D&D 5E Counterspell nerfed!

[Alzrius]

A Beholder isn't levitating "naturally"...it's magic. Yes, it's as easy as breathing, absolutely, but it's still magic.

That's not how beholders have historically been presented in D&D. To quote from 2E's Monstrous Arcana: I, Tyrant (affiliate link), pages 5 and 47, respectively:

The skull itself does not consist of bone. It is actually a leathery cartilaginous material formed with two layers—outer and inner; connective material divides the open area into innumerable small compartments. Its resilience is one of the reasons beholders are so durable. The compartments between the two skull layers are filled with a sort of gas that allows the beholder to levitate. The beholder produces this gas within its body; it is not otherwise found in nature.

Is beholder levitation magical?

Current belief is that the beholder levitation ability is not a magical effect. Beholders often accidentally catch each other in their anti-magic rays without losing their ability to levitate. Scholars believe that this ability stems from a lighter-than air gas located somewhere in the organs of the beholder.

 

[J.Quondam]

That's not how beholders have historically been presented in D&D. To quite from 2E's Monstrous Arcana: I, Tyrant (affiliate link), pages 5 and 47, respectively:

Awesome! Next time a PC gets a good whack in on a beholder, I'll invoke my DM hat's powers to them make a Con save to avoid talking in a high squeaky voice for 1d6 rounds, due to the released helium.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

No. The Drow has no need to wiggle his finger or utter any words in order to levitate. It's an ability. The Sorcerer class is explicitly an intuitive understand of how to cast arcane spells, with a metamagic twist.

Not all innate magic is the same. Not all innate magic = spells.

Nose wiggling or not, "willing" yourself to defy gravity qualifies as "magic" as far as I'm concerned. If you look at 3e (I can't believe I just referenced 3e... O_O ), Psionics and Magic were 'equivalent'; you just manifested the effect differently. In that version of the game, you could Dispel Magic a Psionicists Levitation. I have no idea how 4e did it. There was a very good reason for this: balance. If a power hungry player has a wish and wishes to cast a 10th level fireball 3/day...but then says "WAIT! No, I wish to be able to have the Innate Ability to cause a fiery explosion as if it were a 10th level fireball 3/day!"...then you KNOW there is a problem.

But...this is D&D, and every DM has their own particular style/preferences/interpretations/etc. So I have no problem accepting that if I was bellied up to your table.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pming]

That's not how beholders have historically been presented in D&D. To quote from 2E's Monstrous Arcana: I, Tyrant (affiliate link), pages 5 and 47, respectively:

Ok, replace a Beholders "levitation" with it's eyestalk powers then.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Maxperson]

Hiya!

Nose wiggling or not, "willing" yourself to defy gravity qualifies as "magic" as far as I'm concerned.

Sure. I agree with that. The problem is that Counterspell does not counter magic. It counters spells.

If you look at 3e (I can't believe I just referenced 3e... O_O ), Psionics and Magic were 'equivalent'; you just manifested the effect differently. In that version of the game, you could Dispel Magic a Psionicists Levitation.

Or not. There was a rule in there for the DM to ignore that, but with advice that it could unbalance things. Not that psionics are relevant here. We're talking counterspell and nothing allowed a 3e wizard to counterspell psionic levitate, even though counterspelling existed in 3e.

 

[J.Quondam]

Ok, replace a Beholders "levitation" with it's eyestalk powers then.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Just to be clear, the issue here isn't really what is "magic" or not. It's about what is specifically a spell, for the purposes of the spell counterspell or abilities like the Mage Slayer feat that operate specifically on "spells".

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, replace a Beholders "levitation" with it's eyestalk powers then.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Even under the current rules you can't counterspell a beholder ray, even though they are magic. The Beholder is a perfect example under the original rules of a creature with magical actions that are like spells, but are not spells and therefore not counterable. So far I've not heard about anyone who has been confused or complained about it being inconsistent.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Has anybody mentioned Mage Slayer feat? Same issue.

Personally I don't think it's an issue; I'll still call them spells. Or not. I'm undecided.

 

[ad_hoc]

Here's a preview of what I'm talking about. Any issues you can see (outside of shillelagh being misspelled)?

View attachment 144666

This stat block is needlessly cluttered to me.

I would rather just having the Fey Club assume Shillelagh. There is a lot more writing and numbers there than there needs to be.

In general there is a lot of text here. I feel like I need to prep just to run this creature and they're only CR 1.

Removing Concentration from the Entangle effect removes some counterplay from the PCs too. Typically these sorts of effects have Concentration so that they can be disrupted.

 

[Rabulias]

Nose wiggling or not, "willing" yourself to defy gravity qualifies as "magic" as far as I'm concerned. If you look at 3e (I can't believe I just referenced 3e... O_O ), Psionics and Magic were 'equivalent'; you just manifested the effect differently. In that version of the game, you could Dispel Magic a Psionicists Levitation. I have no idea how 4e did it. There was a very good reason for this: balance. If a power hungry player has a wish and wishes to cast a 10th level fireball 3/day...but then says "WAIT! No, I wish to be able to have the Innate Ability to cause a fiery explosion as if it were a 10th level fireball 3/day!"...then you KNOW there is a problem.

In D&D 3.x edition, dispel magic also served as a general counterspell spell. A Drow's levitation was tagged as an innate spell-like ability (Su). Spell-like abilities could be dispelled, but not countered. So you could not use dispel magic to stop them from launching into the air, but you could bring them down.

As a general comment, I think we will get a clarification from WotC sometime before 2024 about how these magical abilities work in Revised 5e (Revi5ed?) vis-a-vis counterspell, globe of invulnerability, auras, etc. Hopefully it is covered in the general rules/introduction to the Monsters of the Multiverse book. Otherwise it will show up as an errata, Sage Advice, and/or AL guidelines.

For a big "No fair!" moment at your table, give a monster counterspell as an ability instead of a spell; no counter-counterspelling here!