D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Mort]

check is defined...

Spoiler: in 3.x

SKILL CHECKS
A skill check takes into account a character’s training (skill rank),
natural talent (ability modifier), and luck (the die roll). It may also
take into account his or her race’s knack for doing certain things
(racial bonus) or what armor he or she is wearing (armor check
penalty), or a certain feat the character possesses, among other
things. For instance, a character who has the Skill Focus feat (page
100) related to a certain skill gets a +3 bonus on all checks involving
that skill.
To make a skill check, roll 1d20 and add your character’s skill
modifier for that skill. The skill modifier incorporates the character’s
ranks in that skill and the ability modifier for that skill’s key ability,
plus any other miscellaneous modifiers that may apply, including
racial bonuses and armor check penalties. The higher the result, the
better. Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of
20 on the d20 is not an automatic success, and a natural roll of 1 is
not an automatic failure.

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Spoiler: in 5e

ABILITY CHECK
The Ability Check is one of three types of d20
Tests. The rules often call for an Ability Check,
and the DM can also call for an Ability Check,
determining which ability to use when a creature
attempts something (other than an Attack Roll or
a Saving Throw) that has a chance of meaningful
failure. When the outcome is uncertain and
narratively interesting, the dice determine the
results.
The Ability Check has the following special
rules.
SKILLS
When you make an Ability Check, the rules or the
DM determines whether a Skill Proficiency is
relevant to the check. If you have a relevant Skill
Proficiency, you can add your Proficiency Bonus
to the roll. For example, if a rule refers to a
Strength Check (Acrobatics or Athletics), you can
add your Proficiency Bonus to the check if you
have Acrobatics or Athletics Proficiency.
ACTION REQUIRED
Making an Ability Check requires you to take an
Action unless a rule says otherwise. Several of
the named Actions—such as Hide and
Influence—include Ability Checks.
The DM may override this requirement and
allow a particular Ability Check to be made as
part of a Bonus Action or as no Action at all.
DIFFICULTY CLASS
The DM determines the Difficulty Class of an
Ability Check and can override a DC specified in
the rules. The Typical Difficulty Class table
shows the most common DCs.
The default DC for a check is 15, and it is rarely
worth calling for an Ability Check if the DC is as
low as 5, unless the potential failure is
narratively interesting.
TYPICAL DIFFICULTY CLASS
Task Difficulty DC
Very Easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very Hard 25
Nearly Impossible 30

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Spoiler: in 6e

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ABILITY CHECK
The Ability Check is one of three types of d20
Tests. The rules often call for an Ability Check,
and the DM can also call for an Ability Check,
determining which ability to use when a creature
attempts something (other than an Attack Roll or
a Saving Throw) that has a chance of meaningful
failure. When the outcome is uncertain and
narratively interesting, the dice determine the
results.
The Ability Check has the following special
rules.
SKILLS
When you make an Ability Check, the rules or the
DM determines whether a Skill Proficiency is
relevant to the check. If you have a relevant Skill
Proficiency, you can add your Proficiency Bonus
to the roll. For example, if a rule refers to a
Strength Check (Acrobatics or Athletics), you can
add your Proficiency Bonus to the check if you
have Acrobatics or Athletics Proficiency.
ACTION REQUIRED
Making an Ability Check requires you to take an
Action unless a rule says otherwise. Several of
the named Actions—such as Hide and
Influence—include Ability Checks.
The DM may override this requirement and
allow a particular Ability Check to be made as
part of a Bonus Action or as no Action at all.
DIFFICULTY CLASS
The DM determines the Difficulty Class of an
Ability Check and can override a DC specified in
the rules. The Typical Difficulty Class table
shows the most common DCs.
The default DC for a check is 15, and it is rarely
worth calling for an Ability Check if the DC is as
low as 5, unless the potential failure is
narratively interesting.
TYPICAL DIFFICULTY CLASS
Task Difficulty DC
Very Easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very Hard 25
Nearly Impossible 30

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and your attempt to redefine it as a mere requirement of slot level is entirely unreasonable.

I'm not redefining it, I'm stating under which circumstances counterspell IS an ability check. If you sacrifice a sufficient level spell, you evoid the ability check.

But, as stated, counterspelling a spell of higher level than the one the opponent cast requires an ability check (such as if the opponent casts a 5th level spell but I cast counterspell at 3rd level). You add your spellcasting ability modifier. Bards, if they grab counterspell, get to add jack of all trades, abjurers get to add their proficiency bonus.

