Can somebody explain how counterspelling works?

Eg. 1.
Two mages are throwing spells at each other.
They both have counterspelling.

Eg. 2.
The team mage is counterspelling the team hacker.
Can the mage defend himself while guarding the hacker?

Eg. 3.
The team is counterspelling for the the whole group.

Eg. 4.
The team mage is sustaining a shield spell while counterspelling.
Does the -2 for sustaining apply on the counterspelling?

2. Yes
4. I think not, no books at hand...

Counterspelling, in SR4A is mostly a freebie. You declare you are covering everyone and everything you can see and bam, they are covered. Its not an action.

BlueMax

In all cases: You add the counterspelling dice to the resistance test. So if normally the target resists with Body, now it's Body + Counterspelling. Roll the dice as normal. If it's Willpower, now it's Willpower + Counterspelling. If two Mages are protecting the same target then one adds his counterspelling skill and the rest aid him via the teamwork rules (they roll their dice and add the hits as a modifier to the primary actor's skill).

So:
1. See Above.
2. Yes, the Mage always is counterspelling for himself even if he's completely unaware of the spell being cast.
3. The Mage has to spend a free action on his turn to protect everyone else and they must be in LoS of him, then See Above.
4. I don't know actually! I don't think so but I'd have to check and can't at the moment. It would be silly if it worked on things like this and damage in general (how does sustaining a spell make your body and armor weaker?) but it may be worded something like "all tests" and I just can't recall.

1) They both get their full Counterspell to their rolls.

2 and 3)



4) I'm having problems locating the rule, but I remember reading that the only thing the Sustaining Penalty does not count against is Damage Resistance Tests, which a Counterspelling Test is not.

Cool.
So at the very least, the mage would never need to declare that he is defending himself, but he would need to declare that he is defending his team at the beginning of the round.

I wasn't sure if counterspelling worked like the default dodge you get on melee attack.
For example, you don't need to declare that you're dodging vs. a melee attack (unless you're on full defense).

So you always use your full counterspelling rating to resist spells (sustaining/wound penalties clarification pending).
If three mages were attacking one in the same initiative pass, the lone mage would always get his full counterspelling defense roll.
It wouldn't decrease like reaction or dodge for each additional attack that initiative pass?

Uhh. Yes?

You still take wound penalties and sustaining penalties, but other than that I don't believe it reduces like being attack multiple times in melee/ranged combat. A Spell Resistance Opposed Test is different from an Opposed Combat Test, except in the case of Indirect Combat Spells.

Although...in the case of direct spells, there is no damage resist test, just the opposed resist test.
So, if I get hit with a manabolt, the only roll I get is a counterspelling + body opposed.
There is no damage resist test.
Would wound penalties apply to the example above?

Normally yes.

Basically you always get a personal. "Not the FACE!" magic test with counterspelling for your own personal use. Anything else takes at least a free action to do so which means that the best mages in combat are the quiet ones.

Yes, and I believe you can add Counterspelling to that as well. I'd have to double-check that though, but I believe it's for helping evade any spell.

Definitely part of the problem is that out of all the "Resistance" tests (damage in real world, matrix damage, toxins, etc.) it's easy to see the dr roll is unaffected by wounds, sustaining, etc. But spell resistance is (of course) the exception wherein it is a combined "dodge/damage resistance" affect. More hits than attacker? He misses. Fewer hits than attacker, it becomes soak.

I don't recall seeing anything in the rules that clearly states spell resistance is damage resistance, but my inclination would be that magician's counterspelling dice would be unaffected by wounds or sustaining.

Yeap, its worded as "all other tests", only test it said to not apply is the spellcasting+willpower(2) test to avoid dropping the sustained spell if the casters consentration is disrupted.

But does he have to spend it each turn he wants to counterspell, or just declare counterspelling once?

Each turn, now a sane and reasonable GM would only require you to actually state it once so long as you don't do something that consumes all your actions, say casting a spell of your own and talking to your team at the same time.

