DMs, please, there are so many creatures available through all of the books. Stop picking/creating so many that rely on casting magic. Cause you know what's a better idea then complaining that all your players picked Counterspell and then giving all your NPCs that spell? Just have a campaign with less NPCs that cast spells or have people be sorcerers that use subtle spell if you wanna be cheeky about it. Anyone whose ran the modules knows that the enemies are so diverse, your campaign doesn't have to just be, a bunch of easily killable minions, several humanoid miniboss magic users, a big monster, and a humanoid final boss magic user.
Part of the fun for a lot of players is prep-work in creating their character sheet, hoping the languages they picked will be useful, hoping the proficiencies will help, hoping their abilities and spells will be helpful. Most experienced players pick counterspell because they know most homebrewed campaigns have a bunch of magic users in them and I feel like that's a bigger issue. "But in my world, magic is a huge thing that everyone would be using!" I get that. I'm going to point out Eberron, specifically the country of Droam. Medusas are a huge thing in this world, even more so in the country of monsters so obviously the players are gonna buy mirrors. "But that would ruin the campaign!" No, cause even the creators know that even know that though realistically you should be running into Medusas a lot, you don't HAVE to do that. There are many other encounters in Droam to choose from. So instead of putting another mage in that battle, how about that one snake lady with multiple reactions to block with her several arms or a ghost that can phase through bookshelves with disengage to escape combat.
Also, Silvery barbs works fine in setting. Strixhaven isn't a source book. It takes place in a location filled with magic users. It gives RPing opportunities to feel like you're teaming up with other magic users.
i play games with a dm that doesn't use magic users that much, so i was surprised to see that this was that big of an issue. lol, i guess a lot of other dm like using dm npcs magic users.
Part of the fun for a lot of players is prep-work in creating their character sheet, hoping the languages they picked will be useful, hoping the proficiencies will help, hoping their abilities and spells will be helpful.
So I as a DM should allow Counterspell to be useful by including enemies the players can Counterspell right? It would be no fun if I just replaced all the spellcasters with monsters that don't cast spells right? Or if I just said "No they're a sorcerer so you can't counterspell them". But then the earlier part of the post suggests I should just not use spellcasters as enemies or just make them sorcerers and nope the players' counterspell. Hence my confusion? Should Counterspell be useful or not?
Silvery barbs works fine in setting. Strixhaven isn't a source book. It takes place in a location filled with magic users.
But your paragraph above just argued that just because Eberron says it is full of Medusas that doesn't mean I as a DM should run lots of Medusa encounters in it, but now you are assuming because Strixhaven says it is full of spellcasters I should run it as full of spellcasters? But didn't you also just argue I shouldn't run lots of encounters with spellcasters?
It gives RPing opportunities to feel like you're teaming up with other magic users.
How so? And why doesn't Counterspell do that? And if Strixhaven is full of spellcasters shouldn't the enemies all have Silvery Barbs too?
But also 2014 Counterspell is fine, if you balance the encounters appropriately. The problem is that the books don't tell you how to balance encounters for it. The way you balance your encounters for 2014 Counterspell is: (1) Enemies always cast spells at a level higher than your PCs can cast spells requiring them to roll for success on Counterspell. (2) either increase the DC of Counterspell success by 2 for each party member with Counterspell beyond 1st, or have enemies have a counterspeller for each party member beyond the 1st that has Counterspell. (3) Give boss casters either an arena where they can get out of range of Counterspell and/or Greater Invisibility (which makes them impossible to Counterspell.
In both 2014 and 2024 players can increase their AC to ridiculous levels meaning save-based effects are a must, likewise magic is ridiculously powerful so enemies need to be able to do it too in order to keep up with players. Brute monsters are boring, enemy spellcasters are necessary to make interesting encounters that actually require the party to think. Sure you can cheat this as a DM and give the monsters innate spellcasting or non-spell abilities that work just like spells, but just using monsters than don't use spells isn't viable it would get super boring.
I appreciate the simplicity of many rules in D&D 5e. In my opinion, the changes to Counterspell go in that direction.
With the 2014 Counterspell, you had to guess whether to upcast it or not. Or DMs might let PCs know what spell an NPC is casting based on some criteria.