This is either flat wrong or a stellar example of the painful splitting of hairs caused by "natural language" frequently robs GMs of the ability to convey clear & concise meaning with clear & concise wording. Checks are a term that is fairly well accepted as a specific thing throughout the ttrpg community and nearly every editionof d&d other than 5e. Thanks to natural language and a lack of well defined terms we need to hash out if some form of check like a skill check with a d20 roll is meaningfully different from a logic flow gating where counters Pell needs to be cast at the same slot level or higher. Luckily 6e is already improving this gm kneecap ping self inflicted wound with "d20 checks" as a specifically defined subset of "d20 tests.

With that basic terminology settled we can avoid a long winding discussion over If the meaning of defined terms is a subjective matter of personal opinion or not and just move on to why you rarely saw players counterspell in 3.x but see it regularly in 5e. On the topic of how often conterspell is used now vrs then, it shouldn't be ignored that counterspell in 5e went from a specific readied action to a playloop violating retcon reaction that does not even cost an action† to nullify an opponent's action. Of course removing questions like "do I think they will cast a spell?" and "do I think that the spell they are going to cast is worth burning my action to maybe counter?" is going to dramatically lower the bar for counterspell to be cast regularly.

This thread has been filled with statements about how the gm should telegraph things more to support the desires of a player who didn't notice "sufficient telegraphing" prior to step2 in the playloop to avoid locking in fiction resolved by completed rolls that have already been made & tallied during step3 of the play loop in case a player uses a reaction ability to retcon them outside of their turn in step3... Perhaps your observation of counterspell nonuse is on you simply failing to "sufficiently telegraph" thingds like dangerous casters during steps 1 & 3 the GM is responsible for? Many experienced GMs do that by sprinkling in phrases like "lord bbeg is a skilled and dangerous wizard/sorcerer, be on your guard for his signature $spell" and in combat actions with phrases like " the lich looks like it's gearing up to cast another spell after laying down that wall/web/etc spell it just dropped" where & when appropriate. Alternately, perhaps you did that kind of thing & your players simply did not often feel that counterspelling a spellcaster as a matter of reflex to be worth the opportunity cost of a readied action as often as it is in 5e given how far the bar has been lowered. I thought that quoting the whole entry in a for the old counterspell would make the rule "sufficiently telegraphed" rand avoid drawing exclusively on everyone's memories. spoiler (which you also quoted) so "You do this by choosing the ready action (page 160). In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell." is already established as a "sufficiently telegraphed" thing rather than a thing we need to make an effort to recall. 5e's counterspell has no such check or readied action requirement


* Before anyone asks why I left out counterspell in 2e. It may have been in a splatbook/supplement of some form but my memory along with the phb & dmg don't appear to have any counterspelling other than some specific spells saying they counter each other,
†"reaction" may be a type of action but it is not an "action", natural language strikes again

Yes, the 3e mechanic for counterspell was perfect for ensuring it rarely (as far as I saw, never) got used. Whether that's good or bad and whether that's better than 5e which does allow too much counterspell splatting (though it's actually more limited then many realize) is better for another thread.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm not redefining it, I'm stating under which circumstances counterspell IS an ability check. If you sacrifice a sufficient level spell, you evoid the ability check.

But, as stated, counterspelling a spell of higher level than the one the opponent cast requires an ability check (such as if the opponent casts a 5th level spell but I cast counterspell at 3rd level). You add your spellcasting ability modifier. Bards, if they grab counterspell, get to add jack of all trades, abjurers get to add their proficiency bonus.



Yes, the 3e mechanic for counterspell was perfect for ensuring it rarely (as far as I saw, never) got used. Whether that's good or bad and whether that's better than 5e which does allow too much counterspell splatting (though it's actually more limited then many realize) is better for another thread.

Are you responding to me? I feel like there is an invisible post to which you are responding. I agreed with your previous post.

 

[Lanefan]

My first response would be that it's a game and the ruling makes the game more fun. But it also doesn't affect the realism (so much as magic can be said to have realism at all) for me, because the DM narrates the passage of time and can simply tell the story so that it makes sense:

Gameplay: Player 1 casts spell, NPC casts counterspell, Player 2 counterspells the counterspell.

Narration: As you raise your hands and the small bead of elemental energy prepares to launch from your fingers, you see Kagarr the Dark begin to raise his own hand, preparing to drain the arcane energy from your fireball. Yet before he can finish, you see a confused look come over his face; he whirls around to see Kate the Bard, winking, penny whistle at her lips as she blocks Kagarr's counterspell.

If someone objected that Kate's counterspell shouldn't have been faster than Kagarr's

That objector would be me. All day long.

I would simply answer that it obviously was, because that's what happened, and there is no particular reason that two spells have to take the exact same time to cast in my story, any more than two gunslingers would have to draw at the exact same speed. But I've never had anyone object to a counterspell being counterspelled so it's never come up.

If I was Kagarr's player you'd have a rather nasty argument on your hands, probably ending in one of us leaving the table.

