The new spell identification rules are terrible.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What was intended was stupid.

It's not even that they're slow. That's really not a problem.

The problem is having to blind counterspell.

It should not cost a reaction to identify a spell. The problems with this rule begin and end there. And that is precisely the rule my game has done away with.

Has not been anything resembling a problem. Counterspelling actually feels impactful and fun.

More DMs should try prioritizing fun over everything else in their games.

Repeat after me:

Bad =/= something I don't like. Good =/= something I like.

I've always played it as intended and never had a problem. And my players counterspell frequently. Personal preference is personal, after all.

[impia]

That it was a disjointed mess which would slow down play (and became completely redundant in 5e in addition) is precisely why these rules were removed in the first place. So guess what happens when you add them back in?
They are optional rules, which were removed from core for a reason. Players wanted them back, so they're back. They were slow and disjointed in previous editions. They are slow and disjointed still. But now they're optional. Ignore them if you want.
And yes, that is the answer.

It's just like the Flanking rules in 5e. If you don't like them, you can ignore them. Thy're optional.

Glad you agree with me, then.

Btw, when someone says 'this rule is terrible,' and mentions houseruling it away, it does NOT actually mean "this will have a terrible effect on my table because I've never heard of houseruling, if only someone could come condescendingly explain it to me."

[Cybren]

Glad you agree with me, then.

Btw, when someone says 'this rule is terrible,' and mentions houseruling it away, it does NOT actually mean "this will have a terrible effect on my table because I've never heard of houseruling, if only someone could come condescendingly explain it to me."

It's not houseruling it away, though. It's electing to not use an optional rule in a supplemental book. There's a key difference.

[UrielAwakened]

It's not an optional house rule if counterspells are actually supposed to be blind though.

It's just a dumb rule that is buried in a dense, poorly laid out rulebook.

What was intended was that spellcasting worked exactly like it always has. No one knows the spell being cast save for the caster. That is quite literally how it has always been by the rules in this game, regardless of edition.
Some DMs didn't play it that way, but that's how it has ALWAYS been according to the rules.

Of all the things in D&D that make no sense, not being able to recognize a spell in time to counter it is possibly the greatest insult to my intelligence.

Especially when they have verbal, somatic, and material components in many cases.

Yeah no thanks. I'll stick with the more logical interpretation.

[Naanomi]

I’m still curious about how people handle illusionists in games where spells are automatically identified... does every illusion spell have to be cast from a hiding spot? No in combat illusions? Clever illusion use, including using it to ‘pretend’ to cast other spells, has been a core part of my wizarding for many editions now... and just seems impossible when everyone automatically knows the ‘dragon’ you ‘summoned’ is illusionary from the start

[UrielAwakened]

I’m still curious about how people handle illusionists in games where spells are automatically identified... does every illusion spell have to be cast from a hiding spot? No in combat illusions? Clever illusion use, including using it to ‘pretend’ to cast other spells, has been a core part of my wizarding for many editions now... and just seems impossible when everyone automatically knows the ‘dragon’ you ‘summoned’ is illusionary from the start

It looks like a not-illusion spell to the characters.

An illusionary wall of stone seems like a wall of stone spell. An illusionary creature seems like a summon monster spell.

Not hard.

If I'm DMing I just say he casts wall of stone or summon monster. If the PC is casting it I just don't metagame.

[Naanomi]

It looks like a not-illusion spell to the characters.

An illusionary wall of stone seems like a wall of stone spell. An illusionary creature seems like a summon monster spell.

Not hard.

So you automatically identify spells as long you are not being tricky with it, but if you are it is impossible to accurately identify the spell... do I have that about right?

[Cybren]

It's not an optional house rule if counterspells are actually supposed to be blind though.

It's just a dumb rule that is buried in a dense, poorly laid out rulebook.



Of all the things in D&D that make no sense, not being able to recognize a spell in time to counter it is possibly the greatest insult to my intelligence.

Especially when they have verbal, somatic, and material components in many cases.

Yeah no thanks. I'll stick with the more logical interpretation.

It's an optional rule for getting the ability to identify that has to work the way it does if counterspells are supposed to be blind, and if you want counterspells to not be blind you don't need to use the rule, because you're already giving players the enemy spell for free.

[Asmotherion]

I think it's not that bad. You have more options than you may see directly.

You either:

A) Take an action to carefully study your opponent casting a spell to figure out what spell it may be, what level etc... and then counterspell it as a reaction at the right level if you think it's worth your wile. Or you don't and you save a spell slot for latter. Be warry of bluffs. The worst bluff you can fall for is a cantrip.