To be fair, this should go both ways: NPCs should also have rules to know or not what spell a PC is casting.
XGtE provides an option for this, but it requires using your reaction to identify the spell, so it's not much help if you're trying to cast 2014 Counterspell in the same turn.
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone.
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone
i.e. all the strategy involved is gone. While at the same time unless they significantly change the monster design, Counterspell is going to be more potent than ever because right now, most caster monsters do not have proficiency in Con saves.
But also 2014 Counterspell is fine, if you balance the encounters appropriately. The problem is that the books don't tell you how to balance encounters for it. The way you balance your encounters for 2014 Counterspell is: (1) Enemies always cast spells at a level higher than your PCs can cast spells requiring them to roll for success on Counterspell.
If there's ever 2 counterspellers in the party, this approach doesn't work. Winning one coin flip is one thing, but you should never gamble on winning 2 coin flips.
(3) Give boss casters either an arena where they can get out of range of Counterspell and/or Greater Invisibility (which makes them impossible to Counterspell.
If the DM has to jump through so many hoops to redesign encounters any time Counterspell is present, there's something wrong.
The case against 2014 Counterspell is simple: wasting a monster's entire action at the cost of your reaction is always a good deal, and in 2014, it was too easy to succeed. Legendary Resistance didn't protect against it because there was no save involved, and it's much easier to jack up your ability checks than it is to penalize an enemy's saves.
While "this is too good" is to a certain extent subjective, the fact that it could shut down encounters against Legendary Creatures (which are boss monsters by design, and are supposed to be able to go toe to toe with 4-6 characters single-handedly) was an unambiguous flaw. The 2014 Grappling rules needed to go for the same reason. The unspoken rule of D&D combat is that if something bad is happening to you and it doesn't involve getting maimed, you should get a save to avoid it. When things don't follow that rule, it inevitably leads to problems.
I actually think OP is right about DMs overusing spells. I think that a massive misconception among lots of D&D players is that magic = spells. Magic can be a lot of things, so even if you have a very powerful mage, that doesn't mean they have to be casting spells. Mage = spellcaster is somewhat true for PCs, but that doesn't have to apply to NPCs. If a DM wants to build an NPC (even the BBEG) as if they were a PC, of course they're free to do so. But that's not the only way to do it.
It seems like WotC is actually going in that direction. Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse has a lot of updated stat blocks. Spellcasters in particular now have less spells and more abilities that are clearly magical, some are similar to spells, but aren't actually spells. We don't have the new Monster Manual yet, so we don't know for sure, but I assume this is the direction they're going in terms of NPC and monster design.
I'm not saying DMs shouldn't have enemies cast spells at all. If your players made characters with Counterspell, by all means, let them use it sometimes. It's always fun for the players to feel like they chose features or spells that come up and are useful. However, if you want your BBEG to be an archmage and you're freaking out because the party has multiple casters with Counterspell, you don't have to jump through so many hoops in order to make it work. Why give multiple NPCs Counterspell and start a nonsensical counterspelling war where all you get is a bunch of spell slots wasted, when you can just let the BBEG do magic without it being spells? No need for sorcerer levels, Subtle Spell, Greater Invisibility, etc. Just tell your players that the BBEG is doing this really powerful magical effect, describe how it looks and what it does. Counterspell is only a problem if you build your NPCs as if they were PCs, and a lot of people do that for some reason.
If there's ever 2 counterspellers in the party, this approach doesn't work. Winning one coin flip is one thing, but you should never gamble on winning 2 coin flips.
It 100% does if you use the scaling I mentioned in point #2. I calculated the expected success rate and increasing the DC by +2 restores the expected success rate if 2 players attempt to counterspell instead of 1.
If the DM has to jump through so many hoops to redesign encounters any time Counterspell is present, there's something wrong.
Not really, if you look at monster design of spellcasting enemies, it is abundantly clear they cannot stand toe-to-toe with player characters without dying almost immediately. Spellcasting enemies are almost all highly intelligent so should be using strategy when in combat - being invisible or hiding behind cover or teleporting around out of reach - never just be standing out in the open waiting to be made into a pin cushion.
It 100% does if you use the scaling I mentioned in point #2. I calculated the expected success rate and increasing the DC by +2 restores the expected success rate if 2 players attempt to counterspell instead of 1.
