Countermagick

[Herr Meister]

I mean, imagine an apprentice countering Porthos' Ball of Abyssal Flame...It's really hard for me to understand why they made it so easy to counter magick in the rules. To have 1 level in Forces be enough to counter anything using Forces is ridiculous.

[Herr Meister]

Yes, "Hanging effect" is another thing entirely, like that route for Dark Ages Mage, Aegis Magicus that automatically reduces any magical attack made against the user, etc. My main gripe is allowing people with low Spheres being able to counter masters, etc....

[Herr Meister]

Another related question, do you allow countermagick as a "free action" as "Thaumaturgical Countermagic", aka Perdo Magica? My problem with allowing it to reduce successes is that if you have it as a free action then we're giving definite advantage to defense in the form of countermagick, i.e. it becomes easier to counter than to make magic and I find it problematic on many levels. This, beyond the fact that I think the RAW doesn't make much sense in my opinion as you only need 1 in the sphere in order to try to counter an effect using it, as I said before, it leads to situations...

[Herr Meister]

Your approach is very interesting, I like the idea that you need to have the same level of mastery over a field to be able to counter it. I don't see much sense in an aprentice with 1 in Forces being able to counter a "Ball of Abyssal Flame" summoned by Porthos lol

Regarding Magic the Gathering, in that case I used to be the Blue Counter Deck hahaha...

[Herr Meister]

Also, another thing is, how do you deal with the idea of Mages countering Disciplines or Werewolf Gifts, Changeling Arts, etc?

[Herr Meister]

So, as there are different approaches to the Counter Magic, I'd like to ask you guys which one do you think is better/works best in games, more fitting, etc.

If I'm not mistaken, in Sorcerer's Crusade (The book I use the most when STing Mage as I never run modern settings) it's stated that countermagick is an all or nothing thing. If you manage to have more successes than your opponent you counter his magic, but if you had just short of one success it means all your efforts were in vain and the magical attack will come in full force. A friend of mine was telling me one of these days...