Technically you can turn of the power to a bath tub cause they most likely have a pump somewhere in the water system to keep the water flowing when it is uphill. So if you turn off the power to that you turned off the power to a bath tub
You are incorrect. “You learn the Misty Step spell…” “You can cast each of these spells without expending a spell slot.” It specifies a 1st-level spell in addition, but any player who tried to tell me that their misty step is uncounterable because it doesn’t specify is getting laughed at. The rules are very clear that spells cast without a slot are at their base level. The meme as a whole is also potentially incorrect, innate spellcasting doesn’t remove component requirements unless it specifically says so.
The meme isn't talking about innate spellcasting, it's talking about the new "spell-like abilities" on NPC casters in MotM. They aren't spells, have no components, and cannot be counterspelled
Just the latest in “screw your counterplay” in the name of “streamlining” like making near to all the monsters with the “magical weapons” trait just deal force damage instead which fucks over barbarians
I was very confused when you said "new" but then remembered that this is 5e and not PF.
Spell-like Abilities were always a thing there, but more often than not they tend to do things that don't require a DC for simplicity's sake (ie. small buffs from clerics and the like) and if they do they specify the DC formula.
They're not talking about the DC of the ability itself. They're talking about the DC needed to counter it with counterspell. For spells higher than 3rd level, the caster of counterspell needs to succeed on an ability check where the DC is 10 + the level of the spell being countered. However, if you have an SLA that's basically Fireball but with minor changes, and oh also it's a monster trait and not a spell, it's now impossible to set the DC for counterspelling it since it's not a spell and therefore has no spell level. Just demonstrating that these new spiritual successors to SLAs are tough for players to get around, even if you allow a counterspell for it, there's no clear cut way to set the DC. I personally don't think these developments are bad, just wanted to clarify what I see people arguing here.
As a DM, if it's using a spell as an innate ability I allow it. The spell has a level, the DC is clear. In lore, there's a case to be made that sorcerer casting is an innate spell like ability.
For spell like abilities that aren't copying the effects of a spell, I make the call before bringing the creature into combat. It depends how "spell like" the spell like ability is. If I decide to allow it, I set the spell level to the creature's PB.
Wasn't there a monster in the witch light book that had an ability called fire blast or something, that was clearly just a level 3 fireball? Some abilities have clear equivalents.
And they were made into spell-like abilities specifically to prevent counterspell from applying.
Of all the changes to stat blocks from the new design philosophy, this is actually the best.
I get, that from a player perspective, a non-counterspellable ability is annoying. But you know what's not only annoying, but disappointing to everyone, players included? A spellcaster BBEG wasting their turn because they got counterspelled, and dying before the next round.
Given the choice between an anticlimactic boss fight and not being able to counterspell a fireball, I know which one I'd pick.
A spellcaster BBEG should have work-arounds. Like, counter spelling the counter spell, having minions to do the same, legendary actions to still do things.
If your BBEG is a lone spell caster without unique and clever tools it's going to have a bad time just due to the action economy.
Making a fireball an ability instead of a spell is lazy for balancing
Does it work? Yes. It's quite effective even. But it's not fun being a DM telling the party "yes, this ability is exactly as this spell, but it's an ability so no counter spell" feels cheap.
It also nerfs mage slayer.
>Of all the changes to stat blocks from the new design philosophy, this is actually the best.
It's actually the worst because it doesn't come with adjustments to the player-facing rules to reflect the decision that monsters are *technically* no longer casting spells (despite working mostly the same and looking the same).
Any player that learns and/or prepares Counterspell now finds out that they made the wrong choice, because it's not going to work. Any character that has some feature that interacts with spells specifically now finds themselves possessing an useless feature.
>A spellcaster BBEG wasting their turn because they got counterspelled, and dying before the next round.
Ah, yes, my players *hate* overcoming a villain by using their skills and knowledge to counter the villain.
Also if your BBEG is dying in one turn, there's three options: the players got absurdly lucky, the BBEG was severely underpowered, or the players were massively overpowered. That's an encounter design issue, not a monster design one.
>It's actually the worst because it doesn't come with adjustments to the player-facing rules to reflect the decision that monsters are technically no longer casting spells (despite working mostly the same and looking the same).
Monsters still cast spells. Some of them just have "signature" abilities that don't use the spellcasting mechanic.
>Some of them just have "signature" abilities that don't use the spellcasting mechanic.
... Which look and behave like spells in every other regard, except ignoring PC abilities that interact with spells because *fuck you*, I guess.
Should we give vampires the ability to force any target to fail their save against the vampire's charm? After all, that's a "signature ability" of the vampire, and it's just anticlimactic if the vampire uses an action to charm a character but they save, I suppose. Same could go for liches and their paralysing touch, and so on.
This paradigm shift is awful because it's arbitrary and creates trap choices if you try to build a PC that's effective at dealing with spellcasters, because they now have "signature abilities" that aren't spells and ignore all the ways you choose to try and contrast them. And those abilities tend to be exactly the stuff that a player would want to contrast.
Should we scrap the Illusionist's 10th level "Illusory Self" ability, too? The Transmuter's 14th level "Master Transmuter"? The Enchanter's 6th level "Instinctive Charm"? The Diviner's "Portent"? What about the Conjurer's "Benign Transposition"?
Spell-like abilities that aren't actually spells have been in the game from the beginning.
>Should we give vampires the ability to force any target to fail their save against the vampire's charm? After all, that's a "signature ability" of the vampire, and it's just anticlimactic if the vampire uses an action to charm a character but they save, I suppose. Same could go for liches and their paralysing touch, and so on.
False equivalency. Kellek's "Fiery Explosion" allows a save. And I'll point out that the vampire's charm is *exactly* the kind of ability that you are complaining about. It's not a spell, but it effectively duplicates *charm person*.
Where's the hate for all the *preexisting* spell-like abilities?
I'm not sure I'd take that choice, as a DM or Player. 5e already has enough "Rules for the, but not for me" stuff between PCs and NPCs going for it, without clearly spellcasting enemies suddenly getting to break the rules because they want to be cool, and screwing over a ton of anti-spellcaster class features/player options besides.
Finally though, and you may find this bit important, this does makes these uncounterable spell-like abilities available to players by way of any transformation/conjuration magic they may happen to possess.
Okay, so then tell your players you don't like counterspell instead of just blanket removing all its usefulness from the game for everyone who *does* like it. People take it because it feels really cool as a player to get to counterspell and since you only get one reaction a round it leaves you open for anything else to happen without you being able to defend.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UzKJWWPsqv0
This cannot be counterspelled. It happens too quick, there is no time to react to it, no signs it is going to happen, no pre-existing reason to know how to stop it, no words or semantics to recognize what spell it is. Not only from a mechanics standpoint is it impossible to rationalize, if you play the spell being cast in a movie scene there is no way some things can be counter spelled
Incorrect, it uses the lowest possible level.
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/147913/what-level-is-a-spell-if-you-cast-it-without-expending-a-spell-slot
DMs can make up/estimate DCs for everything else but not this? I'm sure it's not too hard to estimate how powerful the effect is relative to existing spells and choose an appropriate level.
Not everything can be counterspelled. It's already an absurdly powerful spell compared to how counterspelling was handled in literally every other edition of the game.
Would you argue you should be able to counterspell a monk's stunning strike or a dragon's breath weapon? No. They aren't spells. Just because the dm doesn't want to make up a new ability that functions very similarly or identically to a spell but isnt the casting of a spell doesn't mean they need to let you counterspell it.
And what about Elemental monks? They have spells yet no slots. I don't want to rant about that subclass because fucking Christ I could go on for hours yet it seems stupid that a monk using fireball is counterSPELL able
But can't it counter Cantrips? Those are spells that don't use spell slots, but they should be counter-able. So I don't think using spell slots is the definitive ruling on this.
Shittake mushrooms. Immersion breaking horseshit is what it is, I don’t care if you and the wizards of the coast hate counterspell, buck up, you aren’t the heroes of the story when you’re the DM.
It's so easy to fix in world though, without breaking everyone's immersion by saying "wElL aCkShUaLlY mY SpElL iS uNcOuNtErAbLe BeCaUsE CrAwFoRd SaYs It'S aN aBiLiTy!"
Player asks "explain to my character why it doesn't work" and THERE IS NO GOOD ANSWER.
A sensible fix would simply be to *give your caster a ring that allows subtle spell* !
Another one I've got in my back pocket is having the wizard followed around my an automaton that does literally nothing important other than menial tasks like pass them things, fetch stuff, do an amusing dance, tell a joke... and *counterspell all counterspells directed at their master.*
There's so much more they could have done rather than have the DM explain something that's happening in game, with rules explanations, which still reek of cheese, and not offer any actual in world reasoning for what just happened.