If the solution is to change how it works, how is that not a clear admission that it's broken? Either way, I'm not a fan of this approach. There isn't a satisfying justification for "if there's more wizards present, spells get harder to interrupt." Making Counterspell be subject to Legendary Resistance like everything else in the game that isn't an attack solves the problem in a way that doesn't violate players' intuition.
Not really, if you look at monster design of spellcasting enemies, it is abundantly clear they cannot stand toe-to-toe with player characters without dying almost immediately.
Legendary Monsters do go toe to toe with entire parties, when they're not being shut down by counterspell.
Legendary Monsters do go toe to toe with entire parties, when they're not being shut down by counterspell.
How? Have you looked at the hit points for a Lich? They are made of paper. If the players can just walk up and hit them that Lich is dead easily within 2 turns. The same is true for most spellcasting enemies, they have really low hit points for their CR, mediocre ACs, no and Con save proficiency. If the whole party can hit them they last at best 2 rounds and can often be one-shotted by an optimized PC. You have to play them smart of you need to HB them to have double the number of hit points they have RAW.
There isn't a satisfying justification for "if there's more wizards present, spells get harder to interrupt."
That's not the justification you use though. Like everything the DM does for balance reason you either give no justification to the players and it is just "because they are a powerful enemy" or left to their imagination. Or you invent a justification - e.g. the Lich has a special wand that empower their spells making them harder to counterspell, or the dark necromancer is using ancient forbidden magic which makes it harder to counterspell them, or in my cast it was a follower of Shar so I justified it as the spellcaster using the Shadowweave rather than the regular weave hence their spells were harder to counter.
How? Have you looked at the hit points for a Lich? They are made of paper. If the players can just walk up and hit them that Lich is dead easily within 2 turns.
That's normally not a problem for a monster with 9th level spells, unless broken counterspell mechanics get in the way.
That's not the justification you use though. Like everything the DM does for balance reason you either give no justification to the players and it is just "because they are a powerful enemy" or left to their imagination.
The game has a very strong precedent that tasks or hazards have fixed difficulties and having people help you makes things easier. So yes, if I'm going to pull the rug out from under them with some weird rubberbanding mechanic that's not used anywhere else, they deserve an explanation. Having your disbelief suspended is a problem in a game about make-believe.
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone
i.e. all the strategy involved is gone. While at the same time unless they significantly change the monster design, Counterspell is going to be more potent than ever because right now, most caster monsters do not have proficiency in Con saves.
They already significantly changed the monster design, though.
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone
i.e. all the strategy involved is gone. While at the same time unless they significantly change the monster design, Counterspell is going to be more potent than ever because right now, most caster monsters do not have proficiency in Con saves.
They already significantly changed the monster design, though.
Have they given all spellcasters proficiency in Constitution saving throws? Unless they do that Counterspell is more powerful in 2024 than in 2014.
Making Counterspell be subject to Legendary Resistance like everything else in the game that isn't an attack solves the problem in a way that doesn't violate players' intuition.
How does it solve the problem? If you have 2 players that can cast Counterspell in the party your boss will run out of Legendary resistance very quickly since the players that can cast Counterspell will also be able to cast Banishment, Polymorph or other save-of-suck spells on their turn, so depending on initiative your boss monster could be out of legendary resistances before the end of their first turn.
That's normally not a problem for a monster with 9th level spells, unless broken counterspell mechanics get in the way.
Again how? There's only 1x 9th level spell that would protect the monster - Prismatic Wall - and they still need to: (1) win initiative so the players don't kill them before they get to act, and (2) avoid getting pummelled by held actions as soon as they exit in order to target the players. Giving all your legendary monsters Prismatic Wall is no less cheesy than giving all your casters Greater Invisibility.
But also, what about all the casters you use that don't have 9th level spells? Do you not have players face casters in combat before tier 4 combat??? There are spellcasting enemies as low as CR 1 in the books. You can't rely on 9th level spells to protect a CR 5-10 spell casting enemy.
