Do your players use counterspell?

[retan]

I have run two D&D 3e campaigns from 1st to 16th level, and I have almost never seen the counterspell mechanic used. How often is it used in your campaigns and in which situations is it used?

I was wondering because I had an idea for a PrC that can do other things with counterspelling than simply countering the spells of the opponent (examples include re-target the spell).

 

[FEADIN]

Since the release of 3rd edition, I have never seen a counterspell attempt in our gaming club, I think that with only 4 players waiting for the ennemies to cast spells is wasting time even if we are more than 4 to play (around 5 or 6), spellcasters prefer to blast creature first.

 

[Krelios]

In roughly 10 years of gaming, I have never seen anyone (PC or NPC) attempt a counterspell. It's just not a mechanic that is intuitive or one that is usually the best option at any given time.

 

[Chris Nagle]

In our current campaign we have a 16th Level Warlock that uses counterspelling in the big battles against spellcasters.

He usually uses a quickened eldricth blast using a feat then prepare counterspell.

 

[TheGogmagog]

I can't think of counterspell ever being used in any of the games I have played or DM'd. We had discussed whether it could be done in situations maybe a dozen times since 3.0, but I don't think we followed through more than twice.

That is one post you don't see here or on WOTC Boards.... "OMG! Counterspell is SOOooo Broken!!"

The closest I have seen is casting spells that counter existing spells. Like Light on Darkness or Slow on Haste, but never part of an anticipated prepared action.

 

[Shallown]

The easy way to get players to start counterspelling is to counter spell them a few times.

I often as a player have counter spelled usually with dispel magic bad guys to shut down thier ability to do things to the party. If you have one big spell caster surrounded by mooks it is often useful to counter spell him while the party wipes out the mooks after the Big bad caster fails to geta few spells off and loses those spells they get a little nervous.

At higher levels in a previous campaign I ran the cleric would summon something that had dispel magic at will and order them to counter spell and not do anything else. It worked often enough to make it worth it.

it is a tactic that is sometimes worth it just has to be applied correctly. I often use it to keep bad guys from getting away during a fight. Once things have turned against them and fleeing seems the bad guys best choice I make sure they can't do it magically.

Later

 

[Nail]

I've played in four different games since 3.0e (and 3.5e), 2 of them long term. I've never seen counterspell used by a player. I've seen it used twice by the DM. In both cases the DM specifically made the NPC into a counterspelling machine.....so I'm not sure that "counts".

 

[Nail]

At higher levels in a previous campaign I ran the cleric would summon something that had dispel magic at will and order them to counter spell and not do anything else. It worked often enough to make it worth it.

What creature did you summon that had such a power? (I smell a house rule.)

 

[Jack Simth]

What creature did you summon that had such a power? (I smell a house rule.)

Babau, Summon Monster VII, I suspect.

 

[Nail]

I stand corrected!


Still, with a CL of 7 from the babau (which requires SM VII, hence 13th lvl wizard), the Dispel Magic counterspell is far from a sure thing.....