D&D 5E Vecna's Dread Counterspell vs. Subtle Spell (a simple poll)

[Charlaquin]

Vecna didn't get where he is today by being fooled by cheap cheese.

Subtle spell isn’t cheese. Avoiding counterspells is literally its intended use.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Subtle spell isn’t cheese. Avoiding counterspells is literally its intended use.

It is cheap though. No one becomes a thousands of years old archlich without encountering subtle spell and learning how to beat it.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Subtle spell isn’t cheese. Avoiding counterspells is literally its intended use.

Especially considering how many groups let casters use magic sneakily, or just make the casting a lot less obvious than the default assumptions are. Letting it be counterspell proof is really all it has going in a lot of groups.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is cheap though. No one becomes a thousands of years old archlich without encountering subtle spell and learning how to beat it.

What is cheap about using a class feature exactly as intended?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What is cheap about using a class feature exactly as intended?

It's available at low level. Therefore, it's common. Vecna should be preped to counter it, just as he would prep to counter any other low level ability that could be used against him.

The way to run a a character like this is to give them a way to neutralise pretty much anything the players can throw at them.

I.e. they should be unfair, by design. Vecna isn't interested in a fair fight.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's available at low level. Therefore, it's common. Vecna should be preped to counter it, just as he would prep to counter any other low level ability that could be used against him.

Oh, you mean cheap as in not-costly. I was thinking you meant it as in sordid.

 

[Xetheral]

I voted no. Dread Counterspell could work on a subtle spell if Vecna had some reason to use the ability, but he will not make the IC decision to use Dread Counterspell if he isn't aware IC that the trigger condition has been met.

I don't interpret the adventure text as giving Vecna the ability to be aware IC of all spellcasting, and even if I did, that's an ability specific to the adventure text that Vecna wouldn't have if encountered outside that adventure. The poll question isn't limited to the recently released adventure, so we can't assume he has any of those adventure-specific abilities.

 

[Stormonu]

He's a god, of course it works.

 

[Maxperson]

Subtle spell isn’t cheese. Avoiding counterspells is literally its intended use.

It doesn't even do that completely. If you're using material components for the spell, people can still see you grab it and counter your spell. It's not like an enemy spell caster is going to be like, "He's grabbing bat guano and sulfur, but since he's not saying anything or waving his hands, he must not be casting a spell and have some other reason for grabbing those in the middle of battle." And lots of spells have material components.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, you mean cheap as in not-costly. I was thinking you meant it as in sordid.

Yeah. To Vecna it's a parlor trick that he knows for a fact that PC has. The PC still has to stop and concentrate for a bit on the spell and probably grab a material component. Vecna has thousands of years of magical combat with which to recognize when someone is using that ability.