Legendary Lich (CR 21, 9th level spells), AC = 17+5 (optional Shield spell), HP = 135, 3 Legendary Resistances, +3 initiative, +10 CON save
Party (20-30ft away):
Level 12 Swashbuckler Rogue: 111 hp (Tough feat), AC = 17 (Studded Leather), +10 th (2x +1 Scimitars), 6d6 Sneak Attack, +8 initiative, Evasion Level 12 Totem Barbarian: 137 hp (+4 Con), AC = 16 (Unarmored Defence), +11 th (+2 Greataxe), 1d12+10 damage per hit, +2 initiative with Adv, Reckless Level 12 Eloquence Bard: 87 hp, AC = 14 (Studded Leather), Warcaster, +2 Initiative Level 12 Evocation Wizard: 86 hp (+3 Con), AC = 15 (Mage Armour) + 5 (Shield), +2 Initiative
Combat:
Chances are both the Rogue and the Barbarian will act before the Lich,
Rogue has 45% chance to hit and 2 attacks, for expected DPR: 23 (if lich uses Shield), or 32 if the lich doesn't use Shield. Barbarian has expected DPR: 25 if the lich uses Shield, or 31 if the lich doesn't use Shield Wizard can deal ~40 DPR with 5th level Fireball Bard can deal ~18 DPR with 5th level Dissonant Whispers (excluding Attacks of Opportunity)
So already before the Lich is down 50-60 hp (or ~40% of it's max HP) before it has gotten a turn yet.
The Lich can Kill or Disable 1 party member on it's turn using Dominate Monster or Power Word Kill, and has ~40% chance to take another out with Paralyzing Touch as a Legendary Action, but even still it will probably be dead before it gets a second turn - and this is a massively under leveled not at all optimized party.
Please explain to me how this Lich standing toe-to-toe to the party is at all a threat....
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone
i.e. all the strategy involved is gone. While at the same time unless they significantly change the monster design, Counterspell is going to be more potent than ever because right now, most caster monsters do not have proficiency in Con saves.
They already significantly changed the monster design, though.
Have they given all spellcasters proficiency in Constitution saving throws? Unless they do that Counterspell is more powerful in 2024 than in 2014.
No, but they reduced the number of spells that spellcasters get, considerably. And instead they gave them abilities that often replicate spells, or at least deal damage, inflict conditions, etc., that are not actually spells.
The Diviner in Volo's Guide to Monsters had 24 spells available, at least 10+ of them usable in combat. The Diviner in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse gets 12 spells, only 2+ usable in combat. But it also gets 3 attacks per turn that deal 20 radiant damage on average, and also an AoE that deals 10d8 psychic damage and stuns the targets. Volo's Diviner would be very much screwed against Counterspell. The one in Mordenkainen is probably not going to be bothered by it.
And that's just one example. This is the new spellcaster design, which they have been following in other more recent books as well. Counterspell is way less powerful in 2024 than in 2014.
How does it solve the problem? If you have 2 players that can cast Counterspell in the party your boss will run out of Legendary resistance very quickly since the players that can cast Counterspell will also be able to cast Banishment, Polymorph or other save-of-suck spells on their turn, so depending on initiative your boss monster could be out of legendary resistances before the end of their first turn.
It solves the problem because the players will actually have to deal with the Lich. Even if they bring 3 counterspellers and all 3 of them get lucky (which would be quite something, given a Lich's +10 Con save), the Lich is still casting whatever spell it wants on the first round, and that's going to throw a wrench into their plans. Odds are quite good the Lich can still cast spells on the second round too.
If you don't think that's enough, well, you could make that argument about any other save-or-suck. At that point we're arguing about whether 3 uses of Legendary Resistance are enough and not whether Counterspell is breaking encounters.
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DMs, please, there are so many creatures available through all of the books. Stop picking/creating so many that rely on casting magic. Cause you know what's a better idea then complaining that all your players picked Counterspell and then giving all your NPCs that spell? Just have a campaign with less NPCs that cast spells or have people be sorcerers that use subtle spell if you wanna be cheeky about it. Anyone whose ran the modules knows that the enemies are so diverse, your campaign doesn't have to just be, a bunch of easily killable minions, several humanoid miniboss magic users, a big monster, and a humanoid final boss magic user.