"Vecna counterspells your spell"
"I counterspell..."
"It's an ability not a spell, get rekt, I win because fuck you."
Such a childish way to break the game.
So then don’t play with those rules? Why are you getting so butthurt? No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to play with spell like abilities. It’s a game people, take a step back and cool down.
The problem with saying don't play with those rules is that if you're a player you don't get to make that choice, you're beholden to your DM .... and if the official 'rules' change then that makes it harder to play the fun game you wanted to play.
I've got no issue with spell like abilities where they make sense, giving them to an npc wizard because what you really want to do is remove counterspell from the game is just silly though.
It's written as a ranged spell attack. It even says "ranged spell attack". WotC said they're instituting these to reduce the load on dms with too many spell choices. It's a spell condensed down into a simplified attack. The op's point that this nerfs counterspell is completely valid. A ranged spell attack should be counterspell-able
And unarmed strikes in 5e are written as melee weapon attacks even though they don’t use weapons. It comes from an aggressive oversimplification to make rules easier to parse during sessions.
The systems I play that have spell-like abilities don’t classify them as spells but as entirely different entities, and aren’t able to be countered with things that only counter spells like 5e’s counterspell.
Sure the OP’s point is valid that it nerfs counterspell, I wouldn’t say otherwise. But since counterspell is one of many reasons I walked away from 5e, I don’t see an issue with it not working on spell-like abilities.
"...counterspell is one of MANY reasons I walked away..."
No wonder why so many people are confused about things with dungeons and dragons. Not only do they have to read words, they have to comprehend them.
I definitely like how Pathfinder handles Counterspell better, far more strategic, but I don’t see a problem with 5e counterspell other than maybe being best in class for its spell level?
Pathfinder 2e handles counterspell by having you essentially cast the spell you're reacting to instead of having a dedicated counterspell spell. Then once that happens you do something called a [counteract check](https://pathfinder2.dragonlash.com/rules/counteracting/) to determine what happens.
I find it negates the fun. If someone is playing a caster and the enemy counter spells, that’s it for the player’s turn. If it’s the other way it’s the same for the GM. I do know that it’s entirely a personal belief in it and not everyone will agree
I agree with you to a point, the only time I find it works is if the enemy or the PC is known for specific spells.
My players doing research on the enemy cleric BBEG and they counterspell his powerful signature move. It's acceptable. That said, the same BBEG scrying the party as they mess with his plans and seeing the sorcerer only casting fireball... There will definitely be some fireball counters in their fight being counterspell or fire resistance flying around.
Gotta try to play up an enemy with a high wisdom, can't be fireball'd if there is no fireball or fire damage...
I definitely understand why others could enjoy it, but it really wasn’t for me or my group. We are playing an entirely new system now and the bitterness we had of 5e counterspell had us hesitant to even use it in the current system.
> I enjoy that there is a way out of 'ha-ha, you're taking deathly levels of damage.'
That's what spell attack rolls and saving throws are for, there don't need to be even more ways to make a caster lose their finite resources, except for maybe at very high levels when they know shit like Power Word Kill but also have a ton of other spell slots to rely on.
The problem of „take half the damage“ still exists…
A my party could be killed in one turn by a few spell casters with fireball (or anything equivalent) because I are unable to negate the damage as most classes.
This alone makes spells extremely strong, because you are guaranteed to deal a lot of damage.
It just follows another set of strategies, like baiting reactions, spell slots, getting CC. Its different innthe execution but its the same as PF, you just need to figure out when the dangerous spell ks coming.
It doesn’t matter anyway, and I did use wording that came off aggressive or insultive to the system which isn’t a good thing to do, so I understand why people would be doing it.
To be fair, that wording isn’t new and has existed far before Monsters of the Multiverse.
Efreeti for example have a Hurl Flame ability that is a Spell Attack.
Death Knights have a once a day ability that’s basically a Meteor Swarm.
These kind of abilities were always in the game. They’ve just been expanded into other stat blocks now.
Spell scrolls are not counter-spell able because they are not cast, but a item used. Even though many of them would be “make a ranged spell attack” you still couldn’t counter spell them as they are not being cast. So some powerful entities would plausibly have abilities that can create the effect of a spell without any actual casting of the spell.
EDIT: RAW it would make sense to counterspell scrolls. Most RAI I think too would lean towards this. Personally I read it as the spell scroll is casting the spell, since in creating a spell scroll you are basically casting the spell into the paper and saving the release for later. As a creature you are using the use action in combat to read from a scroll not take the cast a spell action to cast a spell. Counterspell targets creatures casting a spell and as such I would rule at my tables that any spell/spell like effect that doesn’t result from the cast a spell action can’t be counter-spelled. Again RAW AND RAI point towards you being able to counterspell a spell scroll, I just happen to disagree with this.
>Spell scrolls are not counter-spell able because they are not cast, but a item used.
You can absolutely counter a scroll. And spells are absolutely cast from scrolls.
> If the spell is on your class's spell list, you can use an action to read the scroll and **cast the spell** without having to provide any of the spell's components.
You don't have to read them *aloud* though; they require no components (v, s, m are all components.) So your opponent wouldn't know what spell you were casting.
But you don't know what spell they're casting, so it's a gamble. Typically, it goes like this: "the evil mage casts Disintegrate!" "COUNTERSPELL!" Where with this it would be 'the evil mage reads from a scroll.' Hm, wonder if the high int big bad could use that...
both cases should follow the same rules. either RAW/RAI, or not.
spells require an arcana check to identify if they are being cast. you do NOT automatically know the spell. that is RAW and RAI.
if we go by your first example "mage casts disintegrate", then the second should be "the mage casts disintegrate from his scroll" that would be a homebrew ruling on identifying spells.
The confusion comes from spell scrolls saying that they do *not* require *material* components, while saying nothing about verbal and/or somatic (which, if it did, there wouldn't be this stupid confusion). So you'd have to look at https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Items#toc_8 which says that if you cast a spell from an item, then you don't need to supply *any* components, *unless* the item says otherwise.
The spell scroll not requiring material components is not necessary and redundant because it's already covered by a more general rule, and only adds to the confusion because 5e natural language is the bane of the system.
That’s a stretch.
The general rule for magic items says “The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s Spell Slots, and requires no Components, unless the item’s description says **otherwise**”
The specific rule for spell scrolls says “you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material Components. **Otherwise**, the scroll is unintelligible”.
Specific overrides general, so spell scrolls requirements require the somatic and verbal components, as it replaced “no components” with “no material components”
clearly the word “otherwise” is in the spell scroll rule, which means that the rule “requires no Components” does not apply. “requires no Components, unless the item’s description says **otherwise**” … “ **Otherwise**, the scroll is unintelligible”.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Spell%20Scroll#h-Spell%20Scroll
I agree it could be more clearly expressed than it is.
No, it shouldn't. Get over it. It's not a spell. It's exactly as clear as their choice of melee weapon attack and attack with a melee weapon semantics. That's on them. But it's not a spell, just a spell attack, and counterspell doesn't let you counterspell a spell attack. Counterspell only lets you stop a spell, which this isn't.
It's really only an issue because it's become so fucking common. There's stuff like this in the Monster Manual, but MotM went way too hard on it and it's turned into a problem.
Mine is to just not allow counterspell. It turns the game into the typical Magic The Gathering counterspell-fest of "I cast X" "counterspell" "well I cast this other flavor of counterspell" "well I cast three counterspells cause of bullshit".
It's just like hell naw. Let's axe that before it ever becomes a problem. In a world where mages are commonplace, no mage would ever not have counterspells; and in a world where mages are rare, but incredibly powerful, no mage would ever not have counterspells.
It's be like if you could say "I block the attack with my shield" and take no damage. No one would ever use anything but shields.
I had a good rant on counterspells being dull the other day, but the thing about rarity makes a ton of sense as well.
I actually spent 8 levels waiting to use the mage slayer feat I took at level 1 for rp reasons, which Is also a great point against these "spell-like abilities" that I saw a couple of times.
It's written as a ranged spell attack. It even says "ranged spell attack". WotC said they're instituting these to reduce the load on dms with too many spell choices. The op's point that this nerfs counterspell is completely valid. A ranged spell attack should be counterspell-able
Tentacle of the Deeps, Wildfire Spirit, Efreeti's Hurl Flame, Lich's Paralyzing Touch (which all existed before MotM was a twinkle in Mordy's eye): 👁👄👁
Consider something like the Magic Stone cantrip:
You touch one to three pebbles and imbue them with magic. You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling.
While counterspell could prevent the initial casting of Magic Stone, it would be ineffective against the thrown pebbles, because when a pebble is thrown, it is not casting a spell. Casting a spell and making a spell attack is not the same (if anything, it just indicates that the user is using a spellcasting ability to attack, as opposed to strength or dexterity, plus that there might be possible interactions with antimagic fields etc.).
