Post/Author/DateTime	Post
tafkamhokie 05-27-05, 10:07 PM	First question: how do you counterspell a touch spell. Do you have to touch the target at the same time the caster does? Do you touch the caster? Do you have to touch anything/anyone? More generally, what is the range of counterspell? Say a caster that is 200 feet from you throws a fireball, but his target is outside of the range of your fireball. Can you counterspell that? What if a higher level mage is throwing a fireball at you, and he is farther away from you than your fireball range, but you are within his range? I always envisioned one caster throwing the glowing pea-sized ball from his hand and the counterspeller throwing an identical pea-sized ball that intercepts the first one and cancels it out. But how do you resolve the counterspell when the ranges do not overlap or if it is a touch spell? Second question regarding haste, slow, and counterspelling. I know you can cast haste to counterspell against slow (and vice versa), but what happens if the other spell is already in effect? You encounter the enemy and he hasted himself (and his friends) right before you opened the door. You notice they are hasted, so you throw a slow spell. Do they get a saving throw? Are you targeting them (thus, they get a saving throw and spell resistance), or the haste spell itself (so no save or SR)? If you target the haste spell itself, shouldn't there be an opposed caster check or something, or does it just automatically negate the haste spell with no die rolling and no questions asked. What if the haste spell has a longer duration than the slow spell, or vice versa?
kSquared 05-27-05, 11:39 PM	First question: how do you counterspell a touch spell. Do you have to touch the target at the same time the caster does? Do you touch the caster? Do you have to touch anything/anyone? You don't have touch anyone. Either your counterspell is successful (making your opponent's spell fizzle) or it is not (wasting your spell and your opponent's gets through). More generally, what is the range of counterspell? Say a caster that is 200 feet from you throws a fireball, but his target is outside of the range of your fireball. Can you counterspell that? It's not the distance to the target that matters, but rather the distance to the person doing the casting. If your fireball (or dispel magic, or whatever) reaches 200 feet or more, you can counterspell his fireball. What if a higher level mage is throwing a fireball at you, and he is farther away from you than your fireball range, but you are within his range? Then you can't counterspell him with that particular spell. (You might have another one with better range, though, and you can use that instead.) I know you can cast haste to counterspell against slow (and vice versa), but what happens if the other spell is already in effect? You encounter the enemy and he hasted himself (and his friends) right before you opened the door. You notice they are hasted, so you throw a slow spell. That's not a counterspell. Here you're using slow to dispel haste, exactly as if it were dispel magic. If they fail the saving throw, their haste spell is negated (they aren't also slowed, though).
Nom 05-28-05, 01:48 AM	You don't have touch anyone. Either your counterspell is successful (making your opponent's spell fizzle) or it is not (wasting your spell and your opponent's gets through).I disagree. If the counterspell has range "touch", you must touch the person casting the spell to be "in range". Since he probably doesn't want you touching him, a melee touch attack (no AoO) will be required. In contrast, a spell with a ranged touch attack still has a range, and range is what matters for counterspell. No ranged touch attack is required. FWIW, I house-rule that counterspells may applied to either the caster or the target. This is not what the rules say, however.