If I have force barrage and and vision of death prepared, would I be able to Counterspell against spells like magic missile and phantasmal killer? Are they still the same spells?
How come that you have a mix of pre remaster spells and post remaster spells? You should play with one or the other instance of the rules but not both.
As to your question: Pre remaster rules interact poorly with post remaster rules. GM adjudication is necessary for each case as there's no rule basis for these interactions.
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There are some spells that haven't technically been Remastered because they are in expansion books that aren't being Remastered. I would certainly hope that those spells aren't being excluded from play for absolutely no reason.
There are other spells that are one-to-one replicas under a different name, such as Force Barrage and Dizzying Colors. For those, I agree with SuperBidi - I'm not sure why we would need to have both spells as mechanically different in the same campaign. Either update everyone who casts the spell to cast the same spell, or treat the spells the same for all mechanical interactions including Counterspell.
The one I am on the fence about are the spells like Produce Flame/Ignition and others that are slightly different in the reprinting. There may be reason to have both, and they are mechanically different spells.
I'm just afraid of preparing vision of death on my PFS character only to have the GM say "Unfortunately, the monsters in this scenario were made before the Remaster, so the spell the boss is casting is actually phantasmal killer." Enemy spellcasters are already rare enough that I haven't been able to use Counterspell once in the 4 sessions I've had it.
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I'm just afraid of preparing vision of death on my PFS character only to have the GM say "Unfortunately, the monsters in this scenario were made before the Remaster, so the spell the boss is casting is actually phantasmal killer." Enemy spellcasters are already rare enough that I haven't been able to use Counterspell once in the 4 sessions I've had it.
I would definitely choose my spells for their direct effects rather than with the IMO very slim hope of being able to counterspell with them.
Especially in PFS.
Well, since the OP has clarified that this concern is in the context of PFS, there are campaign specific answers to refer to. In the PFS Remaster Guidance, spells (or other character options, but this is about spells) that are not reprinted are still valid. Produce Flame and Ignition are both separate valid spells, and a character could learn either, or even both. Similarly, Phantasmal Killer and Vision of Death are also two separate valid spells that you could learn and prepare.
For any normal home game context, the "talk to your GM about how you want to handle these spiritual successor spells" answer is pretty solidly correct.
Yeah, if you are running an pre-remastered AP (which is all of them at this point) with a steady GM, the answer is definitely to talk to them about both the issue and your concerns. It could just be the case that it might just make the most sense for your spell list to use only the pre-remastered spells unless you specifically wanted a remastered spell that would be a different spell. But it really isn’t an issue that people on the internet can tell you how to handle because there is no “official” way to run a pre-remastered AP with remastered characters.
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I'm just afraid of preparing vision of death on my PFS character only to have the GM say "Unfortunately, the monsters in this scenario were made before the Remaster, so the spell the boss is casting is actually phantasmal killer." Enemy spellcasters are already rare enough that I haven't been able to use Counterspell once in the 4 sessions I've had it.
Then grab Phantasmal Killer, it's still a valid choice in PFS.
I can understand your concerns for the future, but as of now the choice is obvious. And by the time we get to year 7, most adventures should be using the remastered rules so you'll switch.
So for each of my spells that had its name changed in the remaster, I can't use that spell to Counterspell anything in an existing PFS scenario? Even if the effect of the two spells is exactly the same?
Well, that means I need to retrain Counterspell, because I already rebuilt my character for the remaster rules and replaced every spell in my spellbook with the remastered spells (the only spell I prepare that still has it's old name is Fear). I really wanted to give this feat a chance, but I've played eight sessions and only faced one spellcaster in my entire career. And now, even if I face another, the feat is just going to be useless.
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When I took the feat I never really expected it to work until lvl 12 and Clever Counterspell. Now, this feat is even better in remaster, but the issue hasn't really changed.
Which for PFS basically means that Counterspelling would never work. For some reason I was ok with this.
That's Prepared Counterspell. Spontaneous Counterspell works immediately.
The one-for-one cost makes it something of a stalemate strategy
1-for-1? One reaction to cancel nearly an entire turn is very far from a stalemate strategy, it's much closer to a fight ender if the caster is a significant threat (which they often are). I haven't been able to use it often (twice in total), but for one of these fights it has changed a Severe encounter to a joke encounter.
If your GM is only allowing your characters to pick up "new version," AND your GM is not counting AP-included old versions as the new versions, AND only allowing counterspell to work if the name is an exact match, then yes that set of facts would lead to the conclusion: your game includes a set of un-counterable spells.
But I would really talk to your GM about that. I find it somewhat difficult to believe that a reasonable GM would impose all three of those conditions on the same game. But maybe yours does...and in that case, maybe retraining is the simplest, best idea.
It's PFS. Does the GM even have a say in this?
It's PFS. Does the GM even have a say in this?
Not the proper forum, but the GM has definitely a say in this. I'd definitely consider Magic Missile and Force Barrage to be the same spell around my PFS tables. Following the rules doesn't mean only referring to RAW, RAI has a say in the way the game plays.
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It's PFS. Does the GM even have a say in this?Not the proper forum, but the GM has definitely a say in this. I'd definitely consider Magic Missile and Force Barrage to be the same spell around my PFS tables. Following the rules doesn't mean only referring to RAW, RAI has a say in the way the game plays.
Also the PFS leadership have made it very clear that they are expecting people to do their best to help everyone have fun during the transition to Remaster rather than getting all nitpicky for no good reason.