Part of the fun for a lot of players is prep-work in creating their character sheet, hoping the languages they picked will be useful, hoping the proficiencies will help, hoping their abilities and spells will be helpful. Most experienced players pick counterspell because they know most homebrewed campaigns have a bunch of magic users in them and I feel like that's a bigger issue. "But in my world, magic is a huge thing that everyone would be using!" I get that. I'm going to point out Eberron, specifically the country of Droam. Medusas are a huge thing in this world, even more so in the country of monsters so obviously the players are gonna buy mirrors. "But that would ruin the campaign!" No, cause even the creators know that even know that though realistically you should be running into Medusas a lot, you don't HAVE to do that. There are many other encounters in Droam to choose from. So instead of putting another mage in that battle, how about that one snake lady with multiple reactions to block with her several arms or a ghost that can phase through bookshelves with disengage to escape combat.
Also, Silvery barbs works fine in setting. Strixhaven isn't a source book. It takes place in a location filled with magic users. It gives RPing opportunities to feel like you're teaming up with other magic users.
Nah. 2014 counterspell was broken.
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i play games with a dm that doesn't use magic users that much, so i was surprised to see that this was that big of an issue.
lol, i guess a lot of other dm like using dm npcs magic users.
Huh? I don't understand what your argument is?
So I as a DM should allow Counterspell to be useful by including enemies the players can Counterspell right? It would be no fun if I just replaced all the spellcasters with monsters that don't cast spells right? Or if I just said "No they're a sorcerer so you can't counterspell them". But then the earlier part of the post suggests I should just not use spellcasters as enemies or just make them sorcerers and nope the players' counterspell. Hence my confusion? Should Counterspell be useful or not?
But your paragraph above just argued that just because Eberron says it is full of Medusas that doesn't mean I as a DM should run lots of Medusa encounters in it, but now you are assuming because Strixhaven says it is full of spellcasters I should run it as full of spellcasters? But didn't you also just argue I shouldn't run lots of encounters with spellcasters?
How so? And why doesn't Counterspell do that? And if Strixhaven is full of spellcasters shouldn't the enemies all have Silvery Barbs too?
But also 2014 Counterspell is fine, if you balance the encounters appropriately. The problem is that the books don't tell you how to balance encounters for it. The way you balance your encounters for 2014 Counterspell is:
(1) Enemies always cast spells at a level higher than your PCs can cast spells requiring them to roll for success on Counterspell.
(2) either increase the DC of Counterspell success by 2 for each party member with Counterspell beyond 1st, or have enemies have a counterspeller for each party member beyond the 1st that has Counterspell.
(3) Give boss casters either an arena where they can get out of range of Counterspell and/or Greater Invisibility (which makes them impossible to Counterspell.
In both 2014 and 2024 players can increase their AC to ridiculous levels meaning save-based effects are a must, likewise magic is ridiculously powerful so enemies need to be able to do it too in order to keep up with players. Brute monsters are boring, enemy spellcasters are necessary to make interesting encounters that actually require the party to think. Sure you can cheat this as a DM and give the monsters innate spellcasting or non-spell abilities that work just like spells, but just using monsters than don't use spells isn't viable it would get super boring.
I appreciate the simplicity of many rules in D&D 5e. In my opinion, the changes to Counterspell go in that direction.
With the 2014 Counterspell, you had to guess whether to upcast it or not. Or DMs might let PCs know what spell an NPC is casting based on some criteria.
To be fair, this should go both ways: NPCs should also have rules to know or not what spell a PC is casting.
XGtE provides an option for this, but it requires using your reaction to identify the spell, so it's not much help if you're trying to cast 2014 Counterspell in the same turn.
Now, that guesswork for PCs and extra hassle for DMs is gone.
i.e. all the strategy involved is gone. While at the same time unless they significantly change the monster design, Counterspell is going to be more potent than ever because right now, most caster monsters do not have proficiency in Con saves.
If there's ever 2 counterspellers in the party, this approach doesn't work. Winning one coin flip is one thing, but you should never gamble on winning 2 coin flips.
If the DM has to jump through so many hoops to redesign encounters any time Counterspell is present, there's something wrong.
The case against 2014 Counterspell is simple: wasting a monster's entire action at the cost of your reaction is always a good deal, and in 2014, it was too easy to succeed. Legendary Resistance didn't protect against it because there was no save involved, and it's much easier to jack up your ability checks than it is to penalize an enemy's saves.
