D&D 5E Counterspell vs Counterspell

[S'mon]

The specific rule about casting two spells on your turn involves actions and bonus actions, not reactions. No broken rule there.

And he's not interrupting the casting of his fireball. He's completed it. Counterspell doesn't prevent you from completing the casting, it stops the magic from taking place. The fireball is completed, the first counterspell is completed, the second counterspell is completed and prevents the first from canceling the magic--not interrupting the casting, canceling the magic--of the fireball.

You can houserule as you like, of course, but the Sage Advice is entirely within both the letter and spirit of the RAW.

The caster has to stop casting Fireball to cast Counterspell, then complete Fireball. If Fireball had already been completed then enemy Counterspell wouldn't work. It's definitely against the spirit IMO and is a bad ruling.

 

[Leatherhead]

IMO Sage Advice is clearly wrong - for one thing this is letting the caster cast 2 spells on his own turn, which is supposed to be a no-no*. And he shouldn't be allowed to stop casting his fireball, cast a different spell, then restart & complete his original spell.

That only rule applies to casting Bonus Action spells. Which explicitly say you can only use a Bonus Action to cast a spell and a Cantrip in the same turn. So, the bonus action rule is an exception to the general rule of simply burning actions to cast spells. Not the other way around.

And to be fair, Fireball has noticeable travel time from when it leaves the wizard's hand to when it reaches the target. But more importantly, it's magic yo, physics need not apply. You can even Counterspell during a ritual, because rituals only use the Action and Concentration parts of your turn!

 

[Leatherhead]

The caster has to stop casting Fireball to cast Counterspell.

Actually, they don't. You are, in fact, interrupting someone else's interruption to your Action on your turn. Fireball is an instantaneous spell after all. The Fireball is already artificially interrupted so that things can happen. And how would you do that? By magically injecting time into the middle of the spell so that you can muck with it, obviously.

Just think of reaction spells as time manipulation, and then take a drink to forget that headache caused when you thought about time travel paradoxes.

Also of note is the fact that Counterspell only requires a Somatic component. So as long as you have a hand free, you should be ok to flip the bird to the other caster, and keep on rolling that bat guano with the other hand while chanting "Feel the burn!"

 

[ryan92084]

That sage advice isn't even a ruling just a blatant restating of the RaW with an example. Feel free to counterspell counterspells all day long. Bonus points for extending the counterspell chain.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Definitely something that benefits players more than monsters (since you do not get multiple enemy casters all that often, I would think), but it also equates to a heavy resource use. As for the timing issue - think of it as more mental duelling and the two casters sending out other streams of magic at the same time as the primary spell, rather than three discreet spells cast one after another.

I'm also not sure how the Sage Advice ruling can be 'against the spirit of the rules' when the responder helped to write them. Surely those guys know better than us what the intended spirit was?

 

[mellored]

You can also counterspell your own fireball.

Useful trick for wild sorcerers.

 

[S'mon]

I'm also not sure how the Sage Advice ruling can be 'against the spirit of the rules' when the responder helped to write them. Surely those guys know better than us what the intended spirit was?

I use the Catnic/Kirin-Amgen standard, per Lord Hoffman - "What would a reasonable
person think these words were intended to mean?" Subjective intent is not determinative.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I use the Catnic/Kirin-Amgen standard, per Lord Hoffman - "What would a reasonable
person think these words were intended to mean?" Subjective intent is not determinative.

I feel like I need a Sage Advice ruling to help me understand what this post means. Can you unpack that a little? A quick google revealed that you are talking about a House of Lords ruling on patent infringement, which seems, uh, only tangentially related?

 

[jgsugden]

From a wording perspective, Counterspell is clear that you're interrupting the creature in the process of spellcasting. So, when you counterspell a counterspell that targets your fireball, you're casting a spell during a spell that is being cast during your fireball spellcasting. The wording of counterspell is unambiguous.

However, there is no rule against doing so. Further, there is only a somatic component, so it isn't hard to picture how this could happen. If it helps your suspension of disbelief, picture the somatic component for this spell to be a stylistic pelvic thrust and to be the only spell that requires pelvic action within the spellcasting. Accordingly, the scene would play out as follows....

Wizard 1: "One part bat guano ball, one part sulfur, a finger wiggle and 'Azakafy...'"

Wizard 2 generates a pelvic thrust sending magic waves to interrupt the spellcasting of Wizard 1 during the delivery of the magic word.

Wizard 1 one notes the pelvic thrust and responds with his own thrusting pelvis counterspell to stop the waves while completing the magic word, "'...rus'"

The important thing is to picture a bunch of old wizards thrusting their pelvises in the middle of magic battles. They really drive you insa-a-a-a-a-ane.

 

[spectacle]

I'm also not sure how the Sage Advice ruling can be 'against the spirit of the rules' when the responder helped to write them. Surely those guys know better than us what the intended spirit was?

The Sage might come to realize that he has mistakenly written a rule that explicitly says the opposite of what he intended it to mean. Going with the "spirit of the rules" in would in that case mean contradicting the text of the rules, and that is what Errata is for, not Sage Advice.