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Certain people may be able to reach the guy in the tower, and is he not casting in the tower in secrecy? If he's on the parapet outside then he can be shot but if he is inside how does anyone know he is casting ? Wouldn't that be the same as what Eric was talking about?

The whole idea of counterspelling normally is that you know that the other person is casting and what they are casting. If you don't then you cast a protection spell of some sort and hope you guess right. I just don't want to see a 5 minute break while a marshall and 4 arcanes discuss the rites casted and the level of each and when each goes off and determine the ultimate effect.

I agree with what Trevor is saying about the definition of a counterspell. The first one is going to either breed a second game stop to ask what spell is being cast or you will rarely, if ever see a counter. The second way, just means there's a bit of guesswork involved and and a little longer single gamestop, though not terribly since you just total up the effects and you get an outcome.

Now if you use the guessing system I think it'll need to allow someone to take more backlash if they are wrong and still succeed. Granted if they are oppositely wrong, I think it should be a choice of this is probably going to kill me. Makes for more drama.

Personally, I think the second way allows for a lot more fun if big effects are ever cast since there could be fakes and what not. Say you have two guys in the tower and two on the ground with the army. Now the first in the tower casts firestorm. The second could prepare a counter (ie ward) for an incoming counterspell or he could cast a completely different spell. Now say the two on the ground assume he is there to block a counter spell so one targets the firestorm mage and the other targets the 'counter' mage with counterspells. Unforunately, the second guy on the tower casts icestorm, a water spell. So now you have two fire counters(cast from water) vs. a water and a fire spell. Either the water spell gets through (killling the entire army possibly) or the second guy on the ground is probably dead. Only reason the gamestop would be long is if the second guy can't decide if he wants to die or not.

Because of Chris' point about a mage being locked away in a tower and for the moment extremely invulnerable, I like the idea of some kind of counter/shield/etc. A mage should be able to effect another mage, not just warriors. Warriors can parry other warriors can't they?

I don't like the idea of a one minute counter dispelling an hour long incant.

Trevor's idea about "countering in the dark" so to speak is cool as well as Dier's point on drama/success with repercusssions should it be the wrong one.

Sorry, guys, but I think there should be more room for defensive/guardian characters. I have a player wanting to come who does not want to fight. I don't see why we can't have people specializing in protections if they want.

Works for me. Simple and useful. Anyone else?

Sounds good to me, simple and should have the drama and role playing potential.

Works for me as well Chris.

My question to you is, who would be able to do this. Would it be just arcanes or are you going to open it up to have like the Witch-Hunter be able to do this as well?

-Julie

Only issue I have with a single counterspell is that it's only in one element. Never been a big fan of the you can't do this since it's not in your element. To me, a single counterspell is almost too simple. The path and discipline system is quite complex, and I don't want to see the magic system go away from that. Granted, I'd really have to know the rest of the magic system to get an idea of what impact any counterspell would have.

Oh, oh! Put in a different type of counterspell for EACH element and a spell can ONLY be countered by the opposing elementel counterspell!!

That's sorta what I had suggested with the added bonus of if you didn't have the right one you could still counter but it would hurt, lots.

Magic doesn't really work on "elements" anymore though. I'm assuming the counterspell rite would be a general type rite encompassing all aspects of magic and it would be lvl based.

GM_Chris wrote:2) If I cast firestorm the only way to counter me is to cast a water spell of some kind.

If there isn't elements, I'm confused then...

It was an example of a spell that happends to be fire and its opposite happens to be water.

-Chris

um, yeah, that's fairly apparent...
Assuming that means there are no elements, then there is no reason to have a counterspell. Though the chant thing to keep a spell from going off is interesting...