Today, our party of level 10 adventurers faced off against a mage and his minions. As the party's only full spellcaster, all of that mage's counterspells were naturally directed at me. I guess I got lulled by 2014 rules because it was generally fine to take either War Caster or Resilient (Con) to beef up my character's concentration checks, so I just picked War Caster without delving too much into its implication and for the nice bonus of being able to cast a spell as an opportunity attack.
I was surprised to realize Counterspell now required me instead of the mage to roll a Constitution (Save), but because I took War Caster which just gave advantage on concentration checks, my Constitution (Save) was just 1d20+2. I can tell you it did not feel good failing three Con saves in a row, doing nothing for 3 rounds. This made me realize I should have taken Resilient (Con) instead of War Caster.
But I'd like to ask this. Why is the counterspell d20 test a constitution save and not a concentration check or a spellcasting ability check? In 2014, casting a spell was described as a form of concentration. For example, we could cast a spell but delay releasing the spell at a later time by continuing to concentrate on the spell. If we're interrupted before releasing the spell, we would need to make a concentration check to make sure we maintain concentration or the spell dissipates before it can be released, using a up a spell slot for nothing. One would imagine in 2024 spellcasting should still involve me trying to maintain concentration on the spell while the enemy caster attempts to break my concentration. I know I am being grouchy right now, but still, making counterspell a con save does not seem to make much sense to me?
Because Counterspell is no longer an ability check by the caster but a Constitution saving throw by the target, then Resilient would be helpful to gain Constitution saving throw proficiency if you don't have it already.
It isn't a concentration save so that it is harder to build your character to succeed against it. If the enemy has Counterspell then it is assumed in the design of that enemy that it's Counterspell will be effective at least 50% of the time. Otherwise what would be the point of an enemy having Counterspell, if it didn't do anything?
In addition to that, from a DM's perspective, the point of putting your party up against an enemy with Counterspell is to give the martial characters a chance to shine and to challenge the spellcasters to change their approach to combats.
Yeah, it was eye-opening to see counterspell play out for the first time last night as we continued our first foray into 2024 rules.
On round 1, my wizard tried casting polymorph on an enemy caster; I succeeded on my save against their counterspell and then they succeeded on their save against polymorph.
On round 2, I tried countering their fireball, but they made their save. At the end of that round, I pulled the emergency alarm and cast Circle of Power to keep us safe from all these spells.
At least initially, it feels like this will happen a lot. But who knows? In my head I can flavor it as complex and subtle arcane maneuvering. Remains to be seen how often this will come up. We're at the beginning of Eve of Ruin. Eventually there will be less of a downside to casting counterspell (I'm an abjurer), but I'm very curious if newly nerfed counterspell will end up being a dud (that plays out in frustrating ways--different frustrating ways than it used to) or has a niche use or whatever.
To each their own I guess. The way I see it is that both casters are casting spells, thus the checks made should be related to spellcasting. The 2024 PHB describes Constitution as relating to "Health and Stamina", and that constitution checks are when you are "Push(ing) your body beyond normal limits". How that is related to spellcasting, I do not know.
It should have been targeted to concentration saves.
Concentration saves ARE Constitution saves, but specific to holding onto and maintaining spells.
Which is the exact thing Counterspell is trying to stop.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Presumably they wanted a decent failure rate on the player side of things- there’s a lot of features and items to buff concentration saves.
And narratively it’s hard to argue one way makes more sense than the other because there’s almost no narrative explanation for the mechanics of the magic system in 5e.
I'm not a huge fan of it, its not a big issue as I don't find counter spell to be that common of a thing but its just another one of those con is too good aspects to the game.
CON is generally useful in a combat context, but that's about all it is. There's no skills for it, and suffocation is a very rarely brought up circumstance in my experience. Also, it's essentially all defense in combat, so it's actually of secondary value there because in and of itself it does not do anything to reduce enemy HP or otherwise remove them from the field.
