Counterspelling ideas

[IdleMuse]

I could do with some. I'm building a character for a player, he wants to be able to utilise that less-than-frequently used ability, counterspelling. It's not going to be too optimised, let's say practical optimisation rather than theoretical. So far I've got a Beguiler (players wants spontaneous) with Improved and Reactive Counterspell (with its Improved Initiative prereq), Arcane Mastery, and was considering Arcane Thesis (Dispel Magic) and other metamagic enhancers (MM School Focus, Rapid MM) so I can Quicken it as well, but then again I could just get 2 levels of Abjurant Champion for that. But that's about it; I'm fairly lost for a good prestige class, and other feats. Looked at Suel Archanamach, especially since that handbook was just posted, and may go that route if player says they want more melee capability.

So yeah, any ideas? Any other good Counterspell/Opposed Caster Level Check-specific feats or prestige classes?

I've already decided against Dampen Spell and Magic Disruption as just being a little too ineffective.

[sofawall]

Dispelling Cord from MIC may be useful. There's the Inquisition Domain, if you can swing that somehow.

[IdleMuse]

That's certainly doable by switching back from Beguiler to Sorcerer and then taking the ACF that grants a Sorc a domain.

[Keld Denar]

Eldritch Disciple makes for a rather neat counterspeller. Divine casting gives you the ability to take Divine Defiance from FCII. Divine Deficance gives you an immediate action counterspell at the cost of a single TU attempt. Pick up Voracious Dispelling (Dragon Magic) or Devour Magic (CArc) along with the Inquisition Domain from CDivine and you'll have a REALLY good chance of locking down a caster from doing much with his turn. You can also spend your spell slots on Battlemagic Perception (Heroes of Battle) for a FREE action counterspell, although that should probably be errata'd to an immediate action, given that swift and immediate actions didn't exist when HoB was printed.

EDIT:

Dispelling Cord from MIC may be useful. There's the Inquisition Domain, if you can swing that somehow.

Planar Touchstone from the Planar Handbook is a feat that allows you to attune a small 250g gem to a specific planar location. Different locations give you different abilities. One, called the Catalogues of Enlightenment, gives you the granted power of any one single domain. This allows you to pick up the Inquisition domain as an Abjurer3/MasterSpecialist10 for a total of +9 non-CL dependant bonus on Dispel checks. Dispelling Cord makes it +11. This character, with Arcane Mastery, at level 13 with GDM would have a total dispel check of 10 + CL (16 from MS, 17 with an Orange IWIN Stone) + 11 = 38, enough to dispel (or counter) a 27th level caster.

The biggest limiter on using Dispel Magic is the pesky CL cap. You can, with a few abilities, max out your CL a few levels before you'd normally reach the cap. Once the cap is reached, only things that add to the check work, like Dispelling Cord, Inquisition domain, and Master Abjurer.

[Optimystik]

I'll just leave this here... (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871214/Dispelling_38;_Counterspelling_Compilation)