B) Take a bet and counterspell blindly. Generally, if it's not a cantrip, and you succeed, you at least robbed your opponent of both their action and a spell slot, at the cost of your reaction and a spell slot. Action ecconomy-wise, your Party wins, as during your action you probably cast a spell.

A DM will probably give some kind of visual cue, some magic world a caster might recognise without a check, or give information on how much of a caster the target is. If you see them reading from a Scroll, counterspell.


That said, there are ways around this;
-Detect Magic: can give you information about the magic that you feel around you being manipulated; no action is required for the passive effect. It costs you a 1st level spell slot, and lasts for 10 minutes (as long as you don't loose concentration). The amounds of magic being manipulated, the shape they are given etc can give you enough info to know if you what to counterspell or not. If you're not sure, use a further action, and you can see an aura revealing the school of magic.
-Detect Thoughts: a simple action to focus on the surface thought of a caster, aka you know what spell they will cast, at what level, and if it's worth counterspelling. You won't need to focus for the further effect, just stay there, and be ready. You'll even know if they try to counterspell you, so you can counterspell them back latter.

I like this, because it actually allows more tactical spellcasting/combat, without making spellcasting a contest of "who has more spell slots/who counterspells more often" rather than "who uses his spells better"!

[Cybren]

It looks like a not-illusion spell to the characters.

An illusionary wall of stone seems like a wall of stone spell. An illusionary creature seems like a summon monster spell.

Not hard.

If I'm DMing I just say he casts wall of stone or summon monster. If the PC is casting it I just don't metagame.

So obvious ad-hoc rulings based on what makes sense to allow the game to function as you desire is fine- so long as it's starting from your preferred gameplay experience, but if someone suggests doing that to make the rule you hate function how you want it to, it's bad game design and ridiculous and not helpful dialog?

[UrielAwakened]

So you automatically identify spells as long you are not being tricky with it, but if you are it is impossible to accurately identify the spell... do I have that about right?

We run it as you automatically identify any spells you know, can make an arcana check to identify any spell you don't, and if anyone tries an illusion spell it appears to be the spell its attempting to duplicate, more or less.

So obvious ad-hoc rulings based on what makes sense to allow the game to function as you desire is fine- so long as it's starting from your preferred gameplay experience, but if someone suggests doing that to make the rule you hate function how you want it to, it's bad game design and ridiculous and not helpful dialog?

It's bad game design because it isn't fun for players who want to be good at counterspelling.

D&D is a game and games should be fun and rules should facilitate fun.

[Unoriginal]

It looks like a not-illusion spell to the characters.

An illusionary wall of stone seems like a wall of stone spell. An illusionary creature seems like a summon monster spell.

Not hard.

If I'm DMing I just say he casts wall of stone or summon monster. If the PC is casting it I just don't metagame.

But it's an insult to your intelligence.

After all, how can you not identify a spell that has verbal, somatic, and material components?

[DivisibleByZero]

It's not houseruling it away, though. It's electing to not use an optional rule in a supplemental book. There's a key difference.

This.
House ruling it away would be automatically telling players what is being cast, or allowing ID of spells without a reaction. Those are house rules. And that's perfectly fine if your table wants to do that. I don't see what the big hullabaloo about it is. If you were house ruling it before when there were no rules, then nothing is stopping you from simply continuing to do so now that there are rules.
But all this complaining about it? I don't see the point.

People are just complaining that the new rules don't follow the house rules that they've been playing with (for years in some cases), when the old rules didn't work that way to begin with.
If you don't like the rules, you can just ignore them (they're optional after all) or house rule it to be how you want (like you've probably been doing for years and years anyway). The complaints and whining are pointless. I mean, we're 21 pages in. Come on and give it a rest already. You're just complaining that it doesn't align with your house rules when it quite literally never worked that way, ever, in the history of the rules of DnD. The closest way to what you want was a'la 3e, when it didn't cost any action economy, but that was tediously slow and serves no purpose under these rules while it did have a reason under the old rules.

[Unoriginal]

I think it boils down to this:

1. Before the new Xanathars section every game I have ever heard of just went with the normal point of: DM - "Enemy casts X spell" Player: "I use my reaction to counterspell." but now it is actually Dm - "Enemy casts a spell, do you want to reaction identify the spell or reaction counter spell?" Player: "Ummm, hold on."