If it’s not a spell, don’t say cast. I don’t know why people don’t understand this, the players aren’t in the wrong in this scenario if you say they cast something.
I always rule differently depending on the spell-like lore.
If it is a monk casting psionic spell-effects: nope, cant counterspell.
If it is a pixie casting polymorph: yeup, that works.
Oh I know- I’m taking a break from DMing right now, so he’s trying his own campaign. There’s a lot he’s really good at it, but if a player does something he doesn’t like, he just disregards it.
I wanted to try the stat blocks against a group of players who are very much not rules lawyers nor rabid fans who follow dnd news at all. Half of them didn't even know MOTM was a book out.
I had an encounter with a legacy druid and a new style bard
The parties bard cast silence on the enemy bard. This didn't impede them at all which made the bard drop silence disgruntled that this made no sense for a bard who gets their powers from music to be unimpeded by silence, even if they dont follow the exact same mechanics "this feels like what silence is made for" then she tried to counterspell. I told them that it doesn't work and they for the first time in the campaign got argumentative, though not that argumentative, saying if the humanoid spell caster that should be most hindered by counterspell and silence is entirely immune that's bad design for these spells and she wants to trade them out.
The party was genuinely upset that an npc that looks and thematically is a spell caster of a players class does not use spells and does so in a way that prevents them from using abilities. I had to explain what motm is and they got upset at wotc instead of me.
Nobody liked it. I have yet to meet a player that likes it. I have met people online who try to justify it but push coming to shove having counterspell not work is so frustrating and poorly designed
I agree. RAW or not, your player has a perfect point- a literal Bard should be effected by Silence and Counterspell, and I dont think it feels good when these spells are effectively useless after a certain level because they just stop working the way it should
It's not even useless at a certain level that was a cr 2 spell caster
It's effectively useless for new material printed after 2021 that's just bad game design
Well, if you didn't tell them that you're implementing stuff from a new book, and they assumed that the game would follow the general set of rules as before, no wonder they got argumentative?
It's like saying *"there's a new book out that states if you cast Fly and fly too high, you suffocate! Imma implement this in my long running campaign without telling my players about it, see how they like it"*.
That result is predetermined.
>no wonder they got argumentative?
They got argumentative not because of the new rules being new, but because of the new rules being dumb and not making sense. This was clearly an experiment, and while it may have been a bit dickish on part of the DM to not be upfront about it, it clearly reveals why those changes are polarising.
There's no clear in-fiction reason why the MotM Bard can just ignore Silence and Counterspell, but the PC Bard is normally affected. While PC/NPC symmetry doesn't have to be perfect for the game to be enjoyable, the game should aim to maintain the illusion that both PCs and NPCs are part of the same world.
Truthfully I told them "I'm gonna try the new monsters of the multiverse variants for monsters out" and i didn't know they didn't know until after I did. At which point I stopped using them
This is why you let people Counterspell as part of the use the Identify Spell reaction. You can use your reaction identift if/which spell it is, and then decide if its worth countering. Either way it burns the reaction but it turns it from a pure gamble to a tactical choice (with a gamble only if they fail identification)
I'm kind of torn on this.
On one hand I do acknowledge that counterspell is kind of a problematic feature in some regards and reducing that aspect is fair.
On the other hand this move basically made Silvery Barbs mandatory since counterspell is kind of a trap option now. Additionally high level abjuraton wizards are basically worthless and war magic got a nerf despite being arguably the worst wizard subclass.
Not have literally every instance of magic be counterspelled? Wild Magic Surge becomes a lot more boring if you can just be like "I counterspell whatever happens"
If that's what they want to do then I believe they should change counter spell itself because that appears to be the source of their problem. Instead, they fucked around and made the game slightly harder and slightly more annoying to run.
It's not just that, though. Some things specifically require a spell e.g., Oath of Ancient's aura, Mage Slayer feat, Slow spell. It's a huge nerf to them for no reason.
All you'd have to do is say that X spell can't be counterspelled, or counterspell their counterspell. In the case of wild magic it would certainly be acceptable to me to say it's too wild to be tamed.
You misunderstand.
The players cannot Counterspell any of my not-spells from my Wizards and Sorcerers, casting Ball of Fire and Forcy-Wall. They cannot use Globe of Invulnerability nor can they halve the damage with Ancients Paladin Aura.
However, all of my enemies can Counterspell them and use every anti spell tool against them. Because for whatever reason, the party are the only 4-6 people in the entire multiverse who can cast spells.
Why did Counterspell and Dispel Magic and Globe of Invulnerability and Ancients Paladin Aura's exist before the party started adventuring? Er, don't ask any questions.
Players get plenty of magic like abilities that cant be counterspelled either is that stupid too? Lets counterspell wildshape which is basically polymorph.
No, because Polymorph and Wildshape are very different.
One changes mental stats, the other doesn't. One is completely voluntary, the other isn't. One requires concentration, the other doesn't. One recharges on a Short rest, the other uses a spell slot. One can be cast on other people, the other can't.
They are completely different mechanics with entirely different lore behind them.
Whereas the new statblocks have "magical effects" which are entirely identical to existing spells, except they're just changed to not be worded as a spell.
And now every enemy can Counterspell, dispel magic etc the players and the players can't do anything back.
It’s to nerf Counterspell. As it is, high level enemies can be completely shut down if the party has access to multiple instances of Counterspell. Giving monsters abilities that function similarly to their most iconic spells allows them to retain their combat prowess and keep them balanced across more party makeups.
The only people that would complain about a change like this is a player that enjoys Counterspellling as much as they can. Any reasonable player or DM should be happy to have high level enemies maintain their challenge despite what the party has.
Or you could use held spells, hiding so that they don't see the spell being cast, additional casters with counterspell to counter that counterspell, enough fights in the day so that the players run out of slots for Counterspell, additional creatures that force shield or another reaction spell to take away the player's reactions, innate psionics spell casting, etc. Etc. There's a ton of ways to resolve this issue without granting spellcaster creatures random non-spell abilities, most of which are nearly identical to existing spells, to fix what is truly an issue only to a lazy DM.
Having extra NPCs around *just* to Counterspell doesn’t seem like maybe the spell needs to be a little less strong? Why not have all those NPCs all cast fireball on the party instead and completely obliterate them? Everything you listed is just ways to work around a single spell so that it won’t ruin encounters. WotC has their share of fuckups, don’t get me wrong. Twilight cleric is just straight up overpowered. But the spell like abilities are perfectly fine design and compliment creature kits well. Also, it also isn’t “just lazy DMs”, it’s less experienced or younger ones too.
It's never *just* to counterspell, but as a part of the combat encounter equation, give them fireball too for that matter, or hypnotic pattern or conjure woodland beings or animate objects or forcecage or any of the other OP spells. Less experienced and younger DM's get to learn how to work around it and plenty of other extremely powerful abilities too. The attempt to simplify casters and other creatures continues to make stat blocks more generic and less useful because there is less distinction between them in functionality. I can slap a different coat of paint on a stat block and call it something else, I don't need or want a bunch of pages taken up with mostly the same stats and abilities. Giving almost every caster new spell like abilities to brute force through counterspell is like welding every door shut when you've given out a copy of a building's master key too many times instead of changing the locks.
I'm personally of the opinion that effectively neutering/removing counterspell as a whole just ends up making both PCs and Monsters even more powerful, since they never have to account for their powerful effects being negated
>As it is, high level enemies can be completely shut down if the party has access to multiple instances of Counterspell.
*Good*. Players should be rewarded for making efficient choices and using good strategies. If high level players are dealing easily with high CR enemy spellcasters, then that's not an issue.
If the battles end too soon, there's a dozen ways to make them last longer and be cooler than suddenly invalidating a bunch of player features by saying "well, *ackhcually*, despite this ability looking and working exactly like a spell, it's not technically a spell, so no counterspell, no globe of invulnerability, no Aura of Warding, etc".
It affects Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability, Mage Slayer, Ancients Paladins, literally everything that affect spells. Not just Counterspell.
And Counterspell still works, just exclusively against the players.
And if a party rocks up to be good against spell casters, there are so many ways for a high level caster enemy to get around that. Be invisible. Have Globe of Invulnerability up. Stay more than 60ft away. Punish them for burning their reaction by having the minions pile on the Wizard/Sorcerer who can't cast Shield. All much fairer than "you still have the option, just it only works against you lol".
Also, I call bullshit on "it's for high level enemies" because it's not for high level enemies, it's for all NPC Spellcaster stat blocks.
I'm not against it, I just don't think the spellcaster should lose a spell slot over it.
