Heh, this topic actually made me register.
IMO you have to allow reactive counterspells to be true to the books. You several different occasion in the books with reactive counterspells. Ivy counterspelling multiple Denarians you have LTW effectively doing something very similar to counterspells in his fight with Shagnasty
My house rules on the subject are that you are allowed to cast counterspells up to the limit of your Lore if you are aware of the attack (ie it's from a known attacker) in a round with a penalty of -2 for every counterspell after the first.
If you don't have any skill in the particular element then there is another penalty of -2. You still get to make an assessment as to the power level of the attack with a penalty if you don't know the element. I'm still undecided as to how much stress you inflict with a counterspell but that's my hangup with the system. :)
Ivy counterspelling multiple Denarians you have LTW effectively doing something very similar to counterspells in his fight with Shagnasty
Fair enough, but let's not forget that Ivy does things with magic that just shouldn't be possible (I seem to remember the multiple spells and counters being specifically mentioned in that context, but I may be misremembering), and LTW is a powerful member of the Senior Council - who all do things that a normal wizard would find pretty much impossible - I don't have access to the book, so can't check exactly what happens in Turncoat, but my memory of the battle between LTW and Shagnasty is mostly the shapeshifting competition - which obviously isn't counterspelling, so I assume you're talking about a different part of the confrontation.
My house rules on the subject are that you are allowed to cast counterspells up to the limit of your Lore if you are aware of the attack (ie it's from a known attacker) in a round with a penalty of -2 for every counterspell after the first.
If you don't have any skill in the particular element then there is another penalty of -2. You still get to make an assessment as to the power level of the attack with a penalty if you don't know the element. I'm still undecided as to how much stress you inflict with a counterspell but that's my hangup with the system. :)
Not sure from the Counterspell description that you need to be able to manipulate the element in question. It's described as a matter of applying your will to the opponent's spell construct. I'd have thought if you're going to make being able to use the element in question important to the ability to counterspell, there should be some allowance or bonus for using the opposing element to neutralise the energy (using Water against a Fire spell, Earth against an Air spell etc).
Not sure what you're getting at on the stress thing. As far as I recall, the counterspell section doesn't mention stress at all - though I'm inclined to think that the person performing the counter should take stress for channelling the energy as per the normal casting rules. I don't think it inflicts stress on the caster of the original spell (over and above what they've taken in the initial casting). But the section on counterspell is a little hazy and might benefit from some more illustrative examples. Maybe one of the writers could oblige if they're following this discussion?
IMO you have to allow reactive counterspells to be true to the books. You several different occasion in the books with reactive counterspells. Ivy counterspelling multiple Denarians you have LTW effectively doing something very similar to counterspells in his fight with Shagnasty
I would respectfully disagree with you on both examples. I think these are classic blocks, with cool descriptions by the "GM". None of the bad guys in question were doing well enough with their moves to punch through the blocks, but that's boring compared to a description of someone *actively* warding off attack.
Heck, in the Shagnasty example, he is explicitly described as doing the shuffling steps of a sacred dance... that's a dodge if I've ever heard of one, just described in a really cool way! Then it's a straight shape-shifter battle after that...
After all, would Cowl *really* have let Harry toss a car on him if he could have simply disrupted the Evocation? If there were counterspells available, wouldn't the duel between Harry and Arianna have gone a lot differently in Changes?
I think it would require power, because you need to divert the power of the spell which is being cast by another.
You could look at it that way. Or you could say that you are merely 'controlling' power that has already been summoned from someone else. For example, the rules allow you to redirect the power from your own shield spell into an attack; this does not require any stress to do -- only a control roll. And from a game balance perspective, why should a spellflinger need to spend stress to justify a particular skill as being an appropriate defense, when a gunfighter is not? Keep in mind that this is not a spell -- a real defense spell would give a lasting block rating or armor rating in addition to your defense, that would potentially last for multiple attacks). Instead, this is just getting creative with how you describe your ability to defend against magical attacks. I think this is most likely the best explanation for what Ivy did against the Denarians. Of course, her Discipline is very high.
A good example of the kind of justification I'm proposing here is on YS207, where a character is performing a maneuver to give himself a "Deep in Concentration" aspect to aid in picking a lock, and another character uses Guns as a defense skill to 'defend' against this maneuver.