While "this is too good" is to a certain extent subjective, the fact that it could shut down encounters against Legendary Creatures (which are boss monsters by design, and are supposed to be able to go toe to toe with 4-6 characters single-handedly) was an unambiguous flaw. The 2014 Grappling rules needed to go for the same reason. The unspoken rule of D&D combat is that if something bad is happening to you and it doesn't involve getting maimed, you should get a save to avoid it. When things don't follow that rule, it inevitably leads to problems.
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I actually think OP is right about DMs overusing spells. I think that a massive misconception among lots of D&D players is that magic = spells. Magic can be a lot of things, so even if you have a very powerful mage, that doesn't mean they have to be casting spells. Mage = spellcaster is somewhat true for PCs, but that doesn't have to apply to NPCs. If a DM wants to build an NPC (even the BBEG) as if they were a PC, of course they're free to do so. But that's not the only way to do it.
It seems like WotC is actually going in that direction. Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse has a lot of updated stat blocks. Spellcasters in particular now have less spells and more abilities that are clearly magical, some are similar to spells, but aren't actually spells. We don't have the new Monster Manual yet, so we don't know for sure, but I assume this is the direction they're going in terms of NPC and monster design.
I'm not saying DMs shouldn't have enemies cast spells at all. If your players made characters with Counterspell, by all means, let them use it sometimes. It's always fun for the players to feel like they chose features or spells that come up and are useful. However, if you want your BBEG to be an archmage and you're freaking out because the party has multiple casters with Counterspell, you don't have to jump through so many hoops in order to make it work. Why give multiple NPCs Counterspell and start a nonsensical counterspelling war where all you get is a bunch of spell slots wasted, when you can just let the BBEG do magic without it being spells? No need for sorcerer levels, Subtle Spell, Greater Invisibility, etc. Just tell your players that the BBEG is doing this really powerful magical effect, describe how it looks and what it does. Counterspell is only a problem if you build your NPCs as if they were PCs, and a lot of people do that for some reason.
It 100% does if you use the scaling I mentioned in point #2. I calculated the expected success rate and increasing the DC by +2 restores the expected success rate if 2 players attempt to counterspell instead of 1.
Not really, if you look at monster design of spellcasting enemies, it is abundantly clear they cannot stand toe-to-toe with player characters without dying almost immediately. Spellcasting enemies are almost all highly intelligent so should be using strategy when in combat - being invisible or hiding behind cover or teleporting around out of reach - never just be standing out in the open waiting to be made into a pin cushion.
If the solution is to change how it works, how is that not a clear admission that it's broken? Either way, I'm not a fan of this approach. There isn't a satisfying justification for "if there's more wizards present, spells get harder to interrupt." Making Counterspell be subject to Legendary Resistance like everything else in the game that isn't an attack solves the problem in a way that doesn't violate players' intuition.
Legendary Monsters do go toe to toe with entire parties, when they're not being shut down by counterspell.
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How? Have you looked at the hit points for a Lich? They are made of paper. If the players can just walk up and hit them that Lich is dead easily within 2 turns. The same is true for most spellcasting enemies, they have really low hit points for their CR, mediocre ACs, no and Con save proficiency. If the whole party can hit them they last at best 2 rounds and can often be one-shotted by an optimized PC. You have to play them smart of you need to HB them to have double the number of hit points they have RAW.
That's not the justification you use though. Like everything the DM does for balance reason you either give no justification to the players and it is just "because they are a powerful enemy" or left to their imagination. Or you invent a justification - e.g. the Lich has a special wand that empower their spells making them harder to counterspell, or the dark necromancer is using ancient forbidden magic which makes it harder to counterspell them, or in my cast it was a follower of Shar so I justified it as the spellcaster using the Shadowweave rather than the regular weave hence their spells were harder to counter.
That's normally not a problem for a monster with 9th level spells, unless broken counterspell mechanics get in the way.
The game has a very strong precedent that tasks or hazards have fixed difficulties and having people help you makes things easier. So yes, if I'm going to pull the rug out from under them with some weird rubberbanding mechanic that's not used anywhere else, they deserve an explanation. Having your disbelief suspended is a problem in a game about make-believe.