Especially during typical campaign play where that 3rd level spell slot had been saved for a special moment. Depends on the table though. If the DM was really good at differentiating spells through components then I could see the difference being an interesting mechanic.
Of course spellcaster should not lose a spell slot. Because they couldn't event cast that spell. To try to cast a reaction spell, you have to meet its trigger. And with counterspell, if there is no one within 60 ft of you that you can see that they are casting a spell, you can't cast it. If DM wants RAW, this is RAW
I picked Mage Slayer because I thought it would be funny. I'm the only non-caster in my party and all our enemies so far have casted spells.
But they're not "spells." They're "spell-like abilities." At least you guys can change your spells. There's no rules about retraining a feat.
I'll say this: Any DM worth their salt would allow you to retrain a feature that does no longer function as intended after a change in the underlying material / rules.
If, for example, WOTC decides that barbarians can now only rage if they're below half their hit points, i can't imagine a DM who would follow the new rules without giving the barbarian player a chance to rebuild their character.
Come back 3.5 all is forgiven.
To be less flippant, behind the scenes I'm using 3.5e's Ex/Su/Sp etc action types to determine dispellability and counterspellability.
No mechanics just lore, all magic makes use of the weave. Counterspell would be like making a wave to cancel the opponents wave. As long as it would be fair to say the ability manipulated the weave I'd allow counterspell to function on it.
That being said I'm all for homebrew magic systems. If you don't like spell like abilities being counterspelled that is fair.
After reading the comments, here's what I've found: changing spells to spell like abilities like we saw in MotM...
\-Nerfed Counterspell, Silence, Identify, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Etc.
\-Nerfed Mage Slayer
\-Nerfed Ancients Paladin, Abjuration Wizard, and War Magic Wizard
\-Nerfed Satyrs, Yuan-Ti, and any other magic resistance giving race
\-Made Silvery Barbs the only real way to accomplish the prevention Counterspell normally does
Meanwhile, DMs that wanted any of these things could have...
\-Just had a conversation with their table
\-Given enemy spellcasters Subtle Spell
\-Made the change themselves instead of WOTC publishing it in a book and removing the alternatives from DDB
Ultimately, do what you enjoy, I'm not here to police how individuals have fun. I don't think anyone in this comment section is, either. I *am* here to point out that there was insufficient reason for WOTC to take away what a lot of us were already enjoying as it was written, and it did a lot of damage to a lot of things that a lot of us really enjoyed.
One of the things I love is that an ifrit bloodline sorcerer has the spelllike ability to shapeshift into an ifrit. So you can turn into a lawful evil genie with fuck-off powers.
Hot take: Counterspell should be level 2 now.
Now that spell-like abilities are being moved into the mainstream, counterspell's usefulness has been nerfed. It makes much more sense for counterspell to be reflavored as a spell learned and taught specifically to combat OTHER humanoid casters.
It is RAW. If it's not a Spell, but spell-like ability, it can't be counterspelled. You can't even attempt to counterspell it, because of trigger for reaction to cast a counterspell is seeing a creature within 60ft cast a SPELL
It is though. You can't counter a succubus/incubus' spell like abilities becayse they don't allow it to cast a spell, they simply are abilities that seem like spells, same is true of beholder eye rays. But the vast majority of spell-like abilities state that the creature can cast the spell specified despite it not falling under the spellcasting section of their stat block if they even have one
Edit: in this specific example counterspell works because the creature casts the spell, regardless of if it uses a spell slot to do it
Honestly, the whole thing with spell-like-abilities being immune to counterspell is stupid as shit.
They’re *called* “Spell-Like”, except that other than mimicking the actual end-result, they are basically in no way like spells.
Of course… if this is 5e you’re talking about, I’m afraid your GM is shit, because 5e doesn’t have SLAs.
Mind you, instead they just give some monsters an ability with the exact same name… which is equally as stupid. It’s yet another way WotC just kind of said ‘fuck you’ to one class feature or another with their encounter design.
Idk if this is an unpopular opinion but I think counterspell shouldn't even be a thing. For one thing there's the thing in the meme which makes it useless for the PCs most of the time.
Second, it's one of those things that's tempting to prepare because it seems versatile and likely you'll need it, but it's more situational than it seems. Most spells aren't harmful enough to be worth spending a third level spell slot, especially for lower level PCs. Not when you can do so many cooler spells that actually make things happen.
Third and worst of all is that if you do decide to prepare it, you know you're gonna feel beyond stupid if an enemy casts a gnarly spell and you don't have any third level spell slots left to counter it with, which leads to you just consistently leaving one slot unspent out of paranoia when you could have done something cool with it between every rest.
To be fair counterspell, identify, detect magic, create and destroy water, and comprehend languages are the dumbest spells ive ever seen in a ttrpg from a game design perspective. Anything that tells the dm no with little effort or cost from a players is absolutely design error.
I agree. If Counterspell and Dispel Magic can just say “No. Your magic? Not today.”, Comprehend Languages can make anyone poly-lingual, Detect Magic can show you what is magic, and Identify can tell you what a magic thing does, then what’s the point of Casting Spells, Keeping magic effects unknown, or having things written in ancient tongues? It defeats the point of mystery.
See this is why my wizard has temporal shunt just kick them out of time stream
“Your services are no longer required in this timeline. Dismissed.”
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Technically you can turn of the power to a bath tub cause they most likely have a pump somewhere in the water system to keep the water flowing when it is uphill. So if you turn off the power to that you turned off the power to a bath tub
Have fun countering my spell in a different timeline
If it doesn't use a spell slot, there's no fair way to determine DC, so it's not counterable.
Best take
It’s ball of fire, not fireball!
Flaming Sphere, the legally distinct Fireball
What about spells that come as part of feats like misty step from fey touched? It doesn't use a spell slot but it does have a clear spell level.
But the feat usually specifies the level of the spell so you can still determine the DC
Even if it didn't, spells cast without slots are cast at the lowest possible level unless stated otherwise.
You are incorrect. “You learn the Misty Step spell…” “You can cast each of these spells without expending a spell slot.” It specifies a 1st-level spell in addition, but any player who tried to tell me that their misty step is uncounterable because it doesn’t specify is getting laughed at. The rules are very clear that spells cast without a slot are at their base level. The meme as a whole is also potentially incorrect, innate spellcasting doesn’t remove component requirements unless it specifically says so.
The meme isn't talking about innate spellcasting, it's talking about the new "spell-like abilities" on NPC casters in MotM. They aren't spells, have no components, and cannot be counterspelled
Just the latest in “screw your counterplay” in the name of “streamlining” like making near to all the monsters with the “magical weapons” trait just deal force damage instead which fucks over barbarians
> like making near to all the monsters with the “magical weapons” trait just deal force damage instead They did fucking WHAT?!
It buffs amethyst dragonborn though. Still a bad change.
Huh they brought back slas from 3.5 eh? Usually monsters had em not people unless you were a spellthief
I was very confused when you said "new" but then remembered that this is 5e and not PF. Spell-like Abilities were always a thing there, but more often than not they tend to do things that don't require a DC for simplicity's sake (ie. small buffs from clerics and the like) and if they do they specify the DC formula.
They're not talking about the DC of the ability itself. They're talking about the DC needed to counter it with counterspell. For spells higher than 3rd level, the caster of counterspell needs to succeed on an ability check where the DC is 10 + the level of the spell being countered. However, if you have an SLA that's basically Fireball but with minor changes, and oh also it's a monster trait and not a spell, it's now impossible to set the DC for counterspelling it since it's not a spell and therefore has no spell level. Just demonstrating that these new spiritual successors to SLAs are tough for players to get around, even if you allow a counterspell for it, there's no clear cut way to set the DC. I personally don't think these developments are bad, just wanted to clarify what I see people arguing here.
Ah I see, you’re right
Also those spells are typically cast at their lowest level which actually is a clear dc amongst the spell.
As a DM, if it's using a spell as an innate ability I allow it. The spell has a level, the DC is clear. In lore, there's a case to be made that sorcerer casting is an innate spell like ability. For spell like abilities that aren't copying the effects of a spell, I make the call before bringing the creature into combat. It depends how "spell like" the spell like ability is. If I decide to allow it, I set the spell level to the creature's PB.
Wasn't there a monster in the witch light book that had an ability called fire blast or something, that was clearly just a level 3 fireball? Some abilities have clear equivalents.
Yes, that is one of the new spell like abilities
And they were made into spell-like abilities specifically to prevent counterspell from applying. Of all the changes to stat blocks from the new design philosophy, this is actually the best. I get, that from a player perspective, a non-counterspellable ability is annoying. But you know what's not only annoying, but disappointing to everyone, players included? A spellcaster BBEG wasting their turn because they got counterspelled, and dying before the next round. Given the choice between an anticlimactic boss fight and not being able to counterspell a fireball, I know which one I'd pick.
