D&D (2024) Is Counterspell less frustrating now?

[Mirrorrorrim]

I don't know if this was brought up (I'm still on page 5 of the thread), and I don't know if there's even an enemy who can cast spells who has this ability or not offhand, so this might be a total hypothetical-

It strikes me as odd that a creature with magic resistance granting advantage on saves vs. magic/spells would be harder to counterspell. Maybe that makes sense to some people, but that's my first impression.

I think this version of counterspell is an abjuration that mindslaps someone to disrupt their spell rather than do damage. Targets the opponent? Check. Con save or be disrupted? Check. Spell resistance to resist the mindslap? Check. This would mean Yuan-ti Purebloods and other PC-species with magic resistance resist Counterspell easier as well.

 

[Leatherhead]

Here are the problems as I see them:

(New and presumably Revised) Monsters don't use Counterspell, they use Negate Spell. Therefore, players will not be seeing the benefits of this nerf, it's only there to make monsters harder to shut down. (And I use the term "shut down" liberally, because being countered is nowhere near as devastating as being actually shut down with a condition like stun.)

I know there is a contingent of people who want Counterspell nerfed on the basis that "Counterspell should be nerfed, it's too centralizing" But that ignores the fact that Counterspell has already been nerfed: Monsters use less spells now, instead relying on Magical Attacks and ability's that are not spells to do spell-like effects, and sometimes peppering in a real spell as part of the attack action or a bonus action, maybe even a Legendary action. This dramatically alters the action economy angle of Counterspell. You are no longer trading a reaction for an entire action, you are trading a reaction for a small part of a round. Meaning Monsters are already harder to stop with the Old Counterspell. And this is completely sidestepping the fact it is easier for several kinds of monsters to just shrug off a new Counterspell.

Finally, Counterspell is basically the only counterplay there is against most spells. If you are finding yourself staring down the barrel of a "Save or go play on your phone for the rest of this combat because you don't get to act" situation you are just SOL now. Sure, losing one turn on a solo monster was bad, but losing an entire combat as a player is undoubtedly worse. This is a problem that can only be solved with a massive overhaul of mechanics for basically every spell in the game that functions as control, and WotC has already implied they are not willing to perform such an extreme revision for the new rules.

 

[James Gasik]

I think this version of counterspell is an abjuration that mindslaps someone to disrupt their spell rather than do damage. Targets the opponent? Check. Con save or be disrupted? Check. Spell resistance to resist the mindslap? Check. This would mean Yuan-ti Purebloods and other PC-species with magic resistance resist Counterspell easier as well.

Hm. I guess. Abjurations that attack a target directly seem odd too, but not completely unprecedented, I guess, though I'd really like it if we had an Abjuration spell that worked like a "trap card"; ie, you cast the spell on someone and if they attempt to cast a spell, it triggers and then attempts to counter it.

 

[mellored]

Wrong. Tons of spells and abilities ignore legendary resistance. Counterspell is hardly unique. For example, dispel magic also ignores it. A spell as basic as fire bolt ignores it. All legendary resistance does is let you automatically succeed on a saving throw, so no saving throw, no legendary resistance.

The whole point of legendary resistance is to make sure the BBEG gets to take a turn.

Neither dispel magic nor firebolt will not stop their turn either.

Only counter spell could.

 

[kigmatzomat]

It's there to make it so the spell doesn't hose the encounter. Because the spell can hose the encounter. Because it's a badly design spell coasting on nostalgia and tradition.

Culture and tradition would let the fighter/monk/cleric/bard/thief/wizard/etc stab the caster while they were casting (either through initiative, held action or AoO by edition), causing damage and interrupting the spell.

Limiting spell interruption to a finite resource only started with 5e and was a boon to casters on both sides of the table.

Making spell interruption only available to casters was a huge sea change that only started with 5e.

Making spell interuption only available to a few casters reduces the impact even more.

You don't like counterspell. Fine. I don't like counterspell.

But I want fighters to go back to slapping the verbal component right out of a caster's mouth. Because that is culture and tradition.

And, imo, game balance. I am a-ok nerfing wizards on all sides of the table.

 

[Clint_L]

The whole point of legendary resistance is to make sure the BBEG gets to take a turn.

Neither dispel magic nor firebolt will not stop their turn either.

Only counter spell could.

Counterspell now ends a whole turn for a legendary creature? Wow - I didn’t realize it was that OP; I thought it just countered one low level spell, or a higher level spell if lucky/upcast. It must really suck to have 0 movement, no legendary actions, reactions, bonus actions, multiple actions…

How many legendary creatures are we talking about now?

 

[James Gasik]

Culture and tradition would let the fighter/monk/cleric/bard/thief/wizard/etc stab the caster while they were casting (either through initiative, held action or AoO by edition), causing damage and interrupting the spell.

