Dawnsbury Days Counterspell

[SuperParkourio]

From what I can tell, the consensus on Counterspell is that the feat doesn't work on cantrips, because Counterspell requires you to "expend a spell slot as if you had cast the triggering spell," which is impossible to do for a cantrip. Some people argue that the feat only requires that the triggering spell be prepared, so cantrips should qualify because they are prepared, even though the language of the feat assumes a spell requiring a spell slot is being countered.

The Dawnsbury Days video game (which runs a PF2e adventure from level 1 to 4) implemented the Counterspell feat in a patch, and the developer decided to use the latter interpretation, explicitly spelling out that countering a cantrip doesn't use a spell slot. You spend your reaction and make the counteract check as normal, and the cantrip remains prepared or in your repertoire.

I used the feat repeatedly in this game on Insane difficulty (encounters are regularly extreme and beyond). Counterspell was added after my first playthrough, so I knew what cantrips and other spells to prepare. But I did just play through "The Strange Crash" mod, so I was taking Counterspell into that blind.

I'm still not sure whether the feat is too powerful if allowed to counter cantrips. The added functionality against cantrips only came up against enemies that didn't have any worthwhile slotted spells to use.

But when it did come up, it was usually against lower-level opponents whose cantrips were one rank below mine (because cantrips are automatically heightened to half your level rounded up). This meant that my counteract check would disrupt the cantrip on any result better than a critical failure. I was spending one reaction and none of my other resources to almost always delete two enemy actions.

On the other hand, these enemies were two or sometimes even three levels below me, so dunking on them was somewhat expected. And since there were many of them, it wasn't possible to react to all the cantrips targeting me.

Have the PF2e developers commented on Counterspell and whether or not it is intended to work on cantrips?

[Errenor]

"You expend a prepared spell "
"You lose your spell slot"
There can be no way for it to work without spending slots.

[Xenocrat]

Some people argue the world is flat, but there’s no actual issue here.

[SuperParkourio]

I agree that the RAW does not support Counterspelling cantrips. I'm asking if the developers have clarified their intent for Counterspell.

[Xenocrat]

They have not said that they meant to write something other than what they wrote and that works fine as written.

[Finoan]

As far as Dawnsbury Days, basically the game developers are taking on the role of the GM. And the GM can make whatever rulings that they want for their table.

To understand their intent, you would probably have to ask them. I certainly don't know any more than you do.

[SuperParkourio]

I see. Would Counterspell be too powerful if it did work against cantrips? Having played with it enabled, I'm leaning toward "probably."

[Unicore]

SuperParkourio wrote:

I see. Would Counterspell be too powerful if it did work against cantrips? Having played with it enabled, I'm leaning toward "probably."

Probably not, with just some weird exceptions that are covered by later spells anyway. At the lowest levels, counterspelling is pretty tricky, and enemies don’t usually live long enough to burn through their regular spell slots anyway. An NPC countering electric arc would be annoying, but not encounter breaking.

Countering things like message, mage hand, detect magic, etc., feels like it would be where the real annoying factor would be, as would people trying to pull tricks with clever counterspell at much higher levels. But a GM could make any exceptions they wanted if they were already making exceptions to allow cantrip counterspelling.

It would probably also be rough on a magus if the GM had enemies do it often, but that is a pretty isolated fringe case.

[Jan Caltrop]

Without looking at it from a rules or balance angle, just an in-'verse perspective... I could see it going either way, and here's my reasoning. If cantrips CAN be counterspelled: it's just magic an someone was gathering, same as a more limited kind of spell. If cantrips CANNOT be counterspelled: if someone's familiar enough with a particular type of magic to be able to cast it at-will, then it's "sturdy" enough an you can't mess with it strictly on a magical level.

...actually now I have a question, which I prolly should look up a few things before asking this, but I don't fear being thought ignorant for I know I know frick-all especially when it comes to game mechanics: how does counterspell interact with having non-cantrip at-will spells? Are there even any situations where that would be relevant?

[thenobledrake]

It wouldn't be "too powerful" if cantrips could be countered and thus be used to counter each other. But that's not the only thing to consider when entertaining the question of how a ruling could function. The more important thing to consider is this; your party goes up against an enemy caster and said enemy counters every cantrip one of your party members tries to use, is that a good experience to have deliberately created in the game?

It's not. And that's before we carry the conversation the next step further and acknowledge that if cantrips can be used to counterspell then clever counterspell would also work and logically since there's no extra line drawn that means you could count a cantrip with the same trait as being the "expend a prepared spell" and thus not actually have to expend any spell slots to counterspell so long as you have a cantrip with an appropriate trait. Which that part would be where we get to "too powerful."

It's a lot logically cleaner and more balanced AND a better player experience to just do what the book already actually says though and only let counterspell work on slot type of spells.

[bugleyman]

Xenocrat wrote:

They have not said that they meant to write something other than what they wrote

I'll never understand why people do things like this. Like seriously, why? You replied to an honest question with unwarranted glib mockery. Did that make you feel clever or something?

This is how communities wind up with a reputation for being insular and toxic. Knock it off.

[Unicore]

I mean, letting cantrips be used to counterspell other cantrips was never an intended reading of the raw rules, so any GM allowing it can make any limits they want.

You could make cantrips count as level 1 spells for counterspelling or just say they can only be used to counter cantrips. Or you can just not allow it if it bothers you because it isn’t in the rules anyway.

Letting cantrips count as max level spells to counteract spell slot spells with clever counterspell is probably a bad idea.

[thenobledrake]

bugleyman wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

They have not said that they meant to write something other than what they wrote

I'll never understand why people do things like this. Like seriously, why? You replied to an honest question with unwarranted glib mockery. Did that make you feel clever or something?

This is how communities wind up with a reputation for being insular and toxic. Knock it off.

While I agree that what was said could be viewed in a negative light by the person it was a response to, I have to ask what you think the poster should have responded with instead.

Typically, when someone asks a question that equates to "have the authors clarified their intent?" about something that is not actually unclear - or at least that the authors don't think is unclear and as such haven't issued any errata about and have no plans to do so - they are not going to be satisfied with any answer.

Whatever you answer with, because it's not going to be the completely unnecessary clarification they are asking for, is likely to be viewed in a negative light.

The only thing that seems variable in the situation is whether they get told something that makes them think the community is being rude to them or something that makes them blame the developers for not being the ones to say "yes, what is in the book is correct."

[Finoan]

Agreed.

Sometimes we get official changes that fix things that don't work correctly or clarify the wording so that everyone consistently knows what the intended rules are. Those are collected and published on the FAQ.

Sometimes we get unofficial statements from devs saying that they are aware that something isn't right and will be fixed soon (Arcane Cascade for example - which was announced as a known problem long before it got errata).

Sometimes we get unofficial statements saying that what was printed is not an error no matter how much it may look like one to some people.

For example, see this post about Storm Giant and Vargouille.

However, in this case regarding Counterspell and cantrips:

Xenocrat wrote:

They have not said that they meant to write something other than what they wrote