So I finally picked up my copy of Street Magic (great book by the way, I have not had alot of time to read it but plan to read it from cover to cover) Anyway I had to scan through the new spells and abilities. And came across the counterstrike adept ability. I have to say the power seems VERY VERY overpowered!

I took a look at the adept character that someone is playing in the campaign I am running. He has 17 dice in mellee defense. with his increased reflexes, combat sense and is specialized in sword combat. So on average he gets 4 to 6 hits while defending. So at level one of counterstrike on average he is going to get 5 to 7 hits on his next attack? his character already has 12 dice on his attack. So now I am looking at about 8 to 10 hits on an attack on average? thats pretty insane? Was curious if i was the only one that sees this power as being pretty unbalanced?

I could understand, on next attack gets bonus hits equal to the level of the power but to add hits generated on the defense roll on top of that seems a bit overkill/

The two controlling factors in counterstrike is that you basically refrain from attacking one turn to improve an attack on a later turn. Effectively, it's a power that lets you 'charge' your attack by wasting a turn (or phase or whatever).

Also, against multiple attackers, counterstrike is only ideal if you want to exploit it fo hte last person attacking - every attack after the first must either be taken at face value (as in body test) or else you have to reset your counterstrike to use them as the target instead. You only get to save up one counterstrike at a time, and you have to deliberately dodge to gain it. THe only way to hold into a counterstrike despite multiple attacks is to let yourself get hit.

So it has some power to kill, but it's a defensive sort of power - no good if you need something done now

Plus the bonus on the next attack is to my reading based on your net hits in defence plus counterstrike level.

Though you don't have to full defend to activate it, just block(unarmed) or parry(armed) which are the standard defence names not the full defence names which are full block or parry.

ok I will have to re read that because I did not catch that you had to waste at turn. I dont remember saying it was only usable after a full defense parry? Just that after you parry which does not take one of your turns. If anyone can clarify this it would make alot more sense. Hehe I will not have my book in front of me untill the end of the week.

Even if it works every turn it's only powerful up until the point they realize what's happening and decide it's safer to fire at you instead (with the firing in melee penalty).

It actually doesn't require a full defense, as written.

1. It specifically uses the terms Parry and Block, not "Full Parry."

2. More than that, it points to page 174, which only has a full defense mentioned in the table, but has a paragraph about normal parry/blocks.

That being said, I'd require a few things to use Counterstrike: 1. You must attack the person who attacked you. If you are getting 5 net hits off the mage that foolishly swung a stick at you, no adding the hits to the troll physad next to you. 2. as above, you only get the net hits on the most recent parry/block. If you want to parry/block someone else, you start using those net hits. And 3. those hits are added as dice to your next attack roll, not as straight hits. So CS lvl 3 is about 1 hit. And if you get 9 net hits, you're only looking at 3 or so extra hits.

The SM rules just require a parry or block, which are the terms for a normal armed/unarmed defensive roll. No need to give up an action.

I still don't think this is too powerful. If your melee skill + Reaction are so much better than the opponent's melee skill + Agility that you've got uber defensive successes that carry over, this just hurries the inevitable. And in evenly matched slapfests where neither can reliably hurt the other, it just gives the adept a slight edge averaging out to your levels of Counterstrike.

Would you rather have 2 levels of Counterstrike or 4 levels of Critical Strike at the same cost? Obviously the mixing of the two is the best tactic, but it's no surprise that adepts who put all of their points into melee combat will own everyone else in their limited field.