I would say that for the purpose of defense, that counterspelling is not affected by wound modifiers or sustaining. But for the purpose of dispelling a sustained spell, it would be affected. That's just my gut interpretation though.



This quite clearly implies this to be part of the resistance test, which as we know, are never modified by wound modifiers at the very least.

Where did you get that the attacker misses, if the defender scores enough hits? You can't miss with direct combat spells like you can with indirect ones. Either the mage can target the defender, which may be checked by a perception test, or he can't. If the mage is allowed a spellcasting roll, the spell hits, but the defender can shrug off the attack like it was nothing.

If the mage is not aware that a spell is being cast at the group, do they still get to counterspell?

Wondering how counterspelling should be applied to surprise attacks, and/or mind control / mood manipulation spells.

What about group (AOE) spells like Mob Mood?

Honestly we're getting into read the manual territory here. As long as they have declared they are actively performing spell defense and havn't done soemthing to prevent that, using up all their actions, they get to add the defense even to spells they are not aware of. Mages always get to add spell defense, it's just built into their nature.

I don't think it's every round. The book says "Note that counterspelling is not "used up" after it defends against a spell - it continues to protect the designated characters against other spells until the magician decides to end it." I believe that means that it's a free action to "set" your counterspell targets, and that it sticks until people leave line of sight or you take another free action to change it.

Yes... once declared it automagically goes against all spells, even if you are not aware of them.

When your team is hit by a group spell you roll your counterspell dice once and add the hits to all personal resistance tests. (As far as i know)

No, that's not how it works. It is IIRC a flat bonus to the roll if you have only one mage counterspelling for you. It is a roll if there is more then one mage involved. It's kind of a wierd mechanic but it does save a signifigant amount of dice rolling.

@UmaroIV: I see where your coming from but I can't buy into it. I can't predict writer intent but from both a power standpoint and a logic one I think if they'd intended that they would have required no declaration at all just a check in the spell resistance to see if any mages wanted to be counterspelling.

"Mages always get to add spell defense, it's just built into their nature."

I'm still not 100% on this though.
Does personal counterspelling act like a passive dodge check?
You don't have to declare that you are dodging, you just roll reaction and dodge.
However, sustaining a spell or taking wound penalties would affect the passive dodge roll.

So...is counterspelling affected by sustaining or wound penalties or is it like damage reduction which is never affected by those modifiers?

You know i'd never realized that damage reduction isn't affected by modifiers, having said that I think I'll keep it that way for my home game.

Actually, if you have more than 1 mage on counterspell duty it becomes a teamwork test. Which I believe means you get the higher counterspell and the other guy rolls his counterspell and adds his hits to the total bonus.

This whole exercise makes me want to go back to working on my "mage killer" mystic adept.

High counterspelling is easy, you don't need to be some tricked out mystic adept. Things that are often overlooked, a Mentor's Spirit bonus to a certain spell school applies to the entire sorcery group, i.e. Spellcasting, Ritual Spellcasting and Counterspelling. Similarly a Spirit's Aid Sorcery affects all 3 in the sorcery group, so Ally Spirits which can Aid Sorcery 24/7 are amazing. And of course the shielding metamagic is terrific.

Personally I'd specialize counterspelling in either combat or manipulation and get a mentor spirit that boosts the other, but let's say you double up here. Then starting with a humble 4 counterspelling skill you can have +2 specialization +2 Mentor Spirit, +3-6 Shielding, +3-6 Ally Spirit. Plus a power focus depending on your interpretation of some clumsy line of text. So ignoring the focus, anywhere from 14 to 20 additional resistance dice depending on the maturity of the Mage. Considering most NPC dice pools and the target still gets to add Body/Willpower, maybe some visibility modifiers screw the enemy mage, and you're extremely well set up on defense.

And at very minimal cost IMO since it's 1 metamagic and getting an Ally Spirit which is just useful and cool in general.

As far as I can tell from the rules, specialization does not add dice for counter spelling. It's one very often overlooked section of the rules.