Edit: your argument seems to rely on the notion that the same spell takes the exact same amount of time to cast for everyone.

Yes, it does. Casting time - even if (pathetically) handwaved in 5e - is the same, because the words and motions you go through to cast are the same as the words and motions I or anyone else go through to cast the same spell. (unless you want to open the very messy can o' worms that arises when there's different versions of the same spell existent in the setting)

But that notion is itself totally unrealistic. No two people in the real universe do the same thing at the exact same speed. That's why showdowns in Westerns are exciting.

Showdowns in Westerns don't involve casters uttering specific words and formulae and-or making highly-choreographed gestures, all at a specific and well-rehearsed speed and cadence, in order to achieve a specific result.

 

[Lanefan]

Are you responding to me? I feel like there is an invisible post to which you are responding. I agreed with your previous post.

The response was to someone else, who either you have blocked or who has blocked you.

 

[Guythegard]

If I didn’t know about there gloves before hand they make the saving throw.

 

[Clint_L]

That objector would be me. All day long.

If I was Kagarr's player you'd have a rather nasty argument on your hands, probably ending in one of us leaving the table.

Yes, it does. Casting time - even if (pathetically) handwaved in 5e - is the same, because the words and motions you go through to cast are the same as the words and motions I or anyone else go through to cast the same spell. (unless you want to open the very messy can o' worms that arises when there's different versions of the same spell existent in the setting)

Showdowns in Westerns don't involve casters uttering specific words and formulae and-or making highly-choreographed gestures, all at a specific and well-rehearsed speed and cadence, in order to achieve a specific result.

What you are really arguing is that your imaginary rules for magic should be the metric by which everyone plays D&D. As I already described, I don't see it that way. In my fantasy world, magic is just like everything else people do: some folks are better at it than others, sometimes someone might grab their reagent more slowly, speak quicker, fumble a bit under the pressure of combat, or whatever. Exactly like gunslingers.

We wouldn't have an argument about it at the table. If I was at your table, I wouldn't challenge your ruling because it's your world. Even though you would be violating the RAW per an official ruling, that's your prerogative, so I would ask for clarification and then move on, whether I agreed or not. That's how we always handle issues like this - DM's call. I imagine if this situation actually occurred, you would extend the same courtesy at my table. It's only a game of imaginary magic and stuff, after all, so none of this really matters, and I respect your position.

Edit: side note - "the words and motions you go through to cast are the same as the words and motions I or anyone else go through to cast the same spell" is demonstrably not true in 5e. For example, in the example I gave one person was (in my imagination) a wizard and the other is a bard. A sorcerer, wizard, bard, or warlock would all cast counterspell completely differently, and only the wizard would do so in the way you describe.

 

[Mort]

Are you responding to me? I feel like there is an invisible post to which you are responding. I agreed with your previous post.

No responding to @tetrasodium

He spoiler texted his quote so reply came out odd.

 

[Mort]

The response was to someone else, who either you have blocked or who has blocked you.

Ahh, that always makes things confusing!

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In a game-only sense, sure. Magic made a lot of hay with this.

But in an RPG that's trying to maintain some semblance of consistent passage of time in the setting, it doesn't make sense.

No matter how much in-game time it takes to cast a counterspell, that amount of time has to be a positive number greater than zero. If you cast one in response to my casting one, by the time yours resolves mine must have also resolved - we're casting the same spell and you in theory can't cast yours any faster than I can cast mine. (if you can, we have a much bigger problem)

And before you say you start casting yours before I start mine because you see me loading up to cast one, that doesn't work either because I could then choose to bail on casting mine, which means you almost certainly wouldn't start yours until I'd already committed to mine by beginning to cast it, in turn meaning mine has to finish before yours because it started before yours.

Sorry, but Crawford's ruling on this is utter garbage.

Counter spell is a reaction.

In the fiction Barnabus the Eldritch would be paying attention to the enemy lich and when he "notices the lich begin casting a spell" he would unleash his own counter spell which interrupts the enemy magic. He is able to do this because he anticipated the spellcasting by his foe and was prepared to intercept it.

But, off to the side is the lich's vampiric bride, Cruella the Wicked. She knows about wizard duals and that counter spells are a thing. She "notices Barnabus begin casting a spell" and unleashes her own counter spell because she was anticipating her opponent taking that action and was ready to go.

The logic is the same in both cases....a spellcaster anticipated an enemy taking an action and was prepared to do something about it.

 

[Clint_L]

I just think of it like a physical battle. Character A is trying to do something, Character B tries to stop it, and Character C intercepts to allow Character A to succeed.

I am going to do something very uncomfortable: attempt a sports analogy. Player A is going for a touchdown, Player B goes to tackle, and Player C blocks the tackle. (Is that correct? Did any of those guys break a rule? I have serious imposter syndrome right now).