Have you ever Counterspelled a Party Member?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I did last night for the first time.

In the middle of a good but frustrating session where we could not convince a king not to subjugate a nearby town our party of a Ranger, a Wizard and my Bard went on a fact finding mission in the slums of the capital and went to the worst Inn / Bar we could find.

Our mild mannered party wizard engaged some of the locals in conversation about working and living conditions. One of them got a bit heated and he offered to buy a round. A group of several fellows noticed things getting louder and walked over.

Persuasion rolls virtually doesn't exist in our game so my Bard had no luck calming the situation. One of the other fellows took the wizard's offer as a sign he had money and pushed the wizard threatening to rob him. Our Wizard has a decent Strength score and Nat20'd it anyway so he didn't go down but he did get punched in the nose for the D4 of damage.

What does the normally mild mannered wizard do? He says "I cast Fireball".

From a face-palm pose I looked up and blurted "Counterspell!" as the DM is opening his mouth to say ok.

It was my most glorious use of a level 3 slot yet. Not only was this Fireball in this slum bar going to kill 10 (albeit thug, ignorant, idiot) NPC's but I could only picture the entire shanty area of town burning down.

Any of you all ever use Counterspell on a party member?

[KorvinStarmast]

I love this post. :smallcool: And your quick thinking.

[Unoriginal]

And then the two of you were attacked by everyone with the intent to kill for using magic in an hostile context?

[nickl_2000]

And then the two of you were attacked by everyone with the intent to kill for using magic in an hostile context?

Depends on how drunk they were and if you bought a round for them afterwards

[MarkVIIIMarc]

And then the two of you were attacked by everyone with the intent to kill for using magic in an hostile context?

Nah, no one attacked the Bard for using magic to stop a Fireball but they should have been properly scared of our Wizard!

For further backstory our party was on a diplomatic mission and had some military troops acting as escorts. We had convinced them to let us go in unescorted. The DM probably didn't want to figure out how things were going to go so he had them bust in and break things up.

FWIW, my plan was to hope cast Fear on the drunks and hope the Wizard would cast sleep on the rest. The combo should really of thinned their numbers. Hopefully our Ranger had something non-lethal up his quiet sleeve.

[Millface]

I haven't ever counterspelled a party member, but I certainly would have in this case! Nice thinking.

My players (and myself when I play) usually sit down and talk about their characters before a campaign though, so they don't often disagree too much, at least not fundamentally so. If one of my players was willing to fireball a shanty tavern, the rest of them would probably back him, for better or worse. We're really good friends in real life, so aside from the oddball bored player wanting to add some drama now and then we tend to play characters that are also BFFs (or whose personalities tend to lean that direction). If one us is chaotic crazy, the rest are likely to at least find it amusing. :smallbiggrin:

[Corran]

If the wizard is reading this post, I want to let him know that in the future he can use his counterspell against the bard's counterspell. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OyrX11cMkE)

[nickl_2000]

If the wizard is reading this post, I want to let him know that in the future he can use his counterspell against the bard's counterspell. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OyrX11cMkE)

How about the wild magic sorcerer counterspelling the counterspell, get a wild magic surge and roll to cast a second fireball?

[Corran]

How about the wild magic sorcerer counterspelling the counterspell, get a wild magic surge and roll to cast a second fireball?
Wouldn't it be even more hilarious if the wild magic sorcerer was the one trying to counterspell the fireball, and instead ended up being the one that burns everything up?

Either way, I would take it as a sign from the dice gods.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Wouldn't it be even more hilarious if the wild magic sorcerer was the one trying to counterspell the fireball, and instead ended up being the one that burns everything up?

Either way, I would take it as a sign from the dice gods.

Those are both hilarious!

Really my Chaotic Neutral Bard wasn't super worried about the right or wrong of killing the 8 or 10 would be muggers. It was more the pragmatic effect. The king wss already annoued by us, the city was near Constantinople size with a large standing army, and if the DM had the place catch on fire innocents would be harmed.

[Pex]

Most of the time when a player is about to do something stupid that would affect the party we as a group figuratively and sometimes literally yell at him "No! Don't do that!" The player usually backs down, once in a while needing to be explained why it's a bad idea first. It's meta, but for us it's an ok thing and the DM lets it work. He doesn't want the encounter to fall apart either.

When it would only affect the PC himself the DM asks "Are you sure?" We tell the player whenever a DM asks that question the response should be "Never mind, I don't do that." If he does it anyway the consequences are on him.