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They already significantly changed the monster design, though.
Have they given all spellcasters proficiency in Constitution saving throws? Unless they do that Counterspell is more powerful in 2024 than in 2014.
How does it solve the problem? If you have 2 players that can cast Counterspell in the party your boss will run out of Legendary resistance very quickly since the players that can cast Counterspell will also be able to cast Banishment, Polymorph or other save-of-suck spells on their turn, so depending on initiative your boss monster could be out of legendary resistances before the end of their first turn.
Again how? There's only 1x 9th level spell that would protect the monster - Prismatic Wall - and they still need to: (1) win initiative so the players don't kill them before they get to act, and (2) avoid getting pummelled by held actions as soon as they exit in order to target the players. Giving all your legendary monsters Prismatic Wall is no less cheesy than giving all your casters Greater Invisibility.
But also, what about all the casters you use that don't have 9th level spells? Do you not have players face casters in combat before tier 4 combat??? There are spellcasting enemies as low as CR 1 in the books. You can't rely on 9th level spells to protect a CR 5-10 spell casting enemy.
Here let's put some numbers to this:
Enemy:
Legendary Lich (CR 21, 9th level spells), AC = 17+5 (optional Shield spell), HP = 135, 3 Legendary Resistances, +3 initiative, +10 CON save
Party (20-30ft away):
Level 12 Swashbuckler Rogue: 111 hp (Tough feat), AC = 17 (Studded Leather), +10 th (2x +1 Scimitars), 6d6 Sneak Attack, +8 initiative, Evasion
Level 12 Totem Barbarian: 137 hp (+4 Con), AC = 16 (Unarmored Defence), +11 th (+2 Greataxe), 1d12+10 damage per hit, +2 initiative with Adv, Reckless
Level 12 Eloquence Bard: 87 hp, AC = 14 (Studded Leather), Warcaster, +2 Initiative
Level 12 Evocation Wizard: 86 hp (+3 Con), AC = 15 (Mage Armour) + 5 (Shield), +2 Initiative
Combat:
Chances are both the Rogue and the Barbarian will act before the Lich,
Rogue has 45% chance to hit and 2 attacks, for expected DPR: 23 (if lich uses Shield), or 32 if the lich doesn't use Shield.
Barbarian has expected DPR: 25 if the lich uses Shield, or 31 if the lich doesn't use Shield
Wizard can deal ~40 DPR with 5th level Fireball
Bard can deal ~18 DPR with 5th level Dissonant Whispers (excluding Attacks of Opportunity)
So already before the Lich is down 50-60 hp (or ~40% of it's max HP) before it has gotten a turn yet.
The Lich can Kill or Disable 1 party member on it's turn using Dominate Monster or Power Word Kill, and has ~40% chance to take another out with Paralyzing Touch as a Legendary Action, but even still it will probably be dead before it gets a second turn - and this is a massively under leveled not at all optimized party.
Please explain to me how this Lich standing toe-to-toe to the party is at all a threat....
No, but they reduced the number of spells that spellcasters get, considerably. And instead they gave them abilities that often replicate spells, or at least deal damage, inflict conditions, etc., that are not actually spells.
The Diviner in Volo's Guide to Monsters had 24 spells available, at least 10+ of them usable in combat. The Diviner in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse gets 12 spells, only 2+ usable in combat. But it also gets 3 attacks per turn that deal 20 radiant damage on average, and also an AoE that deals 10d8 psychic damage and stuns the targets.
Volo's Diviner would be very much screwed against Counterspell. The one in Mordenkainen is probably not going to be bothered by it.
And that's just one example. This is the new spellcaster design, which they have been following in other more recent books as well. Counterspell is way less powerful in 2024 than in 2014.
It solves the problem because the players will actually have to deal with the Lich. Even if they bring 3 counterspellers and all 3 of them get lucky (which would be quite something, given a Lich's +10 Con save), the Lich is still casting whatever spell it wants on the first round, and that's going to throw a wrench into their plans. Odds are quite good the Lich can still cast spells on the second round too.
If you don't think that's enough, well, you could make that argument about any other save-or-suck. At that point we're arguing about whether 3 uses of Legendary Resistance are enough and not whether Counterspell is breaking encounters.
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