A spellcaster BBEG should have work-arounds. Like, counter spelling the counter spell, having minions to do the same, legendary actions to still do things. If your BBEG is a lone spell caster without unique and clever tools it's going to have a bad time just due to the action economy. Making a fireball an ability instead of a spell is lazy for balancing Does it work? Yes. It's quite effective even. But it's not fun being a DM telling the party "yes, this ability is exactly as this spell, but it's an ability so no counter spell" feels cheap. It also nerfs mage slayer.
It nerfs mage slayer, oath of ancients paladin, and magic resistance, probably other things as well.
Yea, I couldn't think of other things off hand. I was pretty sure at least 1 subclass had something.
I'm playing a satyr paladin rn, so it hits close to home haha. Luckily, I'm not an ancients pally.
>Of all the changes to stat blocks from the new design philosophy, this is actually the best. It's actually the worst because it doesn't come with adjustments to the player-facing rules to reflect the decision that monsters are *technically* no longer casting spells (despite working mostly the same and looking the same). Any player that learns and/or prepares Counterspell now finds out that they made the wrong choice, because it's not going to work. Any character that has some feature that interacts with spells specifically now finds themselves possessing an useless feature. >A spellcaster BBEG wasting their turn because they got counterspelled, and dying before the next round. Ah, yes, my players *hate* overcoming a villain by using their skills and knowledge to counter the villain. Also if your BBEG is dying in one turn, there's three options: the players got absurdly lucky, the BBEG was severely underpowered, or the players were massively overpowered. That's an encounter design issue, not a monster design one.
>It's actually the worst because it doesn't come with adjustments to the player-facing rules to reflect the decision that monsters are technically no longer casting spells (despite working mostly the same and looking the same). Monsters still cast spells. Some of them just have "signature" abilities that don't use the spellcasting mechanic.
>Some of them just have "signature" abilities that don't use the spellcasting mechanic. ... Which look and behave like spells in every other regard, except ignoring PC abilities that interact with spells because *fuck you*, I guess. Should we give vampires the ability to force any target to fail their save against the vampire's charm? After all, that's a "signature ability" of the vampire, and it's just anticlimactic if the vampire uses an action to charm a character but they save, I suppose. Same could go for liches and their paralysing touch, and so on. This paradigm shift is awful because it's arbitrary and creates trap choices if you try to build a PC that's effective at dealing with spellcasters, because they now have "signature abilities" that aren't spells and ignore all the ways you choose to try and contrast them. And those abilities tend to be exactly the stuff that a player would want to contrast.
Should we scrap the Illusionist's 10th level "Illusory Self" ability, too? The Transmuter's 14th level "Master Transmuter"? The Enchanter's 6th level "Instinctive Charm"? The Diviner's "Portent"? What about the Conjurer's "Benign Transposition"? Spell-like abilities that aren't actually spells have been in the game from the beginning. >Should we give vampires the ability to force any target to fail their save against the vampire's charm? After all, that's a "signature ability" of the vampire, and it's just anticlimactic if the vampire uses an action to charm a character but they save, I suppose. Same could go for liches and their paralysing touch, and so on. False equivalency. Kellek's "Fiery Explosion" allows a save. And I'll point out that the vampire's charm is *exactly* the kind of ability that you are complaining about. It's not a spell, but it effectively duplicates *charm person*. Where's the hate for all the *preexisting* spell-like abilities?
I'm not sure I'd take that choice, as a DM or Player. 5e already has enough "Rules for the, but not for me" stuff between PCs and NPCs going for it, without clearly spellcasting enemies suddenly getting to break the rules because they want to be cool, and screwing over a ton of anti-spellcaster class features/player options besides. Finally though, and you may find this bit important, this does makes these uncounterable spell-like abilities available to players by way of any transformation/conjuration magic they may happen to possess.
Okay, so then tell your players you don't like counterspell instead of just blanket removing all its usefulness from the game for everyone who *does* like it. People take it because it feels really cool as a player to get to counterspell and since you only get one reaction a round it leaves you open for anything else to happen without you being able to defend.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UzKJWWPsqv0 This cannot be counterspelled. It happens too quick, there is no time to react to it, no signs it is going to happen, no pre-existing reason to know how to stop it, no words or semantics to recognize what spell it is. Not only from a mechanics standpoint is it impossible to rationalize, if you play the spell being cast in a movie scene there is no way some things can be counter spelled
>no signs it is going to happen >no words or semantics to recognize what spell it is Yeah I didn’t see any foreshadowing in that clip either
No one ever recognizes it when it happens!
Except Cantrips (10+0) and Rituals (10+base level).
Incorrect, it uses the lowest possible level. https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/147913/what-level-is-a-spell-if-you-cast-it-without-expending-a-spell-slot
They aren't spells, and often dont do the same damage as the lowest level spells.
Okay but divine smite uses a spell slot and it’s not counterable, Same with primal awareness
Because they're not spells. They use spell slots as "fuel", but Divine Smite isn't a spell.
DMs can make up/estimate DCs for everything else but not this? I'm sure it's not too hard to estimate how powerful the effect is relative to existing spells and choose an appropriate level.
Not everything can be counterspelled. It's already an absurdly powerful spell compared to how counterspelling was handled in literally every other edition of the game. Would you argue you should be able to counterspell a monk's stunning strike or a dragon's breath weapon? No. They aren't spells. Just because the dm doesn't want to make up a new ability that functions very similarly or identically to a spell but isnt the casting of a spell doesn't mean they need to let you counterspell it.
Counter point, it doesn't use a spell slot therefore it's a cantrip
If it doesn't use a spell slot, it's cast at the lowest level it can be, unless explicitly stated otherwise. It's literally in the rules.
And what about Elemental monks? They have spells yet no slots. I don't want to rant about that subclass because fucking Christ I could go on for hours yet it seems stupid that a monk using fireball is counterSPELL able
So easy to determine. Relate it to appropriate spell level, apply your tables mechanics to the save.
Dc 8+ 1/2 HD+ primary “casting” stat bonus? So a 12 HD creature with an 18 charisma has a DC of 8+6+4= 18
He is talking about determining spell level for counterspell DC.
Yes, wouldn’t some variation of that formula help provide a basis to work from? Throw in spell level for HD or for “casting” stat.
Ahh my apologies, misunderstood what you were suggesting.
No problem, I could have communicated more clearly.
But can't it counter Cantrips? Those are spells that don't use spell slots, but they should be counter-able. So I don't think using spell slots is the definitive ruling on this.
Shittake mushrooms. Immersion breaking horseshit is what it is, I don’t care if you and the wizards of the coast hate counterspell, buck up, you aren’t the heroes of the story when you’re the DM.
Problem was they made counterspell too strong in 5e. SLAs existed in 3.5 but it was from monsters with magical powers who wouldnt be casters
They made the bed, they lie in it. Make a new bed, don't fuck up the bed the rest of us are having fun in.
Im sure its fun for you but it can be q real pain when your villain cant do anyrhing because all tge casters can spontaneously cast counterspell
It's so easy to fix in world though, without breaking everyone's immersion by saying "wElL aCkShUaLlY mY SpElL iS uNcOuNtErAbLe BeCaUsE CrAwFoRd SaYs It'S aN aBiLiTy!" Player asks "explain to my character why it doesn't work" and THERE IS NO GOOD ANSWER. A sensible fix would simply be to *give your caster a ring that allows subtle spell* ! Another one I've got in my back pocket is having the wizard followed around my an automaton that does literally nothing important other than menial tasks like pass them things, fetch stuff, do an amusing dance, tell a joke... and *counterspell all counterspells directed at their master.* There's so much more they could have done rather than have the DM explain something that's happening in game, with rules explanations, which still reek of cheese, and not offer any actual in world reasoning for what just happened. "Vecna counterspells your spell" "I counterspell..." "It's an ability not a spell, get rekt, I win because fuck you." Such a childish way to break the game.
So then don’t play with those rules? Why are you getting so butthurt? No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to play with spell like abilities. It’s a game people, take a step back and cool down.
The problem with saying don't play with those rules is that if you're a player you don't get to make that choice, you're beholden to your DM .... and if the official 'rules' change then that makes it harder to play the fun game you wanted to play. I've got no issue with spell like abilities where they make sense, giving them to an npc wizard because what you really want to do is remove counterspell from the game is just silly though.
10+ enemy relevant modifier plus enemy proficiency bonus plus any relevant DM bonuses. Same as any player ability that doesn't have a spell slot.
This.
My trick is to not use the word “cast” when it isn’t a spell but a spell-like ability. Prevents this whole argument from the getgo
I always just describe the attack >A bolt of radiant light erupts from the creature. Make a dex saving throw.