This is just there for DM's and PVP type people to cheat the PCs.
If the DM does not want his NPC to lose his good spell he just waits to see if the PC counter spells blindly and says, "Oh, it was a bonus action spell of X, now he throws the good spell." If the player identifies the spell, and warns a teammate to counter spell, the DM has now been able to get 2 people to spend a reaction to stop one action from the enemy.

I guarantee that EXTREMELY few DM's are going to let it happen in reverse.
PC to DM: "Ok, I cast a spell."
PC: "Is the enemy NPC going to spend his reaction to identify it?"
DM: "That depends what are you casting."
PC: "I am not telling you until you either have the NPC spend a reaction to identify or counter spell"

That is a situation that will never happen.

Why are you playing with jerks instead of with people who actually play fair?

[UrielAwakened]

Why are you playing with jerks instead of with people who actually play fair?

Why are you forcing PCs who want to counterspell to not have fun.

[MadBear]

It looks like a not-illusion spell to the characters.

An illusionary wall of stone seems like a wall of stone spell. An illusionary creature seems like a summon monster spell.

Not hard.

If I'm DMing I just say he casts wall of stone or summon monster. If the PC is casting it I just don't metagame.

One assumption built into the way you're playing this, is that all spells look identical in how they're cast, which isn't true at every table.

I've played at tables where the druids cure wounds caused leaves to wrap around the wound, before wilting and falling off causing this injury to disappear, while the cleric's cure wounds looked like a radiant white light, while the bards cure wounds caused his music to make skin stitch itself back together. None of those looked identical in how they were cast, and it was assumed each person's way of doing it was fairly unique.

I'm by no means saying that you have to play it this way, but it's not unreasonable for PC's to see a spell they know be cast in a way that looks totally foreign to them.

[DivisibleByZero]

Why are you forcing PCs who want to counterspell to not have fun.

Fun is subjective. Why are you forcing all people to subscribe to what your personal table considers fun?

[Dudewithknives]

Why are you playing with jerks instead of with people who actually play fair?

Because if the PC's have to follow the rules of how to cast and identify spells, so do NPC's.

It is either universally used, or universally not used.

If a DM wants to use the rule that it takes a reaction to identify a spell cast, perfectly fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.
If a DM wants to just let everyone identify a spell as it being cast with no action fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.

Again, this is why I use notecards.

No **** moves or gaming shenanigans going on, and completely fair.

[UrielAwakened]

Fun is subjective. Why are you forcing all people to subscribe to what your personal table considers fun?

Fun is not subjective when one person is the person either having or not having it.

You really don't know what that word means.

Because if the PC's have to follow the rules of how to cast and identify spells, so do NPC's.

It is either universally used, or universally not used.

If a DM wants to use the rule that it takes a reaction to identify a spell cast, perfectly fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.
If a DM wants to just let everyone identify a spell as it being cast with no action fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.

Again, this is why I use notecards.

No **** moves or gaming shenanigans going on, and completely fair.

Doesn't work in online games.

One assumption built into the way you're playing this, is that all spells look identical in how they're cast, which isn't true at every table.

I've played at tables where the druids cure wounds caused leaves to wrap around the wound, before wilting and falling off causing this injury to disappear, while the cleric's cure wounds looked like a radiant white light, while the bards cure wounds caused his music to make skin stitch itself back together. None of those looked identical in how they were cast, and it was assumed each person's way of doing it was fairly unique.

I'm by no means saying that you have to play it this way, but it's not unreasonable for PC's to see a spell they know be cast in a way that looks totally foreign to them.

But by the rules even if you watch this one druid cast the spell a thousand times you still can't counter it with knowledge of what's being cast.

That makes no sense. Not only is a counterspell always blind between different mages, it's always blind regarding the same mage.

[DivisibleByZero]

Fun is not subjective when one person is the person either having or not having it.

You really don't know what that word means.

I think you're the one that doesn't understand the word. Look it up.
There is quite literally no such thing as Objective Fun, at all. Fun is a subjective thing, in every single case, always, without exception.

[Dudewithknives]

Fun is not subjective when one person is the person either having or not having it.

You really don't know what that word means.



Doesn't work in online games.

I do not play online DND so I really have no idea how their interface works at all.

Can't help with the online rules. Don't know how the interface looks.

[UrielAwakened]

I do not play online DND so I really have no idea how their interface works at all.

Can't help with the online rules. Don't know how the interface looks.

It could work but it would be a tremendous pain in the ass to implement with any of the programs that I know exist.

Roll20 for instance would require sending a private message to other players so you had someone to corroborate what you were casting, each and every time you cast a spell.