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Today, our party of level 10 adventurers faced off against a mage and his minions. As the party's only full spellcaster, all of that mage's counterspells were naturally directed at me. I guess I got lulled by 2014 rules because it was generally fine to take either War Caster or Resilient (Con) to beef up my character's concentration checks, so I just picked War Caster without delving too much into its implication and for the nice bonus of being able to cast a spell as an opportunity attack.
I was surprised to realize Counterspell now required me instead of the mage to roll a Constitution (Save), but because I took War Caster which just gave advantage on concentration checks, my Constitution (Save) was just 1d20+2. I can tell you it did not feel good failing three Con saves in a row, doing nothing for 3 rounds. This made me realize I should have taken Resilient (Con) instead of War Caster.
But I'd like to ask this. Why is the counterspell d20 test a constitution save and not a concentration check or a spellcasting ability check? In 2014, casting a spell was described as a form of concentration. For example, we could cast a spell but delay releasing the spell at a later time by continuing to concentrate on the spell. If we're interrupted before releasing the spell, we would need to make a concentration check to make sure we maintain concentration or the spell dissipates before it can be released, using a up a spell slot for nothing. One would imagine in 2024 spellcasting should still involve me trying to maintain concentration on the spell while the enemy caster attempts to break my concentration. I know I am being grouchy right now, but still, making counterspell a con save does not seem to make much sense to me?
Because Counterspell is no longer an ability check by the caster but a Constitution saving throw by the target, then Resilient would be helpful to gain Constitution saving throw proficiency if you don't have it already.
It isn't a concentration save so that it is harder to build your character to succeed against it. If the enemy has Counterspell then it is assumed in the design of that enemy that it's Counterspell will be effective at least 50% of the time. Otherwise what would be the point of an enemy having Counterspell, if it didn't do anything?
In addition to that, from a DM's perspective, the point of putting your party up against an enemy with Counterspell is to give the martial characters a chance to shine and to challenge the spellcasters to change their approach to combats.
Yeah, it was eye-opening to see counterspell play out for the first time last night as we continued our first foray into 2024 rules.
On round 1, my wizard tried casting polymorph on an enemy caster; I succeeded on my save against their counterspell and then they succeeded on their save against polymorph.
On round 2, I tried countering their fireball, but they made their save. At the end of that round, I pulled the emergency alarm and cast Circle of Power to keep us safe from all these spells.
At least initially, it feels like this will happen a lot. But who knows? In my head I can flavor it as complex and subtle arcane maneuvering. Remains to be seen how often this will come up. We're at the beginning of Eve of Ruin. Eventually there will be less of a downside to casting counterspell (I'm an abjurer), but I'm very curious if newly nerfed counterspell will end up being a dud (that plays out in frustrating ways--different frustrating ways than it used to) or has a niche use or whatever.
Either way, having fun!!
To each their own I guess. The way I see it is that both casters are casting spells, thus the checks made should be related to spellcasting. The 2024 PHB describes Constitution as relating to "Health and Stamina", and that constitution checks are when you are "Push(ing) your body beyond normal limits". How that is related to spellcasting, I do not know.
It should have been targeted to concentration saves.
Concentration saves ARE Constitution saves, but specific to holding onto and maintaining spells.
Which is the exact thing Counterspell is trying to stop.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Presumably they wanted a decent failure rate on the player side of things- there’s a lot of features and items to buff concentration saves.
And narratively it’s hard to argue one way makes more sense than the other because there’s almost no narrative explanation for the mechanics of the magic system in 5e.
I'm not a huge fan of it, its not a big issue as I don't find counter spell to be that common of a thing but its just another one of those con is too good aspects to the game.
CON is generally useful in a combat context, but that's about all it is. There's no skills for it, and suffocation is a very rarely brought up circumstance in my experience. Also, it's essentially all defense in combat, so it's actually of secondary value there because in and of itself it does not do anything to reduce enemy HP or otherwise remove them from the field.