It's written as a ranged spell attack. It even says "ranged spell attack". WotC said they're instituting these to reduce the load on dms with too many spell choices. It's a spell condensed down into a simplified attack. The op's point that this nerfs counterspell is completely valid. A ranged spell attack should be counterspell-able
Sun Monk's radiant bolts are ranger spell attacks. Not all Spell Attacks should be counterable.
And unarmed strikes in 5e are written as melee weapon attacks even though they don’t use weapons. It comes from an aggressive oversimplification to make rules easier to parse during sessions. The systems I play that have spell-like abilities don’t classify them as spells but as entirely different entities, and aren’t able to be countered with things that only counter spells like 5e’s counterspell. Sure the OP’s point is valid that it nerfs counterspell, I wouldn’t say otherwise. But since counterspell is one of many reasons I walked away from 5e, I don’t see an issue with it not working on spell-like abilities.
You walked away from 5e cause of a spell?
"...counterspell is one of MANY reasons I walked away..." No wonder why so many people are confused about things with dungeons and dragons. Not only do they have to read words, they have to comprehend them.
Yeah that’s one too many things to do. I can read words or I can comprehend words but definitely not both
I walked away from 5e because of a bunch of issues, one of which was counterspell.
I definitely like how Pathfinder handles Counterspell better, far more strategic, but I don’t see a problem with 5e counterspell other than maybe being best in class for its spell level?
How does PF2 handle counterspell? I've borrowed a bit from the system so far and am always keen for helpful tweaks.
Pathfinder 2e handles counterspell by having you essentially cast the spell you're reacting to instead of having a dedicated counterspell spell. Then once that happens you do something called a [counteract check](https://pathfinder2.dragonlash.com/rules/counteracting/) to determine what happens.
Ooh I like it. Thanks!
I’m saying PF1.
Ah sure, same question as above then?
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I find it negates the fun. If someone is playing a caster and the enemy counter spells, that’s it for the player’s turn. If it’s the other way it’s the same for the GM. I do know that it’s entirely a personal belief in it and not everyone will agree
I agree with you to a point, the only time I find it works is if the enemy or the PC is known for specific spells. My players doing research on the enemy cleric BBEG and they counterspell his powerful signature move. It's acceptable. That said, the same BBEG scrying the party as they mess with his plans and seeing the sorcerer only casting fireball... There will definitely be some fireball counters in their fight being counterspell or fire resistance flying around. Gotta try to play up an enemy with a high wisdom, can't be fireball'd if there is no fireball or fire damage...
I definitely understand why others could enjoy it, but it really wasn’t for me or my group. We are playing an entirely new system now and the bitterness we had of 5e counterspell had us hesitant to even use it in the current system.
I won't ever tell someone how they play D&D is wrong. Just having more people interested in what I'm interested in is great.
But it burns their reaction and counterspell. I enjoy that there *is* a way out of 'ha-ha, you're taking deathly levels of damage.'
> I enjoy that there is a way out of 'ha-ha, you're taking deathly levels of damage.' That's what spell attack rolls and saving throws are for, there don't need to be even more ways to make a caster lose their finite resources, except for maybe at very high levels when they know shit like Power Word Kill but also have a ton of other spell slots to rely on.
The problem of „take half the damage“ still exists… A my party could be killed in one turn by a few spell casters with fireball (or anything equivalent) because I are unable to negate the damage as most classes. This alone makes spells extremely strong, because you are guaranteed to deal a lot of damage.
It just follows another set of strategies, like baiting reactions, spell slots, getting CC. Its different innthe execution but its the same as PF, you just need to figure out when the dangerous spell ks coming.
I dont know why you are getting downvotes... butt hurt 5e players maybe?
It doesn’t matter anyway, and I did use wording that came off aggressive or insultive to the system which isn’t a good thing to do, so I understand why people would be doing it.
To be fair, that wording isn’t new and has existed far before Monsters of the Multiverse. Efreeti for example have a Hurl Flame ability that is a Spell Attack. Death Knights have a once a day ability that’s basically a Meteor Swarm. These kind of abilities were always in the game. They’ve just been expanded into other stat blocks now.
To be fair, there were non-spell spell attacks in the game before MotM. A lich's paralyzing touch for instance.
Spell scrolls are not counter-spell able because they are not cast, but a item used. Even though many of them would be “make a ranged spell attack” you still couldn’t counter spell them as they are not being cast. So some powerful entities would plausibly have abilities that can create the effect of a spell without any actual casting of the spell. EDIT: RAW it would make sense to counterspell scrolls. Most RAI I think too would lean towards this. Personally I read it as the spell scroll is casting the spell, since in creating a spell scroll you are basically casting the spell into the paper and saving the release for later. As a creature you are using the use action in combat to read from a scroll not take the cast a spell action to cast a spell. Counterspell targets creatures casting a spell and as such I would rule at my tables that any spell/spell like effect that doesn’t result from the cast a spell action can’t be counter-spelled. Again RAW AND RAI point towards you being able to counterspell a spell scroll, I just happen to disagree with this.
>Spell scrolls are not counter-spell able because they are not cast, but a item used. You can absolutely counter a scroll. And spells are absolutely cast from scrolls. > If the spell is on your class's spell list, you can use an action to read the scroll and **cast the spell** without having to provide any of the spell's components.
and before someone says "Without components, you dont know they're casting a spell." well, since they are READING A SCROLL, yes you can.
You don't have to read them *aloud* though; they require no components (v, s, m are all components.) So your opponent wouldn't know what spell you were casting.
true, but it doesnt matter, since you know they are still casting a spell, and thus can counterspell.
But you don't know what spell they're casting, so it's a gamble. Typically, it goes like this: "the evil mage casts Disintegrate!" "COUNTERSPELL!" Where with this it would be 'the evil mage reads from a scroll.' Hm, wonder if the high int big bad could use that...
both cases should follow the same rules. either RAW/RAI, or not. spells require an arcana check to identify if they are being cast. you do NOT automatically know the spell. that is RAW and RAI. if we go by your first example "mage casts disintegrate", then the second should be "the mage casts disintegrate from his scroll" that would be a homebrew ruling on identifying spells.
Dunno where you got components but it’s “material components” https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/5418-spell-scroll
The confusion comes from spell scrolls saying that they do *not* require *material* components, while saying nothing about verbal and/or somatic (which, if it did, there wouldn't be this stupid confusion). So you'd have to look at https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Items#toc_8 which says that if you cast a spell from an item, then you don't need to supply *any* components, *unless* the item says otherwise. The spell scroll not requiring material components is not necessary and redundant because it's already covered by a more general rule, and only adds to the confusion because 5e natural language is the bane of the system.
That’s a stretch. The general rule for magic items says “The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s Spell Slots, and requires no Components, unless the item’s description says **otherwise**” The specific rule for spell scrolls says “you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material Components. **Otherwise**, the scroll is unintelligible”. Specific overrides general, so spell scrolls requirements require the somatic and verbal components, as it replaced “no components” with “no material components” clearly the word “otherwise” is in the spell scroll rule, which means that the rule “requires no Components” does not apply. “requires no Components, unless the item’s description says **otherwise**” … “ **Otherwise**, the scroll is unintelligible”. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Spell%20Scroll#h-Spell%20Scroll I agree it could be more clearly expressed than it is.
It's an item used to cast a spell, though. You still need to use the motions and such needed, no?
No, it shouldn't. Get over it. It's not a spell. It's exactly as clear as their choice of melee weapon attack and attack with a melee weapon semantics. That's on them. But it's not a spell, just a spell attack, and counterspell doesn't let you counterspell a spell attack. Counterspell only lets you stop a spell, which this isn't.
Nerfing counterspell is desirable and wanted.
It's really only an issue because it's become so fucking common. There's stuff like this in the Monster Manual, but MotM went way too hard on it and it's turned into a problem.
My trick is to have a party that forgot to take Counterspell
Mine is to just not allow counterspell. It turns the game into the typical Magic The Gathering counterspell-fest of "I cast X" "counterspell" "well I cast this other flavor of counterspell" "well I cast three counterspells cause of bullshit". It's just like hell naw. Let's axe that before it ever becomes a problem. In a world where mages are commonplace, no mage would ever not have counterspells; and in a world where mages are rare, but incredibly powerful, no mage would ever not have counterspells. It's be like if you could say "I block the attack with my shield" and take no damage. No one would ever use anything but shields.
I had a good rant on counterspells being dull the other day, but the thing about rarity makes a ton of sense as well. I actually spent 8 levels waiting to use the mage slayer feat I took at level 1 for rp reasons, which Is also a great point against these "spell-like abilities" that I saw a couple of times.
