Counterspell / Suspend Spell and reductions in Cost or Time due to high skill

[Plane]

M121 mentions similar things:

Roll against the lower of your Counterspell skill or your skill with the spell being countered.

Suspend Spell is cast at the lower of the user’s Suspend Spell skill and his
skill with the spell being suspended.

This makes it clear what you actually roll to see if it works... but does this affect Magic Rituals requirements from M8/M9 ?

Also what is the order of operations between "apply penalties" and "use lesser of two" ?

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For example: if I have Counterspell at skill 20 (half casting time, -2 cost) and want to counter Berserker (M134: 3 energy) placed on an ally and my skill in Berserker is only 9, then I need to roll 9 or less for the Counterspell to work, but what investment is required?

A) two/2 energy (1.5 rounded up) and ten/10 seconds (five seconds doubled for low skill) as if my Counterspell were skill 9 ?
B) 0 energy and three/3 seconds (1.5 rounded up)

Basically I'm not sure if this works like being in Low Mana (reduction which does affect ritual/energy/time) or like a -1/yard range modifier on your roll (doesn't affect it)

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Range modifiers are also something I'm wondering about in regards to what you roll too.

For example if my ally is 5 yards away (-5 to skill on regular spells) do I subtract 5 from 20 (effective counterspell skill 15) and then compare that to berserker (cast at 9)? Or do I first use the lower of the two (skill 9) and then apply the -5/yard and need to roll a 4 or less?

[corwyn]

IMO, there's some pretty serious white room-theory crafting here (how is your CS level 11 higher than Berserker? Did you spend 40 points on Counterspell? Even with Single college magery in Meta, that's at least 20 points in Counterspell. A Counter that will almost never work because your other spells have a base of 9. I would strongly encourage the player to rework since the concept is likely to fail. However, ...

Originally Posted by Plane

This makes it clear what you actually roll to see if it works... but does this affect Magic Rituals requirements from M8/M9 ?

The actual spell you are casting is Counterspell. Base skill is 20 so half casting time, -2 energy cost.

Also what is the order of operations between "apply penalties" and "use lesser of two" ?

Order is irrelevant since you will have to apply penalties to both spell levels.

For example: if I have Counterspell at skill 20 (half casting time, -2 cost) and want to counter Berserker (M134: 3 energy) placed on an ally and my skill in Berserker is only 9, then I need to roll 9 or less for the Counterspell to work, but what investment is required?

A) two/2 energy (1.5 rounded up) and ten/10 seconds (five seconds doubled for low skill) as if my Counterspell were skill 9 ?
B) 0 energy and three/3 seconds (1.5 rounded up)

B, though it's 2.5 rounded up.

Basically I'm not sure if this works like being in Low Mana (reduction which does affect ritual/energy/time) or like a -1/yard range modifier on your roll (doesn't affect it)

Low mana reduction works like low mana; nothing else does. Irrelevant to this example.

Range modifiers are also something I'm wondering about in regards to what you roll too.

For example if my ally is 5 yards away (-5 to skill on regular spells) do I subtract 5 from 20 (effective counterspell skill 15) and then compare that to berserker (cast at 9)? Or do I first use the lower of the two (skill 9) and then apply the -5/yard and need to roll a 4 or less?

Range modifiers apply regardless of which skill level you are starting from:

(Lower of 20 or 9) - 5 == Lower of (20 - 5) and (9-5)

Both = 4 and I strongly recommend not casting since your chance of crit failing is much higher than your chance of success.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Order is irrelevant since you will have to apply penalties to both spell levels.

Range penalties might be different: Berserk has to be cast on the person you are berserking, but Counterspell can either be cast on the victim of Berserk OR the caster of the Berserk spell.

In the latter case I'm not sure how you figure out who that is though... is there a spell to analyze an active spell to figure out who it's caster was?

If not and there isn't some obvious "hey I berserked your friend" villain bragging... then would it be -5 because you're doing an unseen "I'm targeting whoever attacked my friend, wherever they are, hopefully they're in range" sort of thing (one of the benefits to magic over advantages with the Malediction enhancement: with Regular Spells per B239 you don't even need to be able to sense your target)

Originally Posted by corwyn

The actual spell you are casting is Counterspell. Base skill is 20 so half casting time, -2 energy cost.

In this case wouldn't this time/cost reduction explain why someone might pump it incredibly higher than any other spell they know?

Whereas if cost/time were based on the lesser of two (like with casting) nobody would ever buy Counterspell higher than their highest spell.

Originally Posted by corwyn

B, though it's 2.5 rounded up.

Indeed, I can't remember if that was a brain flub or a typo on my end last night.

