[Plane]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

If a caster hasn't finished casting the spell you don't need counterspell. Just incapacitate them first.

You are referring I think to the crunch of Steal Vitality and Steal Energy (which seem to function like "instant" spells with long casting times... neither have durations or maintenance costs) which questionably matches with the fluff (which make them sound like "ongoing" spells counter/suspend could work against)

For M180's Conduct Power / Steal Power / Draw Power all three I'm pretty sure are short casting times with ongoing effects, since they have maintenance costs (the necromantic spells do not have maintenance costs or durations)

I agree that's a good option but sometimes a mage has good armor and that's not so easy.

Besides: even if a mage has finished casting a spell, doesn't knocking them out prevent them from maintaining it?

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Counerspell, Suspend spell, Ward, Suspend Magic, and Dispel Magic are all ways of dealing with magic after the casting.
Suspend Mana, Suspend Magery, Drain Mana, and Drain Magery need to be used if you want to stop someone while they are casting.

I think Counterspell probably requires you know what spell you're using them against.

M121 doesn't actually specify that, but how else would you know how much energy to spend or whether to attempt it at all against something you didn't know?) you might need to use something like M102 Identify Spell prior to doing them.

Unless you have some other means of knowing (like the enemy says "I'm casting Blind!" or they're just predictable because they always cast blind first, or because you guess because your ally shouts "I'm blind!")

With that in mind (2 energy and 1 second down the drain) since "Identify Spell" also works to identify "being cast at the moment" spells (in addition to those cast within last 5 seconds) it doesn't seem like that broken of an idea to allow a mage to start casting Counterspell or Suspend spell immediately after Identify Spell tells them what spell is incoming...

Counterspell takes 5 seconds to cast so we're talking about it happening 6 seconds after the attacking caster began... unless you're a high-skilled mage you probably couldn't finish casting it prior to the attacker anyway. If it were possible to "prevent the spell going off" by unleashing Counterspell into the casting, it actually seems like a pretty cool idea.

I realize "nuke that incoming spell before it takes effect" is the realm of "Ward" (M122 Blocking Spell) but given the differences it doesn't seem bad to allow both options.

Ward is going to be cheaper (2 energy) than using Counterspell against spells which cost 5+ energy, and requires no prep time. This gap would only narrow with high-skilled counterspell that would reduce it to 1 second (minimum) or 0 energy. I think this might require high skill in BOTH counterspell and the spell you're countering though, since you use the lesser of the two?

It also appears based on the description that you do NOT actually need to know WHICH spell you're reacting to to use Ward (you just need to know the spell)

If it turns out the spell being cast is not one the defending mage can ward against, the ward is wasted.

IE they do not actually need to specify "Ward Against Blind" but just "Ward Against Any Spell I know at 12+" and they inherently tap into their own skill with whatever spell that is to determine the skill cap on Ward. This is doable since Ward has a fixed cost unrelated to the cost of the spell being warded.

Since Counterspell's cost depends on the spell being countered, there's the implication of the caster needing to specify their intent. Meaning if you guessed the wrong spell or crit failed your Identify Spell (spent the wrong energy) then it's wasted.

Another thing we should keep in mind is that mages aren't always going to know immediate "I'd better cast identify spell!" because first they would actually need to know that spellcasting is happening. That would usually require perception rolls.

That might be easy if it's a low-skilled enemy using a lot of gestures/sound (over a long period of time) but less-so against high-skilled enemies who can omit gesture/sound, or if they can't, at least spend shorter period of time doing them.

When a spell actually goes off, there's presumably a big visible effect to it (unless you enhance w/ Low Signature per Thaumatology) which is why it'd be easy to "react at the last moment" (ie Block with Ward) or "react after it went off" (the usual implied approach of Counterspell).

Counterspell only works on "ongoing" spells so it's technically illegal to allow it to impede a spell before casting is completed. But balance-wise, given the extreme difficulty of using it pre-completion like this, I don't actually see a problem. Basically treat all spells as "ongoing" during the period of their casting.

This would also allow "steal spell" (also traditionally limited to 'ongoing' spells) to interfere with casting, but if it imparted anything, it would be a "partially cast" spell which you'd need to keep casting yourself to complete into anything useful. You'd also have to pay the entire energy cost at the end since the caster

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are interrupted before completing a spell, you might not even lose energy. Closest I can find is M8:

You may “abort” an unfinished spell before it is cast, at no penalty,

I figure "penalty" referring to FP loss but I'm not entirely sure.

If we treated a "preliminary counterspell" as working that way, it seems entirely balanced to do that. This still keeps "Ward" very niche: using it deprives the caster of the FP they spent on the spell, whereas using Counterspell prior to completion would not deprive them of the FP.

The only way Counterspell would deprive is after they completed it...

If someone had the "Continuous Ritual (Counterspell)" perk then it seems fair to allow them to hold off activating it like a Wait maneuver to react just as it went off. "Attacking into a spell" seems a lot like a "Stop Hit" so we might possibly use MA108's rules: treat it as "you both hit" and whoever got the better MoS in their spell gets +1 in the Quick Contest to see if Counterspell works.

Another option might be to use Reflex + Counterspell, and to allow that to work against any spell (including instant ones) rather than only ongoing spells.

Another feather in the cap of Ward: Identify Spell must have a target. So you either need to cast it on some ally you think might be the target of magic (kind of hard to know) or the wizard you think is casting magic (probably easier to figure out if they're mumbling and dancing)

M121 Scryguard PROTECTS against this though. Basically it's two tier:

1) Identify Spell QC v Wizard's Will : success means you detect Scryguard is up (and recognize it if you know what Scryguard is)
2) Identify Spell QC vs Scryguard: success means you can actually see past the SG to recognize whatever spell he's casting (or cast in last 5 seconds).

Scryguard is cheap to maintain (1 energy per 10 hours) so a lot of mages may just have that up all the time (skill 15 = free maintenance, or if using Maintain Spell: 1 energy lasts 50 hours) and many of them will probably put it up as a precaution before casting spells if they think there's another wizard around who might use Counterspell.

not actually sure how to do that though, M101 Detect Magic or M102 Mage Sense? Seek Magic explicitly excludes mages but these don't...

If you pass the 1st contest but not the 2nd, then your only option is to cast Counterspell against Scryguard itself, since that's the only spell you identified. M127 Spellguard could also be used to protect against this!

After that, you could cast Identify Spell a 2nd time, but by that time they might well have finished casting!

Ward doesn't need to worry about that junk.

M122 Conceal Magic is a similar problem, nothing says you can't stack them, so you not only have to worry about winning a 2nd contest, but also get a penalty to casting Identify Spell against stuff that has this up.

M123 Scryfool is another problem that Counterspellers would need to worry about and Warders would not.

I expect these meta defensive spells also probably are subtle to detect too, like even if we assume there's a "flashy obvious poof" when spells are initiated, that could be done ahead of time and then later it's presumably non-obvious without special agbilities? IE we don't assume someone with SF/SG/CM is glowing or humming? Or should it require 'Low Signature' to avoid this?

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Similarly, missile spells aren't present until they are cast. Note that a wizard holding a missile spell has already cast the spell. Throwing the spell isn't part of the casting. This means you could counterspell a missile spell being held. This seems reasonable to me, though I'm not entirely certain.

It's a nice alternative to needing to wait to use Catch Spell (I wish they'd call that Catch Missile Spell)

Although when I look at how "Throw Spell" modifies other spells (you don't even roll for them until the missile hits) I'm actually not sure if Counterspell would need to target just Throw Spell rather than what it's carrying (prior to impact)