M_Natas
Hero
I think what would have helped is some guidance (not the spell) in the books on how the intended play is.Couterpoint: that's what multiple campiangs I'm in (two playing, on running) and it doesn't slow it down significantly.
Great, they are playing with house rules that make the spell OP. A table having house rules does NOT make the spell OP.
As said, we do, and it doesn't add a lot of time.
Of course, because we do that, counterspell isn't OP so no everyone has it so it comes up far less.
In other words, this is entirely a problem of the table's own making on a balanced spell. They (a) make it OP, (b) because it's OP everyone always has it, (c) because all casters and foes have it, the call response would come up more often and make playing it correctly take more time.
This is the exact case of "after the roll but before if it's known if it's a success or not" that comes up for other things - if the DM just blurts out "it's a success!" or "it failed!" before a chance to evaluate, it makes the ability more powerful.
Also, another big problem is: outside of counterspell I can't think of a spell or another reaction that can be used in the specific time when the casting a spell action is declared but the spell itself is not yet declared.
So counterspell is an outlier. Only one spell makes uses of that specific time frame which you otherwise wouldn't need to specify, which is strange and not very well designed.