Originally Posted by corwyn

Low mana reduction works like low mana; nothing else does. Irrelevant to this example.

Low Mana is basically something I'm using as an example as working different from range penalties on cost/time/ritual (something I'm often prone to forgetting)

The only thing besides Very Low Mana (or Continuous Mana in the negative) which I could see possible working this way is things that would lower the base skill.

[QUOTE=corwyn;2391705]
Range penalties are applied to final skill, for example, whereas since skills are based on IQ, I'm not sure if that works like lowering base skill or not...

I'm actually wondering if no because of how B250 describes Foolishness as "to his IQ and IQ-based skills".

Unless that is meant to imply double-dipping (-2 per energy total: one from lowering the IQ, one from lowering the IQ-based skill .. unlikely) the necessity of a separate mention seems to imply that IQ penalties actually don't lower IQ-based skills...

Otherwise it would just say "to his IQ" then instead of "and skills" you'd expect to see it worded as a reminder like "remember this reduces your IQ-based skills"

Originally Posted by corwyn

Range modifiers apply regardless of which skill level you are starting from:

(Lower of 20 or 9) - 5 == Lower of (20 - 5) and (9-5)

Both = 4 and I strongly recommend not casting since your chance of crit failing is much higher than your chance of success.

In the top of my post I mentioned one might perceive range penalty calculation as different for counterspell (since it can have 2 targets).

Another is that Counterspell is Regular but you might be targeting a non-Regular ongoing spell, such as an Information Spell which uses (M14) Long-Distance Modifiers.

It's hard to find an example since most information spells are instant (not maintained) but there are a couple like Mage Sense (M102) and Summon Shade (M103)

In that case the penalties to Counterspell based on range to the target of the spell would be much higher than the penalties you'd have for casting that information spell on the target.

So basically it would heavily matter if you first reduced Counterspell to a lower Information Spell prior to adding the Counterspell's -1/yard penalties to it, or if you could apply the -1/yard penalties first, and then only lower the final effective skill of Counterspell if the other spell is lower than the reduced-Counterspell.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Plane

Range penalties might be different: Berserk has to be cast on the person you are berserking, but Counterspell can either be cast on the victim of Berserk OR the caster of the Berserk spell.

No it won't. We aren't casting Berserk. We are specifically talking about the order of calculating of Counterspell.

In the latter case I'm not sure how you figure out who that is though... is there a spell to analyze an active spell to figure out who it's caster was?

If his skill is 20+ you probably can't without a spell. Below that, you might get a Thaumatology roll when it is cast.

In this case wouldn't this time/cost reduction explain why someone might pump it incredibly higher than any other spell they know?

Nope, because your chance of countering that lower spell is practically 0. If you have a base skill of Berserk of 9 (requiring IQ 10 and Magery 1 at most, which was pointed out to you in the other thread) you'll almost never succeed in countering it, even at no range penalties. Remember, it's also resisted. Good luck.

What is better:
20, cost 0, 3 turns, capped at 9, or
spending those 40 points on Magery and getting
16, cost 1, 5 turns, capped at 13?

Range penalties are applied to final skill, for example, whereas since skills are based on IQ, I'm not sure if that works like lowering base skill or not...

I'm actually wondering if no because of how B250 describes Foolishness as "to his IQ and IQ-based skills".

Unless that is meant to imply double-dipping (-2 per energy total: one from lowering the IQ, one from lowering the IQ-based skill .. unlikely) the necessity of a separate mention seems to imply that IQ penalties actually don't lower IQ-based skills...

Otherwise it would just say "to his IQ" then instead of "and skills" you'd expect to see it worded as a reminder like "remember this reduces your IQ-based skills"

You're reading way too much into that. It's a redundant reminder that it affects skills as well.

In the top of my post I mentioned one might perceive range penalty calculation as different for counterspell (since it can have 2 targets).

Another is that Counterspell is Regular but you might be targeting a non-Regular ongoing spell, such as an Information Spell which uses (M14) Long-Distance Modifiers.

It's hard to find an example since most information spells are instant (not maintained) but there are a couple like Mage Sense (M102) and Summon Shade (M103)

In that case the penalties to Counterspell based on range to the target of the spell would be much higher than the penalties you'd have for casting that information spell on the target.

So basically it would heavily matter if you first reduced Counterspell to a lower Information Spell prior to adding the Counterspell's -1/yard penalties to it, or if you could apply the -1/yard penalties first, and then only lower the final effective skill of Counterspell if the other spell is lower than the reduced-Counterspell.

No it wouldn't. Again, because you apply range penalties in both calculations.