Counterspelling?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

How common is counterspelling in your campaigns?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I've never seen a PC ready to couterspell, and so far noone has taken any counterspell feats or abilities.

 

[shilsen]

I've never seen a PC ready to couterspell, and so far noone has taken any counterspell feats or abilities.

Same here. Time for me to throw a couple of counterspellers at my PCs, just so that they're aware of the option.

 

[cjdc1973]

I played a PC in a game who was a Counterspeller while in another campaign a PC drafted his own Prestge Class specificially designed to improve Counterspelling.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't think I've ever seen it done. Often the enemy caster is casting higher level spells than the PCs can manage, and has a caster level high enough to make dispelling an iffy option anyway. It's also just because no one knows about counterspelling, nor do they like having to wait and react to an opponent.

I don't think I would ever see a counterspelling focused character, as that only comes into play during the minority of times when the enemy is casting offensive spells. Better just to stop enemy magic at the source.

 

[RangerWickett]

In my last successful campaign, I told the group to make all spellcasters, or at least partial spellcasters. And then the villains were an oppressive regime of counterspell mages called the Ragesian Inquisitors. Inquisitors had the reactive counterspell feat, which let them counter a spell even if they had not readied an action to do so. By doing so, however, they gave up a standard action in their next round. After the first big fight of the game saw two PC spells countered and one reflected back on the party, the group really got into the idea of magical combat.

I even instituted spell dueling. One PC managed to learn the secrets of the Reactive Counterspell feat, and then he went on to become the premier spell duelist in an entire academy of mages.

 

[TerraDave]

Same here. Time for me to throw a couple of counterspellers at my PCs, just so that they're aware of the option.

I don't think my PCs know either, and this isn't a bad idea...but as another poster said, they would probably just be more eager to stop the problem at the source.

I still remember reading about counterspelling the first time in the 3.0 PHB: cool...wait, who is going to use this...

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I've never seen one at my regular group games, and I have never seen it at any table of the numerous Living Greyhawk conventions I have attended.

 

[AIM-54]

It came up in one of our last sessions, but that was the first time I'd ever seen it. I like it as an option, but I think it tends to get lost in the shuffle, as well as overlooked because of the mechanics of it. Spell Defense in Shadowrun is the same way. Wizard duels are always really cool in literature, but with the abilities of your average adventuring party, it's probably more expedient to just kill the bastard, rather than worrying about counterspelling and whatnot. Still, I think it's good to have the option available.

 

[wingsandsword]

It never comes up in my campaign, and I've only seen it in very rare cases (a really bad DM who wanted to "win" by making the villain a super-high level sorcerer with every spell the PC's had on his list, going into every fight with Improved Invisibility and Haste (in 3.0) and all the counterspelling feats) so this ~12th level Sorcerer could utterly obliterate the ~5th level party by counterspelling all their ranged attack spells, flying above them while invisible, and raining down Fireballs from far above.

As far as I'm concerned, Counterspelling exists as a theoretical option, something "on the books" but practically never used.