Duh, it's counterSPELL, not counterMAGIC (but also DM, to avoid confusion, don't use the word "cast" for non-spells)
It's written as a ranged spell attack. It even says "ranged spell attack". WotC said they're instituting these to reduce the load on dms with too many spell choices. The op's point that this nerfs counterspell is completely valid. A ranged spell attack should be counterspell-able
Tentacle of the Deeps, Wildfire Spirit, Efreeti's Hurl Flame, Lich's Paralyzing Touch (which all existed before MotM was a twinkle in Mordy's eye): 👁👄👁
Consider something like the Magic Stone cantrip: You touch one to three pebbles and imbue them with magic. You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling. While counterspell could prevent the initial casting of Magic Stone, it would be ineffective against the thrown pebbles, because when a pebble is thrown, it is not casting a spell. Casting a spell and making a spell attack is not the same (if anything, it just indicates that the user is using a spellcasting ability to attack, as opposed to strength or dexterity, plus that there might be possible interactions with antimagic fields etc.).
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True, but due to the much larger player base 5e is many peoples first encounter with the counter spell rule details.
If it’s not a spell, don’t say cast. I don’t know why people don’t understand this, the players aren’t in the wrong in this scenario if you say they cast something.
MoM is gonna make it play out a lot more. Word of wisdom, Specify when an enemy is casting a spell instead of channeling some inner power.
I always rule differently depending on the spell-like lore. If it is a monk casting psionic spell-effects: nope, cant counterspell. If it is a pixie casting polymorph: yeup, that works.
Also don't use the word "cast" for spell-like abilities that aren't spells, it will only confuse the issue.
I cast my net! Try to counterspell that!
My DM Counterspelled my Divine Intervention last night. He does stuff like that all the time- so this plays out almost weekly lol
He counterspelled god?
I was a Blood Cleric and he didn’t like that I was trying to Blood Bend his hag 🤷♂️
Yeah, but that. That’s a god. You can’t counterspell God.
I agree completely
That's not possible, by any stretch of imagination, unless you are playing homebrew rules (which you should know beforehand, of course)
Oh I know- I’m taking a break from DMing right now, so he’s trying his own campaign. There’s a lot he’s really good at it, but if a player does something he doesn’t like, he just disregards it.
If he's "casting" radiant bolt it sure sounds like a spell. ;)
I wanted to try the stat blocks against a group of players who are very much not rules lawyers nor rabid fans who follow dnd news at all. Half of them didn't even know MOTM was a book out. I had an encounter with a legacy druid and a new style bard The parties bard cast silence on the enemy bard. This didn't impede them at all which made the bard drop silence disgruntled that this made no sense for a bard who gets their powers from music to be unimpeded by silence, even if they dont follow the exact same mechanics "this feels like what silence is made for" then she tried to counterspell. I told them that it doesn't work and they for the first time in the campaign got argumentative, though not that argumentative, saying if the humanoid spell caster that should be most hindered by counterspell and silence is entirely immune that's bad design for these spells and she wants to trade them out. The party was genuinely upset that an npc that looks and thematically is a spell caster of a players class does not use spells and does so in a way that prevents them from using abilities. I had to explain what motm is and they got upset at wotc instead of me. Nobody liked it. I have yet to meet a player that likes it. I have met people online who try to justify it but push coming to shove having counterspell not work is so frustrating and poorly designed
I agree. RAW or not, your player has a perfect point- a literal Bard should be effected by Silence and Counterspell, and I dont think it feels good when these spells are effectively useless after a certain level because they just stop working the way it should
It's not even useless at a certain level that was a cr 2 spell caster It's effectively useless for new material printed after 2021 that's just bad game design
Well, if you didn't tell them that you're implementing stuff from a new book, and they assumed that the game would follow the general set of rules as before, no wonder they got argumentative? It's like saying *"there's a new book out that states if you cast Fly and fly too high, you suffocate! Imma implement this in my long running campaign without telling my players about it, see how they like it"*. That result is predetermined.
>no wonder they got argumentative? They got argumentative not because of the new rules being new, but because of the new rules being dumb and not making sense. This was clearly an experiment, and while it may have been a bit dickish on part of the DM to not be upfront about it, it clearly reveals why those changes are polarising. There's no clear in-fiction reason why the MotM Bard can just ignore Silence and Counterspell, but the PC Bard is normally affected. While PC/NPC symmetry doesn't have to be perfect for the game to be enjoyable, the game should aim to maintain the illusion that both PCs and NPCs are part of the same world.
Truthfully I told them "I'm gonna try the new monsters of the multiverse variants for monsters out" and i didn't know they didn't know until after I did. At which point I stopped using them
This is why you let people Counterspell as part of the use the Identify Spell reaction. You can use your reaction identift if/which spell it is, and then decide if its worth countering. Either way it burns the reaction but it turns it from a pure gamble to a tactical choice (with a gamble only if they fail identification)
I'm kind of torn on this. On one hand I do acknowledge that counterspell is kind of a problematic feature in some regards and reducing that aspect is fair. On the other hand this move basically made Silvery Barbs mandatory since counterspell is kind of a trap option now. Additionally high level abjuraton wizards are basically worthless and war magic got a nerf despite being arguably the worst wizard subclass.
It is pretty stupid but not only is it RAW it is RAI. Sometimes I wonder what the heck WotC is thinking.
Not have literally every instance of magic be counterspelled? Wild Magic Surge becomes a lot more boring if you can just be like "I counterspell whatever happens"
If that's what they want to do then I believe they should change counter spell itself because that appears to be the source of their problem. Instead, they fucked around and made the game slightly harder and slightly more annoying to run.
It's not just that, though. Some things specifically require a spell e.g., Oath of Ancient's aura, Mage Slayer feat, Slow spell. It's a huge nerf to them for no reason.
I mean, some of them can be, since some of them make you cast a spell.
All you'd have to do is say that X spell can't be counterspelled, or counterspell their counterspell. In the case of wild magic it would certainly be acceptable to me to say it's too wild to be tamed.
You misunderstand. The players cannot Counterspell any of my not-spells from my Wizards and Sorcerers, casting Ball of Fire and Forcy-Wall. They cannot use Globe of Invulnerability nor can they halve the damage with Ancients Paladin Aura. However, all of my enemies can Counterspell them and use every anti spell tool against them. Because for whatever reason, the party are the only 4-6 people in the entire multiverse who can cast spells. Why did Counterspell and Dispel Magic and Globe of Invulnerability and Ancients Paladin Aura's exist before the party started adventuring? Er, don't ask any questions.
Players get plenty of magic like abilities that cant be counterspelled either is that stupid too? Lets counterspell wildshape which is basically polymorph.
No, because Polymorph and Wildshape are very different. One changes mental stats, the other doesn't. One is completely voluntary, the other isn't. One requires concentration, the other doesn't. One recharges on a Short rest, the other uses a spell slot. One can be cast on other people, the other can't. They are completely different mechanics with entirely different lore behind them. Whereas the new statblocks have "magical effects" which are entirely identical to existing spells, except they're just changed to not be worded as a spell. And now every enemy can Counterspell, dispel magic etc the players and the players can't do anything back.
It’s to nerf Counterspell. As it is, high level enemies can be completely shut down if the party has access to multiple instances of Counterspell. Giving monsters abilities that function similarly to their most iconic spells allows them to retain their combat prowess and keep them balanced across more party makeups. The only people that would complain about a change like this is a player that enjoys Counterspellling as much as they can. Any reasonable player or DM should be happy to have high level enemies maintain their challenge despite what the party has.
Or you could use held spells, hiding so that they don't see the spell being cast, additional casters with counterspell to counter that counterspell, enough fights in the day so that the players run out of slots for Counterspell, additional creatures that force shield or another reaction spell to take away the player's reactions, innate psionics spell casting, etc. Etc. There's a ton of ways to resolve this issue without granting spellcaster creatures random non-spell abilities, most of which are nearly identical to existing spells, to fix what is truly an issue only to a lazy DM.
Having extra NPCs around *just* to Counterspell doesn’t seem like maybe the spell needs to be a little less strong? Why not have all those NPCs all cast fireball on the party instead and completely obliterate them? Everything you listed is just ways to work around a single spell so that it won’t ruin encounters. WotC has their share of fuckups, don’t get me wrong. Twilight cleric is just straight up overpowered. But the spell like abilities are perfectly fine design and compliment creature kits well. Also, it also isn’t “just lazy DMs”, it’s less experienced or younger ones too.
It's never *just* to counterspell, but as a part of the combat encounter equation, give them fireball too for that matter, or hypnotic pattern or conjure woodland beings or animate objects or forcecage or any of the other OP spells. Less experienced and younger DM's get to learn how to work around it and plenty of other extremely powerful abilities too. The attempt to simplify casters and other creatures continues to make stat blocks more generic and less useful because there is less distinction between them in functionality. I can slap a different coat of paint on a stat block and call it something else, I don't need or want a bunch of pages taken up with mostly the same stats and abilities. Giving almost every caster new spell like abilities to brute force through counterspell is like welding every door shut when you've given out a copy of a building's master key too many times instead of changing the locks.
