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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rackhir" data-source="post: 2385350" data-attributes="member: 149">So to elaborate on the answers in the post above. Nothing about the situations you mentions directly prohibits counterspelling, but they would likely prevent the character attempting to counterspell from being able to either know a spell was being cast or prevent them from identifying the spell being cast. Both necessary conditions to be able to successfully counterspell. If you can't see the caster (invisibility) and the spell has no verbal components, then not only couldn't you identify the target to counterspell, but likely couldn't identify the spell being cast or even know that a spell was being cast in time to be able to counterspell it. In otherwords, you can't counterspell a fireball once it has gone off on top of you. On the other hand, if the spell was verbal components only and the dispelling character was able to make a spot check in order to localize the invisible caster by sound, then counterspelling would at least be possible.  In your second example, again some method of determining that a spell was being cast would most likely be necessary. Detect Magic for example might suffice.  However in both situations a penalty to the spellcraft roll needed to identify the spell being cast seems reasonable and could conceivably be high enough to make succeeding in the spellcraft roll impossible.</blockquote>