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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8675399" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, as I said above, in the context of the full adventure, where it IS said that Vecna has a persistent scry character sheet effect active, then of course he can always do that.But the response above was claiming that just Dread Counterspell itself justifies being able to counter a sorcerer's Subtle Spell based on wording alone. I reject that argument, because the text of Dread Counterspell does not establish the ability to know whether a spellcaster is, in fact, casting a spell. When Dread Counterspell as written is combined with the absent information that Vecna is always able to detect spellcasting no matter what, then you get the unavoidable conclusion that Subtle Spell is worthless against him because he isn't reliant on witnessing verbal or somatic components to know that someone is casting.That is, to be very clear: if we got a different creature later on that also had Dread Counterspell, with the same mechanics, then that feature alone would not justify being able to ignore Subtle Spell's suppression of the only obvious tells of (some) spells. Let's call it a Baleful Necromancer. Something like a fireball or magic missile, which clearly has an origin at a particular person, might permit the Baleful Necromancer to use Dread Counterspell; out of respect for the player's expenditure of resources, I would probably make some kind of roll (likely Investigation) to see if the Baleful Necromancer notices where the spell originated from. But something like a Divine Soul (or Boros Legionnaire) Sorcerer casting Subtle flame strike would be perfectly reasonable to not give any tells, since the spell pulls down fire from the sky onto the target--anyone could've cast it.Vecna specifically has hacker powers that let him see the game rules even when he has no business knowing them. Those powers enable him to use Dread Counterspell even on a spell modified by Subtle Spell. A creature without Vecna's permanent scry character sheet effect does not have that benefit.</blockquote>

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