Talk about a slow down.

[Unoriginal]

Why are you forcing PCs who want to counterspell to not have fun.

Ah, yes, the "no fun" """"argument""""

Why are you forcing PCs who want to one-shot elder dragons at level 1 to not have fun?

Why are you forcing PCs who want to cast Tiny Hut as a bonus action so they can protect the group from enemies and still cast their cantrip to not have fun?

Why are you forcing PCs who want to seduce the queen into having public sex while next to the king to not have fun?


Houseruling the game into something you enjoy more is perfectly ok, but to pretend that a rule is stupid because you don't like it is not.

I don't see any reason why people can't have fun from blind Counterspell. If jerk DMs or players abuse it to go "aha, it was a cantrip" whenever someone use Counterspell, it's a problem with the jerks, not the rules.

Fun is not subjective when one person is the person either having or not having it.

Yes it is. That's exactly what it means: "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions."

It is either universally used, or universally not used.

If a DM wants to use the rule that it takes a reaction to identify a spell cast, perfectly fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.
If a DM wants to just let everyone identify a spell as it being cast with no action fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.[/QUOTE]

Well yes. So, what's the problem with the rule?".

Because if the PC's have to follow the rules of how to cast and identify spells, so do NPC's.

It is either universally used, or universally not used.

If a DM wants to use the rule that it takes a reaction to identify a spell cast, perfectly fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.
If a DM wants to just let everyone identify a spell as it being cast with no action fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.

Well yes. So, what's the problem with the rule?

[Naanomi]

Why are you forcing PCs who want to counterspell to not have fun.

I’ve been having fun blindly counterspelling for... several editions?

[UrielAwakened]

I’ve been having fun blindly counterspelling for... several editions?

"We always did it that way so that's the best way to do it."

I forgot that 5e was built on that sentiment for an audience that actually believe that.

5e could be a really good system if it wasn't for its player base.

[DivisibleByZero]

"We always did it that way so that's the best way to do it."

I forgot that 5e was built on that sentiment for an audience that actually believe that.

The Counterspelling rules in 5e are the most lenient they have EVER been in any edition of D&d, ever.

Previously, you needed to have a spell of that school prepared, and it had to be of that level or higher.
Now you just need to prepare one spell, and it covers all of your counterspelling needs, no matter what school the spell was from or what level is was cast at. It doesn't even have to be the right level any longer, and you can still try.

Is an enemy casting a spell?
Is that likely to be good or bad for you?

[Dudewithknives]

It is either universally used, or universally not used.

If a DM wants to use the rule that it takes a reaction to identify a spell cast, perfectly fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.
If a DM wants to just let everyone identify a spell as it being cast with no action fine, but the NPC's have to do it that way too.

Well yes. So, what's the problem with the rule?".



Well yes. So, what's the problem with the rule?[/QUOTE]

EDIT: Not sure why that was quoted out of the rest of your post.

I do not have a problem with the rule at all, as long as it is used on both sides.

Everyone uses a reaction to identify, or nobody has to.
Not
PCs have to spend an action to identify but the NPC just knows.

[Unoriginal]

"We always did it that way so that's the best way to do it."

I forgot that 5e was built on that sentiment for an audience that actually believe that.

5e could be a really good system if it wasn't for its player base.

-Complain about something in 5e while pretending to be the rational one

-Get shown to be wrong

-Start insulting 5e's players, making transparently false accusasions, and reveal to have been trolling all along.

Typical.

On this, I think it's clear this thread has no value, as it was not meant to be used for discussion.

[Xetheral]

I think you're the one that doesn't understand the word. Look it up.
There is quite literally no such thing as Objective Fun, at all. Fun is a subjective thing, in every single case, always, without exception.

The question "Is X fun?" is subjective because it is a categorization question without a well-defined selection rule. The question "Is X having fun?" is objective because it's a question about an emotional state subject to (self-)measurement. I think the latter was Uriel's point.

[UrielAwakened]

-Complain about something in 5e while pretending to be the rational one

-Get shown to be wrong

-Start insulting 5e's players, making transparently false accusasions, and reveal to have been trolling all along.

Typical.

On this, I think it's clear this thread has no value, as it was not meant to be used for discussion.

I'm not wrong people here just don't like counterspell to be good.

The question "Is X fun?" is subjective because it is a categorization question without a well-defined selection rule. The question "Is X having fun?" is objective because it's a question about an emotional state subject to (self-)measurement. I think the latter was Uriel's point.

Thanks fam. You said it.