Counterspelling

[WindyDelcarlo]

This is something that, as a black mage-to-elementalist character, I've been curious about. After reading about it, I don't quite understand: How does counterspelling actually work?

[dairius_chi]

You ready an action, if you think a caster is going to cast something.

You use your readied action to identify(with spellcraft) the spell your opponent is casting, and if you know it yourself you can counterspell it to stop it. In 3.5/PF there's also Dispel Magic which can be readied to counterspell any spell but then you have to roll a CL check and can fail.

There's a feat called Improved Counterspell which allows you to be able to counter an opponent's spell with any spell of the same school rather than needing to know the exact one, but you have to expend a prepared spell(or spell slot) 1 level higher.

So basically, if you ready an action and your foe uses Fira, which you successfully identify, and you know Fira- you can spend the MP to completely negate your foe's spell. If you didn't know Fira, but had the Improved Counterspell feat, you could simply expend 4 MP assuming you knew AT LEAST 1 Elemental spell of 4th level or higher.

If you readied a Dispel instead, you'd have to roll a CL check with a DC of 11 + your opponent's CL to negate the spell.