That's our "Counterspell".
:smallsmile:

[KorvinStarmast]

Wouldn't it be even more hilarious if the wild magic sorcerer was the one trying to counterspell the fireball, and instead ended up being the one that burns everything up?

Either way, I would take it as a sign from the dice gods. Another fine post.

Most of the time when a player is about to do something stupid that would affect the party we as a group figuratively and sometimes literally yell at him "No! Don't do that!" The player usually backs down, once in a while needing to be explained why it's a bad idea first. It's meta, but for us it's an ok thing and the DM lets it work. He doesn't want the encounter to fall apart either.

When it would only affect the PC himself the DM asks "Are you sure?" We tell the player whenever a DM asks that question the response should be "Never mind, I don't do that." If he does it anyway the consequences are on him.

That's our "Counterspell".
:smallsmile: Yeah, that'd be a good little post to provide to new players, on how to help other players from being dangerous to their own party.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Never done it myself, but just yesterday our Sorcerer cast Fireball in an enclosed space and nearly engulfed the entire party. (Aside from myself; Blink is an excellent defense against such things. I actually got to use the words "ethereal facepalm." Made my whole day.) Then the Wizard cast Counterspell and saved everyone.

Pretty sure that won't happen again.

[brainface]

I had my warlock learn counterspell just to counter any "accidents" from the wild mage.

The wild mage then did everything they could to avoid combat for a good 4 sessions and the campaign ended. I was sad.

[DeadMech]

I haven't had to counterspell my own team before. Unfortunately though silence and hold person aren't reflex casting times. That might have saved us some issues.

[Sigreid]

So, my current wizard is named the Romanian words for "Hold my beer" (at lest according to google translate. He would definitely be the one you would be trying to counterspell.

This has me thinking as a DM though how much fun it would be to counter spell the heal spell used to try to bring up an unconscious party member.

[Laserlight]

Just tonight...not counterspell, but the same idea. The party's assignment is to kidnap the princess. Lirik, a skaven (ratman) goes into the sewers intending to find a way into the palace, but gets turned around and comes out in the courtyard of a random building. He decides "this must be the palace, so that must be the princess" and decides to kidnap her by killing her, dragging the body off and getting another party member to rez the girl.

As it happens, Large Rock, another party member, happens to be in the alley connecting to the courtyard. When the girl screams, Rock runs into the courtyard. Lirik has Mask of Many Faces but has not disguised his pact morningstar; Rock recognizes it. He throws his dagger to disarm Lirik.

Unfortunately, he rolled a 1.

And a further roll indicated that the dagger hits the girl. Doesn't kill her but Lirik assumes that Rock meant to hit her and approves of Lirik's plan. The girl tries to run, provokes OA, and Lirik bashes her head in. Witness screams, things go downhill rapidly from there.

Oh, and nobody in the party has any healing magic at all, so no rez for poor little Lorea, RIP. Good thing she wasn't really the princess.

[Naanomi]

As a GM... the mid/high level party in my last campaign all got drugged and woke up from a long rest hallucinating, seeing eachother as monsters; only the Bard made the save to resist. He counterspelled the party twice in the process of breaking up the fight... and himself got countered once trying to cast Greater Restoration on the Barbarian

[wilhelmdubdub]

The DnD version of, "Hold me back!!"

[Asmotherion]

Most of the time when a player is about to do something stupid that would affect the party we as a group figuratively and sometimes literally yell at him "No! Don't do that!" The player usually backs down, once in a while needing to be explained why it's a bad idea first. It's meta, but for us it's an ok thing and the DM lets it work. He doesn't want the encounter to fall apart either.

When it would only affect the PC himself the DM asks "Are you sure?" We tell the player whenever a DM asks that question the response should be "Never mind, I don't do that." If he does it anyway the consequences are on him.

That's our "Counterspell".
:smallsmile:

I guess that's ok on really bad decissions like the one the OP described, but on the other hand, it's more fun when player's actions and decisions (good and bad) contribute to the story. Some really bad decisions could end up with a less predictable story than if the players always do the "cannon" decisions.

[nickl_2000]

My current character (a level 10 Moon Druid/Level 1 Ranger) has a 6 charisma, but for some reason likes to talk in social situations. So, the party will often grapple him, pull him out of a room, and cover his mouth to avoid making things worse.

Does that count?

