A Land Far Away

Is there any way to implement this in-game like in NWN1? What sort of effort would be involved, and does it function correctly per PnP?

I think the nwn1 version is actually still there, just turned off because it was apparently pretty borked. Zelky knows more about it

Possible, but not desirable.

If we're going to go through all of the trouble of controlling counterspelling to make it "work" (which isn't really working-- whole other rant), we'd might as well write our own (correct) system for counterspells-- provided that we can make such a system performant enough.

In the meantime, would most ALFA DMs support the use of Counterspelling as a tactic via RPing it out?

Obviously certain mechanics/rules need to remain, ie. inform DM intent to counterspell Joe, have correct spell or Dispel prepared (easy to check after session/battle, have the PC cast the spell ooc at the end, DM kill if they can't oblige you), spellcraft check can be done manually as the spell is being emoted as being cast, i.e. *Joe begins casting a spell!* (roll Spellcraft!) or perhaps even with the game engine, since spellcasting can be interrupted by moving said PC/npc (ie possess NPC Joe, cast as per normal, move and interrupt the casting, ask the player whether spell was identified), etc.

I'm not sure how it would be handled with other mobs controlled by the AI present and active, perhaps using Pause...

RP-counterspelling might work manually for a specific plot-centric-mega-spell -deal as a story element, but sounds like a real nightmare to have to do it as a tactic in the heat of battle.

I do not recall how this worked in NWN1. (EDIT ADD LINK, Don't know if this was how it played out, never tried it in years of NWN1... http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Counterspell )

I cannot imagine how you'd implement anything resembling a "ready" action from a turn-based system into real time. Target a particular caster you want to counterspell and just stand there and watch him? Hope that items in your payload match items in his payload? Wow. Mind boggles. Good luck.

how exactly does the currently disabled counterspelling work? what does it do? what doesn't it do? why's it undesirable?

Brokenbone wrote: Target a particular caster you want to counterspell and just stand there and watch him? Hope that items in your payload match items in his payload? Wow. Mind boggles. Good luck.

Isn't that precisely how it works in PnP? Point is, dispels match everything, but it should require passing an opposed CL check to counterspell with dispel. But if you readied an action to counterspell a caster that didn't cast, well you did nothing that turn.

Obviously countering is more effective payload-wise if you're up against a sorceror whose known spells you know, since if you have the same spells, you can counterspell with 100% success.

Know how it works in PnP, just "baffled how it'd be done in real time", though I guess from the NWN1 description I'm seeing, maybe Bioware did it well. Maybe Obsidian has the code in a dormant way in the game, I do not know.

By the NWN1 system, the event of toggling and then acting can result in maintaining counterspell focus on an enemy spellcaster while yourself acting (shouldn't be possible; counterspelling is done by readying a standard action to counter every round) and people with cleverly-timed toggles can get free uses of dispel magic. There are also no caster level checks to use dispel magic in dispelling, and the various versions of dispel magic can only be used to dispel spells of their own level or less (still requiring a spellcraft check to do so).

In pen and paper, you can counter a spell with the same spell, a specified counterspell (e.g. flesh to stone counters stone to flesh; bless counters bane; searing light counters darkness; darkness counters light), provided that you're able to identify the spell with a spellcraft check. If you can't identify, or don't have the right spell prepared, you can attempt to counterspell with any version of a dispel magic-- which requires that a caster level check as provided by the dispel magic-- or mage's disjunction.

To implement the former, we'd be stacking effects and scripted restrictions to try to chase away the bugs. The risk would be collateral lost control or failure to handle all scenarios and leaving the system exploitable. To implement the latter, we need to tackle a fairly-complex project through spellhooking, work a fairly-minor addition to spellcasters' feat lists, and tell our servers to turn their heads and cough while we dial up the 2da caching.

That said, the tech team is still only four people, one being entirely pwn'd by real life, and we all work full time. These last few weeks have seen a lot of projects put on the table, and still haven't gotten through the backlog from before the latest TA term (have a peek at the list AL posted when he organized it; we've gotten through like two of those things, because we've been doing epic battle with performance and exploits). Maybe one of us will get really excited about this and write it, but I can't promise anything beyond an official stamp of "Sure, that would technically be possible." right now.

Thanks for the insights. Would be interesting to look at again down the road, but it seems clear there are bigger fish to fry.