcaster that used counterspelling. Especially a healer type, since an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure light wound wands.
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No. Ready action to magic missile someone in the face is FAR more likely to work and simpler.
No. Ready action to magic missile someone in the face is FAR more likely to work and simpler.
/this.
The standart mechanic of Counterspelling is clunky, and very unreliable. It is TERRIBLE for the action economy to guarantee to waste one of your turn, to perhaps, if not unlucky, to make one opponent waste his turn.
The only time i have seen it implemented was with a Spell Warrior Skald past level 10. An archetpe whos schtick this is, and even then only once he could do it as a an immediate action, after 10 levels.
I only used it for NPC's.
Honestly it is clunky and not likely to work. I mean it is confusing and don't see why you would want to. I have not run the numbers but I wonder sometimes if at low levels a half orc wizard reading an action for a universalist wizard to use hand of the apprentice and throw a greataxe at them. If you pull this off it would probably be awesome instead of the clunky counterspelling mechanics.
Improved Counterspell works pretty good. You have to invest a feat, but if you're in a campaign with a lot of enemy spellcasters, it can be worth it.
It's particularly effective against a single BBEG, especially if it has blown its wad and no longer has its highest level spells.
Then, instead of 1 enemy action vs 4 allied actions, you effectively have 0 enemy actions vs 3 allied actions, which is pretty significant.
I find it particularly useful for divine casters. For example, a lot of arcane blasters use 3rd level blasts (fireball and lightning bolt), but a divine caster can use an arguably less potent 4th level blast (flame strike) to negate that spell, which saves up on healing later.
I've never seen it used even once. And with the sheer number of spells to choose from it can nearly impossible for your caster to have the same spell prepared.
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I find it particularly useful for divine casters. For example, a lot of arcane blasters use 3rd level blasts (fireball and lightning bolt), but a divine caster can use an arguably less potent 4th level blast (flame strike) to negate that spell, which saves up on healing later.
The divine caster could instead "counter" spells by casting the flame strike as a readied action. The caster is going to lose their spell unless they make a DC30+ concentration check against a minimum CL flame strike (which is probably an auto fail unless you are flame striking a boss). In exchange for a trivial chance at failure, you gain the ability to interrupt spells regardless of the spell level or school, and it costs you nothing beyond the spell slot you were spending anyway (saving you a feat).
Isn't a Concentration check 1d20 + your level + your spellcasting ability modifier? (Sorry, I've switched to 5th Edition, so counterspell is a spell that automatically works, and is cast as a reaction (5th's version of immediate action)).
So, pretty easy? What's the DC again? 10 + damage?
Isn't a Concentration check 1d20 + your level + your spellcasting ability modifier? (Sorry, I've switched to 5th Edition, so counterspell is a spell that automatically works, and is cast as a reaction (5th's version of immediate action)).
So, pretty easy? What's the DC again? 10 + damage?
10+damage+spell level.
I will run the math on the probability of passing:
A flame strike from a 7th level PC cleric with 18 wisdom is dealing 7d6(average 24.5) damage and has a DC18 save.
Lets say that a 7th level NPC evoker throwing around empowered Fireballs(with magical lineage) has 18 int. The concentration bonus for the evoker is +11. Their total reflex save is +4, so they have a 35% chance of passing.
The DC they will have to pass on an average damage roll is DC38 if they fail the save, or DC26 if they pass. These are just average damage rolls, since taking into account variance would probably involve me writing a monte carlo simulation or figuring out how to a whole bunch of probability calculations of Wolfram-Alpha(and I CBF), but the actual probabilities are only going to be a little better than what I calculate.
Chance of wizard passing concentration check if they fail the reflex save=0%
(FYI the chance of damage rolling low enough for the wizard to pass on a 20 is about 10%, so 0% is a close approximation)
Chance of wizard passing concentration check if they pass the reflex save=20%
total chance of passing is roughly 35%*20%=7%
The chance of passing is a little over 7%. Lets call it a nice round 10%. That's a pretty small chance of failure considering how little else it costs you and how much it gets you. A fireball will probably be even better, because a wizard will be rocking a higher Intelligence than most clerics will have Wisdom.
Yikes! Foiled by math again.
You can have debuff ready to with glue seal as a first level spell with a reflex save. And if they fail they will be entangled.
Actually the arcanist with ready action and potent magic and spending from arcane pool will not only make the debuff more likely to land but boost dc of concentration check. You can boost caster level on damaging spells to increase dc also.