[Spore]

Not directly, and this happened off screen but let me paint a picture for you.

To fill our homebrew world with backstories, we were asked to play a drow oneshot. It was so popular, we played three long sessions of it. One of our players played an arcane gish that could throw out tremendous amounts of damage in a single turn. the ONE thing that easily hard countered his actions was a decent wizard with enough dispels, because he was almost harmless after using a good few spells.

Thing was, he was the cold calculating insane kind of chaotic evil. As soon as he saw his way out of the oppressive matriarchy of the drow, he gave it a shot. He became a lich through an ancient machine that was fuelled by perished souls - and made a deal with an adult black dragon (the kind that has vast sorcerous powers). The dragon needed to be in favour with the dwarven king to get influence on its armies. To mention the dragon owns a trading company. So they arranged an assassination attempt at the king which would have been thwarted by the dragon.

So you can imagine, he goes in, meets the king and unleashes majorly powerful arcane arts on him, only to be stopped by a targetted dispel magic, starting off a major battle in the throne room. Of course the lich looses to the dragon and 'dies' - only to reform ten days later in his lair. This allowed the dragon to make a major trading agreement with the dwarves, helping him to strengthen the force that opposes another dragon that kidnapped his adoptive daughter.

Thing is, this would have been a nice but very archetypical plot point if everything came from the DM. But the player saw his chance to make his imprint on history as well as establish his oneshot character as a minor BBEG in the world. And it was glorious. He also recently reused the character in another oneshot with the good group - fighting off Nightshadows.

Now my Paladin just needs a reason to attack the Lich (because I sure as heck don't have enough Religion to know he is undead).

[Laserlight]

My current character (a level 10 Moon Druid/Level 1 Ranger) has a 6 charisma, but for some reason likes to talk in social situations. So, the party will often grapple him, pull him out of a room, and cover his mouth to avoid making things worse.

Does that count?

We have that guy in our group. My character has suggested taking him to Madame Sally's Leather Shop for Sophisticated Clients and getting a gag for him. I have also thought about researching a single-target Silence.

[nickl_2000]

We have that guy in our group. My character has suggested taking him to Madame Sally's Leather Shop for Sophisticated Clients and getting a gag for him. I have also thought about researching a single-target Silence.

I do work hard to avoid being annoying to the other players though, it's a balancing act so that it stays fun for everyone (any sign of annoyance on the players faces and I drop it pretty quickly). I think Lepo would resent the use of leather though, he likes animals to much for that.

[Sirithhyando]

Any of you all ever use Counterspell on a party member?

Not in the strict sense of it but I did summon a giant constrictor snake to protect an NPC from my companion (elvish ranger/assassin) right after this NPC revealed himself after backstabbing said companion.
This companion was already very distrustful of my ghostwise Halfling (Death cleric/ Undying warlock).

Oh, the NPC was also a ghostwise Halfling, he's a good friend now. :smallbiggrin:

Earlier that day I had already convinced him to step on a magic circle saying one rune was ancient elvish. (it summoned a demon who in turn summon another demon, good times :smallbiggrin:)

And after the snake was a boos encounter versus an undead who swallowed our paladin (the only real healer)

Note : My cleric in this game (we've been playing for over a year) only casted once an healing spell and it was to save the paladin. I mean, what would we do without our healer?

Anyway, this boss swallowed the paladin and the sorcerer. There's only me and the ranger versus the boss and 3 other unimportant undead who were right beside me but strangely decided to go for the ranger far away. I finished the boss, saved my two companions with an healing spell, but only after making sure the ranger didn't see me cast those spell.

To this day, the ranger still remember the first time he asked for healing. The Halfling said "I don't know... there's not much difference between cure wounds or inflict wounds... there's a 50/50 chances it's going to be one or another, want to take the risk?"
Don't know why, but he refused. :smalltongue:

[Camman1984]

I have never used counterspell on a party member before but have used charm spells. Used them to diffuse arguments between party members and npcs. A charm spell is also excellent to have if you have a frenzied barbarian who is playing it full bloodlust style :)

[nickl_2000]

We have that guy in our group. My character has suggested taking him to Madame Sally's Leather Shop for Sophisticated Clients and getting a gag for him. I have also thought about researching a single-target Silence.

Also if it makes you feel better, our bard (with a 6 intelligence) recently tried to use his disguise kit to disguise himself as a giant and trick a Dire Bear into following him. Suffice to say, it didn't work.