Can you Counterspell a Counterspell?

[SlagMortar]

1. Primary wizard has declared casting a spell.
2. This set off Opposing wizard's "readied action" - Which is the ONLY action He can take, as It isn't His turn, he is interrupting Mine.
3. Can the Apprentice "interrupt" the Opposing Wizard? Yes, If he also has a readied action
4. Can the Primary wizard use a Quickened Dispel Magic? debatable

There are only three ways I know to interrupt an action - attack of opportunity, readied action, immediate action. A quickened spell is a swift action and thus can not interrupt another action.

You can not interrupt a readied counterspell with a quickened spell.

 

[Deset Gled]

The 64k question however, is if you have a quickened dispel magic available - can the primary wizard (not the apprentice) use this against his opponent's counterspell?

The answer is no. The problem that you have is that you are assuming that Dispel Magic works the same as a spell as it does a counterspell. This is not the case.

You can use Dispel Magic to counterspell when you do not have the correct spell or cannot identify the spell. However, as has been pointed out before, you cannot counterspell unless you have readied an action (or have a feat that allows you to get around that restriction). No readied action, no counterspell, no questions.

You can also use Dispel Magic to end a spell's effect. However, this is not the same as counterspelling. When using Dispel Magic in this way, your target is always the creature or object that is being affected; you cannot target a spell itself. Since the counterspell you are attempting to counter is an effect, not a creature or object, it is not a valid target for Dispel Magic. Even assuming you can interupt a counterspell with a free action (which may not be the case), this will not work.

A third option would be to use Dispel Magic as an area dispel. However, this is not ideal since you do not control which spell effect it will dispel. It will always go after the highest level spell and work its way downward, and the highest level spell may be your spell. Note that you can choose to automatically succeed on dispel checks against spells you have cast, but you can't automatically fail them. This is assuming you can interupt a counterspell with a free action.

Now, where's my money?

 

[moritheil]

More like challenge sidestepped. Nothing you quoted actually supported your position or refuted moritheil's position.

Agreed; I was looking for a RAW statement that you don't have to have a readied action to counterspell. Until we see such a statement, we do have a RAW statement that you DO have to have a readied action to counterspell.

(Specifically, it states that you may ready an action to counterspell, and if you do that, you can then proceed to try to counterspell.)

 

[Kahuna Burger]

There are only three ways I know to interrupt an action - attack of opportunity, readied action, immediate action. A quickened spell is a swift action and thus can not interrupt another action.

You can not interrupt a readied counterspell with a quickened spell.

This would be my take as well. Counterspelling requires you to interupt an action, not merely respond to it. A quickened spell is a swift action, not an imediate one, it still happens after the "triggering" action has already resolved, and you can';t decide to do it before an action you've already declared.

I am skeptical of the reactive counterspell route, but it could resolve normally if you allow nested readied/reactive actions. It would be similar to a situation where someone readies an action to interupt your casting, but their mode of interuption allows a AoO from you. If you would allow the nesting of interuptions where you take your AoO before they try to interupt before your spell resolves, then you should (imo) also allow a reactive counterspell to counterspell their counterspell before your spell.

(on the house rules side of the discussion, it would be interesting to have a metamagic feat or class ability that could turn a regular spell into an immediate action. This is one of the uses of Action Points I've been considering for my next campaign.)

 

[Drowbane]

I'm still unsure whether you can in fact counterspell another caster's counterspell. Can you?

sure, as long as you have UU...