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Illusion Spell Defense

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Kiirnodel

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« on: <04-05-17/1831:44> »
It has been recently pointed out to me that Counterspelling may not be applicable to many Illusion spells.

Counterspelling (Spell Defense) specifies that "Spell defense is used against hostile spells cast at you or at targets that are within your line of sight (using the same rules as for targeting spells) that you decide to protect with spell defense."
However, spells like Invisibility, Physical Mask, Trid Phantasm, etc. aren't targeted at the individuals that make the defense test against the spell. Defense for these spells is based on whether or not you see through the effect which is cast on a 'third-party' target.

The same could be said for most Detection Spells, but when I looked it up, Active Detection spells actually specifies the defense has: (+ Counterspelling if available)

So, is Counterspelling useless against "passive" style illusions like Invisibility or Physical Mask? The illusions that can be resisted but aren't targeted at the opponent?

Rosa

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« Reply #1 on: <04-05-17/2132:37> »
Interesting, I would be inclined to say yes it's useless against those kinds of spells.  The same thing goes for a host of manipulation spells as well.

Kiirnodel

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« Reply #2 on: <04-05-17/2325:00> »
Well, can't think of many manipulation spells that affect someone without targeting them or including them in the area of effect...

Nonetheless, I'm kind of curious if this revelation is sort of a personal oversight, or if a lot of people didn't realize that the wording left that sizeable loophole.

I would guess for me that the confusion comes from the change over from 4th to 5th. When Counterspelling was a constant effect (not a number of dice that can be used up and refresh once each Combat Turn), in 4th edition it specifically called out that it worked against passive effects like Illusions and Detection spells.

For my own home-games, I'm inclined to continue allowing it to work the way I thought it worked, but I'm curious to see others' input.

Beta

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« Reply #3 on: <04-06-17/0913:33> »
In general counterspelling in 5th was either not thought through in detail, or not described clearly enough in the 5th CRB imo.  (See the various threads about how it interacts (or doesn't) with area of effect combat spells,  this question, and various other questions that have come up about the details of it.)  Things like this that are more 'game mechanics' than really evocative stuff that you can picture tend to be tricky points in any rule set, I think, so I have some sympathy -- but if they touch the magic system again I'd love some clarification in print on this.

Rosa

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« Reply #4 on: <04-06-17/0950:10> »
I'm thinking of environmental manipulation spells. Take elemental aura for example, from the description in the spell text it doesn't appear as if spell defense helps one bit there. There's no resistance test just damage soak test since you're not the target of the spell, but if you come into contact with the affected target you suffer damage.The same argument could be made for other environmental manipulation spells.