I'm personally of the opinion that effectively neutering/removing counterspell as a whole just ends up making both PCs and Monsters even more powerful, since they never have to account for their powerful effects being negated
>As it is, high level enemies can be completely shut down if the party has access to multiple instances of Counterspell. *Good*. Players should be rewarded for making efficient choices and using good strategies. If high level players are dealing easily with high CR enemy spellcasters, then that's not an issue. If the battles end too soon, there's a dozen ways to make them last longer and be cooler than suddenly invalidating a bunch of player features by saying "well, *ackhcually*, despite this ability looking and working exactly like a spell, it's not technically a spell, so no counterspell, no globe of invulnerability, no Aura of Warding, etc".
It affects Dispel Magic, Globe of Invulnerability, Mage Slayer, Ancients Paladins, literally everything that affect spells. Not just Counterspell. And Counterspell still works, just exclusively against the players. And if a party rocks up to be good against spell casters, there are so many ways for a high level caster enemy to get around that. Be invisible. Have Globe of Invulnerability up. Stay more than 60ft away. Punish them for burning their reaction by having the minions pile on the Wizard/Sorcerer who can't cast Shield. All much fairer than "you still have the option, just it only works against you lol". Also, I call bullshit on "it's for high level enemies" because it's not for high level enemies, it's for all NPC Spellcaster stat blocks.
I carried counterspell for a whole campaign and this was every encounter. I don’t think I ever got to use it.
Meaning the enemies never used magic...?
Magic but never spells.
I'm not against it, I just don't think the spellcaster should lose a spell slot over it. Especially during typical campaign play where that 3rd level spell slot had been saved for a special moment. Depends on the table though. If the DM was really good at differentiating spells through components then I could see the difference being an interesting mechanic.
Of course spellcaster should not lose a spell slot. Because they couldn't event cast that spell. To try to cast a reaction spell, you have to meet its trigger. And with counterspell, if there is no one within 60 ft of you that you can see that they are casting a spell, you can't cast it. If DM wants RAW, this is RAW
When it's obviously a Caster with MotM changed, just let them counterspell the stats are simplified for ease of use and not for player frustration.
I say “use” instead of “cast” if it’s not a real spell. Good way to differentiate
I picked Mage Slayer because I thought it would be funny. I'm the only non-caster in my party and all our enemies so far have casted spells. But they're not "spells." They're "spell-like abilities." At least you guys can change your spells. There's no rules about retraining a feat.
I'll say this: Any DM worth their salt would allow you to retrain a feature that does no longer function as intended after a change in the underlying material / rules. If, for example, WOTC decides that barbarians can now only rage if they're below half their hit points, i can't imagine a DM who would follow the new rules without giving the barbarian player a chance to rebuild their character.
Listen I know it's not a me vs them game but as a GM I do actually like to play the game sometimes and have my enemies do things.
Come back 3.5 all is forgiven. To be less flippant, behind the scenes I'm using 3.5e's Ex/Su/Sp etc action types to determine dispellability and counterspellability.
No mechanics just lore, all magic makes use of the weave. Counterspell would be like making a wave to cancel the opponents wave. As long as it would be fair to say the ability manipulated the weave I'd allow counterspell to function on it. That being said I'm all for homebrew magic systems. If you don't like spell like abilities being counterspelled that is fair.
“I counterspell the Dragonborn’s flame breath”
I counterspell the monk's flurry of blows
After reading the comments, here's what I've found: changing spells to spell like abilities like we saw in MotM... \-Nerfed Counterspell, Silence, Identify, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Etc. \-Nerfed Mage Slayer \-Nerfed Ancients Paladin, Abjuration Wizard, and War Magic Wizard \-Nerfed Satyrs, Yuan-Ti, and any other magic resistance giving race \-Made Silvery Barbs the only real way to accomplish the prevention Counterspell normally does Meanwhile, DMs that wanted any of these things could have... \-Just had a conversation with their table \-Given enemy spellcasters Subtle Spell \-Made the change themselves instead of WOTC publishing it in a book and removing the alternatives from DDB Ultimately, do what you enjoy, I'm not here to police how individuals have fun. I don't think anyone in this comment section is, either. I *am* here to point out that there was insufficient reason for WOTC to take away what a lot of us were already enjoying as it was written, and it did a lot of damage to a lot of things that a lot of us really enjoyed.
Ah my old argument for why shadow monks are the best mage killers.
It’s raw but idk if it’s fair
Literally never.
Then shouldn’t sorcerers work the same?
Sure. But there’s not a “Counterspelllikeability”
If it's not a spell don't say cast
One of the things I love is that an ifrit bloodline sorcerer has the spelllike ability to shapeshift into an ifrit. So you can turn into a lawful evil genie with fuck-off powers.
About 20 times in the last hour
It's never happened because my players know that I'm not there to beat them with rules.
If you say “cast” instead of “uses x ability”, we should be able to counterspell it.
So is it casting a spell or activating an activated ability? I need to know if I need to use negate or stifle on it.
They should have called them "Magical Ability" instead of "Spell-like Ability". Would have alleviated a lot of confusion/arguments.
Well, i don't play with people who behave like this, so . . . Never?
If it's not a spell don't day cast, you'll avoid confusion and fights. I just say they use their radiant bolt ability or something along those lines.
Hot take: Counterspell should be level 2 now. Now that spell-like abilities are being moved into the mainstream, counterspell's usefulness has been nerfed. It makes much more sense for counterspell to be reflavored as a spell learned and taught specifically to combat OTHER humanoid casters.
None
Then you aren’t “casting” a spell. You are activating an ability.
I don't user counter spell, and dispel magic and remove curse are more like quests than spells
Reject MotM
Its definitely not RAW. But if you want to play it that way at your table, don't use the word "cast" when they use the spell-like ability
It is RAW. If it's not a Spell, but spell-like ability, it can't be counterspelled. You can't even attempt to counterspell it, because of trigger for reaction to cast a counterspell is seeing a creature within 60ft cast a SPELL
It is though. You can't counter a succubus/incubus' spell like abilities becayse they don't allow it to cast a spell, they simply are abilities that seem like spells, same is true of beholder eye rays. But the vast majority of spell-like abilities state that the creature can cast the spell specified despite it not falling under the spellcasting section of their stat block if they even have one Edit: in this specific example counterspell works because the creature casts the spell, regardless of if it uses a spell slot to do it
If it is magical and not just supernatural, I allow it to be counterspelled, that's the simple interpretation I use as a dm
How many pc spell like abilities do you counterspell then?
Honestly, the whole thing with spell-like-abilities being immune to counterspell is stupid as shit. They’re *called* “Spell-Like”, except that other than mimicking the actual end-result, they are basically in no way like spells. Of course… if this is 5e you’re talking about, I’m afraid your GM is shit, because 5e doesn’t have SLAs. Mind you, instead they just give some monsters an ability with the exact same name… which is equally as stupid. It’s yet another way WotC just kind of said ‘fuck you’ to one class feature or another with their encounter design.
Idk if this is an unpopular opinion but I think counterspell shouldn't even be a thing. For one thing there's the thing in the meme which makes it useless for the PCs most of the time. Second, it's one of those things that's tempting to prepare because it seems versatile and likely you'll need it, but it's more situational than it seems. Most spells aren't harmful enough to be worth spending a third level spell slot, especially for lower level PCs. Not when you can do so many cooler spells that actually make things happen. Third and worst of all is that if you do decide to prepare it, you know you're gonna feel beyond stupid if an enemy casts a gnarly spell and you don't have any third level spell slots left to counter it with, which leads to you just consistently leaving one slot unspent out of paranoia when you could have done something cool with it between every rest.
To be fair counterspell, identify, detect magic, create and destroy water, and comprehend languages are the dumbest spells ive ever seen in a ttrpg from a game design perspective. Anything that tells the dm no with little effort or cost from a players is absolutely design error.
What do you mean "little cost"? It uses up the one resource a spellcater has, the spell slot?
I agree. If Counterspell and Dispel Magic can just say “No. Your magic? Not today.”, Comprehend Languages can make anyone poly-lingual, Detect Magic can show you what is magic, and Identify can tell you what a magic thing does, then what’s the point of Casting Spells, Keeping magic effects unknown, or having things written in ancient tongues? It defeats the point of mystery.
What’s the point of having different languages if some races just *learns* them?
I hope you feel the same way when a dm successfully uses counterspell
? Im normally the dm, but even as a player, i feel they ruin the game