Limiting spell interruption to a finite resource only started with 5e and was a boon to casters on both sides of the table.

Making spell interruption only available to casters was a huge sea change that only started with 5e.

Making spell interuption only available to a few casters reduces the impact even more.

You don't like counterspell. Fine. I don't like counterspell.

But I want fighters to go back to slapping the verbal component right out of a caster's mouth. Because that is culture and tradition.

And, imo, game balance. I am a-ok nerfing wizards on all sides of the table.

I would argue that the Concentration skill from 3e was where limiting spell interruption started, though as I recall, a 3e developer did state that it was born from a fairly common optional rule used by AD&D DM's prior. I know an AD&D DM of my own had a variant, where you could make a Wisdom check to avoid losing a spell being cast.

Also, 3e had the original system for counterspelling (thought admittedly it was clunky and not many people did it, but it was there).

 

[kigmatzomat]

I would argue that the Concentration skill from 3e was where limiting spell interruption started, though as I recall, a 3e developer did state that it was born from a fairly common optional rule used by AD&D DM's prior. I know an AD&D DM of my own had a variant, where you could make a Wisdom check to avoid losing a spell being cast.

Also, 3e had the original system for counterspelling (thought admittedly it was clunky and not many people did it, but it was there).

3E was a bit of give and take. In 2e if you hit the caster in the time segments they were casting, they automatically lost the spell, but that required luck on the initiative or held actions. 3e did make it a concentration check, but spellcasting triggered AoOs so that adjacent PCs could attack independent of their initiative (and it was still damage dealt).

BBEG casts spell, adjacent fighter, monk & cleric whomp on it. Even if the spell isn't lost, it took extra hits.

Using dispel magic as a counterspell was just one option to block casters. It was based on the caster's roll, but so was throwing any other spell and relying on the damage to break concentration.

Of course, 3e dispel was available to pretty much all casters (aside from rangers and some PrCs) that was also capable of breaking non-spell effects (i.e. Spell-like and Supernatural) and shutting down magic items for d4 rounds.

Just imagine the cries of "they nerfed my BBEG!" If 5e GMs had to deal with vorpal swords just being swords or auras going poof.

 

[tetrasodium]

I would argue that the Concentration skill from 3e was where limiting spell interruption started, though as I recall, a 3e developer did state that it was born from a fairly common optional rule used by AD&D DM's prior. I know an AD&D DM of my own had a variant, where you could make a Wisdom check to avoid losing a spell being cast.

Also, 3e had the original system for counterspelling (thought admittedly it was clunky and not many people did it, but it was there).

Someone else mentioned it but concentration wasn't quite what you described. Again 2e had too many differences for easy comparison but a few relevant ones were noted n 178. In 3.x though concentration realistically came up in two kinds of situations.

The first was sometimes common and almost always well deserved. Casting a spell provoked an AoO (attack of opportunity) and getting hit by it required a concentration check or lose the spell/slot. That scenario was attempting to surprise attack in a social situation when discussions broke down. You could get around it by previously preparing a quickened version of the spell in a higher level slot but that kind of dark Willow:"bored now" was for (some) class abilities/magic items and martials or (some scary) monsters not a wizard or whatever. Sorcerer may have been able to spontaneously apply metamagic I think but it was still probably an unsavory option because then they were starting a fight in melee (or close to it) where they were going to be vulnerable to the other situation right out of the gate.

the other situation was casting a spell in melee during a fight (with initiative and everything). If a concentration check was made then either the caster was already effectively in check (chess style) in a way that left them feeling like casting the spell while threatened (mostly an "in melee range" analog)was there best/only option. Casters would make an effort to avoid needing to do that and as a result any kind of yard trash mooks/minions could put significant pressure on casters just by herding them around. That went both ways though and the mooks could still provide the bbeg a round or two of delay with little effort most times. If a caster was getting smacked by an AoO for casting in melee it meant that the caster already failed and lost the first step to not be in melee like that and chose to take that risk. 5e got rid of all the nuance and made that "bored now" with impunity the default.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Honestly, I think the poor encounter design trend is because the rules are too simple and it has descended to rock-paper-scissors, and yet some people are trying to get "rock" banned.

Speaking of rock vs wizard, in a previous edition, during some one-shot adventure a non-good PC caster charmed/enraged/Mass Suggestion a whole village of halflings and had them hold action & throw rocks at the evil wizard any time they thought it was casting.

The BBEG got off zero spells because 80 peasant halflings average 4 nat 20s each round. I don't remember what racial bonuses were at play but it was brutal & comical. (Of course, if the heroes hasn't defeated the wizard it would have returned to burn the village to the ground at range.)