How often is counterspell used in your games?
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Multiple times a round seems totally bonkers to me. Not in a “I don’t believe what I’m being told” way. Just...extremely surprising.
Every game I’ve been in or run in 5e, casters would rather use their slots for their own spells than counter the enemy in anything but a boss fight, most of the time. When an enemy caster is about to target a vulnerable ally, when the team is having a rough fight, or when it’s obvious the caster is trying to pull out a clutch spell, it gets used. Otherwise, not so much.
Oofta
Legend
I wasn't exaggerating with my previous post. We had 3 casters that could counterspell, there were rounds where it was spell followed by counter followed by counter the counter followed by counter of the counter of the counter followed by ... well you get the idea. Enemy spell casters rarely got off a spell unless they had a way to get around counterspell.
Like I said, I understood why the other players did it but it was kind of annoying after a while.
Autumn Bask
Villager
As someone who has played primarily caster classes, this; a thousand times this.
Half of the time I don't even take Counterspell until later level when 3rd level spells aren't as insanely valuable of a resource. I strongly tend towards spells that guarantee an effect, because missing a spell or having an enemy succeed their save, thus expending a resource and an action to do nothing, just feels horrible.
Now you might say "but Counterspell does guarantee an effect if the spell slot you're countering is the same level as your Counterspell", and my argument to that is "I've never faced a spellcaster who wasn't 1 or 2 spell levels higher than my character".
Is this irresponsible and selfish? Absolutely. But I just hate missing so much.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I have a player in my current and last two campaigns who likes to play casters and has used counterspell to great effect. I like it in that it helps capture the wizard dual trope. But whether it adds to or detracts from the fun depends on the nature of the campaign and the party makeup for the most part, however, I find it adds to the fun even if I have to make sure to account for it when prepping encounters.
Satyrn
First Post
Yeah, I've never seen it is more than once in a single round. The closest I have seen was when it used twice in the same combat, by the same PC against the same enemy.
The enemy was casting fireball both times so the rest of the party really appreciated the counterspelling.
Has never happened any any game I've DMed, in any edition I've ran since 1989. I thought it was going to happen a few sessions ago when the party was preparing to face down a nasty lich. Then I realized the party's wizard didn't take the spell, and they decided to flee the dungeon before the lich appeared anyway.
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