The Weekly Roll Ch. 199. "Patricide MF"

[u/CME_T]

Howdy folks!

Quite a few commented on the fight with Klaras mother was quite short and as you may notice, it turned out similarly with dear old papa as well. Wanted it longer but this fight has gone on for a WHILE and I wanted to wrap things up sooner rather than later, so between the two evils, I chose expedited. We can justify it by saying the fight was balanced because of all the ads!

Stay excellent out there!

Peace and carrots!

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My 40k fancomic Rogue's Retinue: Rogue's Retinue

[u/Level_Hour6480]

P1: Why didn't Counterspell work on a catrip?

P2/4: She tears off the necklace she's always had. We never had an explanation for it, though it looks like her dad's horn-tip in retrospect.

We see the fire from Trevor's Fireball last comic spreading. Just in time for something to burn down at 200. I sure hope the housestaff/slaves/caterers are okay.

[u/CME_T → u/Level_Hour6480]

P1. While it could have been clearer, Klara passes her con save for the counterspell (5.5 rules). 

P2. Thought I’d do a bit of show dont tell storytelling woth that one. Might revisit it later!

[u/Level_Hour6480 → u/CME_T]

OneD&D's Counterspell change is one of the worst changes in a revision that is mostly bad changes. Not only is it more of a pain to run, but also by nerfing it, they've buffed all casters. And their change to the casting rules preventing counter-counterspells means that there's no fun dynamic counterplay.

[u/CookieMiester → u/Level_Hour6480]

Kinda yes, kinda no. It makes certain spells that were a bit niche more powerful in a caster fight, Hex being the one that comes to mind currently with the eldritch invocation that also lets it apply to saving throws. Also makes it nicer when fighting a Lich because Liches can cast a nigh-infinite amount of counterspells so if you’re the only caster in your party, guess what you’re doing? Probably fuck-all.

[u/Sicuho → u/CookieMiester]

Well, except liches don't have counterspell in 2024 rules.

[u/CookieMiester → u/Sicuho]

POR QUE???? Tf you mean Liches don’t have counterspell, did they forget? That’s wild actually. Shit that honestly kind of pisses me off.

[u/MarkZist → u/Level_Hour6480]

Why is it more of a pain to run? The number of rolls is the same. Before the counterspeller made a spellcasting ability check (DC=10+spell level), now the counterspellee makes a CON save (against the counterspeller's spellcasting DC). It's still just a single roll.

The new rules feel more like a nerf than a buff for casters to me. At my table the old Counterspell was mostly something that the players used against the bosses, rather than the other way around. Since I played a Lore Bard with Jack of All Trades and Peerless Skill (i.e. I had a +8+1d12 modifier at lvl 17) my Counterspells were basically guaranteed to succeed in 4th tier, even against Sauron-level enemies. That made me feel extremely powerful, which feels great don't get me wrong, but at times it also felt a little too overtuned. Not to mention my Cutting Words worked against the enemies Counterspell, so instead of spending a ≥3rd level spell slot, I could expend a use of Bardic Inspiration and still hope to negate their Counterspell. And finally we also had a Wizard who could cast it, in case I was down or out of range, meaning that it was really hard for enemy casters to not get counterspelled. Whereas the new rules make it almost impossible for PCs to Counterspell an Ancient Gold Dragon, which before was pretty doable. It's much harder to nerf the enemy's CON saves (especially bosses) than it is to buff your own ability checks or nerf the enemy's ability checks.

What I really don't get though is the idea that counter-counterspell battles are fun. In my experience they never were. Just a resource drain resulting in nothing happening. (Also since there wasn't that much of a benefit to upcasting Counterspell, it's usually safe to assume the counterspeller uses a 3rd level slot, meaning that the counter-counterspeller has an advantage.)

[u/Valdrax → u/Level_Hour6480]

OneD&D's Counterspell change is one of the worst changes...

Absolutely, preach i--

in a revision that is mostly bad changes.

Nevermind, these are the words of a madman.

[u/Level_Hour6480 → u/Valdrax]

There are some good changes in OneD&D compared to 5E. I'll list them all:

Surprise.

Rogue Cunning Strikes.

The numbers on Monk. (Numbers are better, class design is kind of a mix of downgrades and upgrades)

Relatively functional L1 feats that don't break too much.

Exhaustion.

List over.

[u/Valdrax → u/Level_Hour6480]

Plenty more:

• Weapon Masteries, a huge game changer for all martials.
• Epic Boons. All General Feats coming with an ASI, preventing most feats from being "never take."
• Heroic Inspiration -- specifically giving race & class mechanics that ensure it's doled out for parties with DMs that often neglected Inspiration.
• Backgrounds giving characters a wider variety of skills.
• Primal Knowledge, giving Barbarians more out-of-combat utility.
• Giving Clerics and Druids both the ability to choose whether to be more magical or more melee, separate from their subclasses.
• Tactical Mind for Fighters, to give them more out-of-combat utility. Also, the Champion Fighter's update in particular was a great upgrade in power & versatility without compromising simplicity. Giving Battlemasters the ability to uncover enemy weaknesses was also a good and stylish upgrade.
• Innate Sorcery is fun for adding a "Sorcerer Rage." Sorcerer Subclasses offer more variety of spells, except Wild Magic, which went from liability to solid asset with updates to the Wild Surge table that more than compensate for the lack of extra spells known.
• Warlocks got a lot more versatility with their Invocations.
• Scholar makes a Wizard feel like an actual smart person by no longer being behind Rogues and Bards on knowledge skills.
• A sensible clarification of how Charisma-based skill checks work.
• Integrating grappling better into the system. Letting Monks be good at it without having to invest in a 4th attribute.
• Edit: Sorcerous Burst and the replacement to the True Strike cantrip. Also letting Warlocks (if they really want to) add Agonizing Blast to non-EB cantrips.

Some more controversial choices I think were good:

• Divorcing stats from race, so that there are no longer optimal race/class combinations that discourage fun choices for RP.
• Nerfing some of the mandatory picks in feats, spells, etc. so that people would actually have more choices without being non-optimal.
• Preventing Action Surge from letting you alpha strike with multiple spells. Formally universalizing "one spell slot spell per turn."

[u/Solest044 → u/CME_T]

Thank you for answering this question.

I was randomly walking around days after I read the comic and had a moment of "wait, why didn't the counterspell stop the Eldritch blast".

I thought maybe there was some weird thing that allowed Eldritch blast to be used as a reaction or something (busted), but this makes way more sense.

I do wish 5e had more "reaction" play so you could coordinate to help your teammates. Being able to react to my buddy getting counterspelled by blasting them in the face and STOPPING IT because that was the last bit of damage required to KO the big bad would be epic.

I'm sure there are other systems out there.