New Player - Super confused

[jebrick]

Things are hidden all over the place . Now that I'm home and can get to my books. Going to HoH:S pg 21 They have a very good description of how the counter spells would work. Bottom line is if you know the form you only need 1/2 the level to deflect it. If you do not know the form you must negate it with PrVi which is harder.

Also Ars Magic Errata

Perdo Vim Guidelines: General (p. 160): Replace "casting total" with "level" in the fourth guideline (the general dispel guideline.)

Isn't it about more than just "knowing" the form of the spell, to be countered? The counter spell needs to be made for that particular form, right? Mostly just an issue for Formulaic Spells, whether or not you know the right one for the offending spell. Since Spontaneous spells can just cast the relevant one on the fly.
I mean the roll to deduce this isn't very difficult. And It might be abusive if a single Pe (or Re or even Mu) Vi spell, mastered for Fast Casting, can be used universally for fast.cast defence. So I'm thinking you'd need (up to) 10 versions of the PeVi (or Re) spell for defence, one for each Form. If you wanted a magus specialized in counter spells. Normally you could make do with just a few choice forms.
The guidelines as I see them, need ½ level of offending spell, if your counter spell is tailor made (and you know the Form). Or full level, if it's more general. I mean a big enough ReVi spell should actively deflect most other magic, right?

Say you wanted a magus with the concept of a Flambeau very good at Dimicatio. So to avoid the opponent's magic, you could be good at Pe/Re Vi, choose some Forms to be the most likely used, invent/learn and master them for Fast Casting, and go have fun! Using Rego Vim spells lile "Deflect the Offening [Form] Spell, or Perdo Vim spells lile "Destroy the offending [form] Spell". Start out with the usual suspects, like Ignem, Auram (for Incantation of Lightning), Aquam, Terram, Herbam - because as soon as the rivals learn your strategy, they'll start using Corpus and Mentem. Imaginem is rarely resisted, so that might be passed over, since I don't see how it would work in Dimicatio.

Since Dimicatio is about using Forceless Casting, the point is to use as large spells as possible, since these are harder to deflect or counter by the opponent, a magus of this concept would do quite well outside duelling circles as well. If fighting for real, the enemy would try and use samller spells, for better penetration, meaning the counter spells would be less hard to pull off, and the big spells might not Penetrate. Such a magus could be a good Hoplite, perhaps coincidentally something very popular in Flambeau circles...

A big PrVi could negate other spells. One example I gave was a PrVi 25 could, on average negate a lvl 40 spell. It would be safer to have it at 30. But if you knew the form you could, on average, deflect it with a lvl 15 fastcast defense.

Ask Marko how his PrVi super counterspell went in our game. It worked. After he spent 3 confidence points and fatigued himself. A follow up spell would have gotten him. And that was a Mastered PrVi 15 vs a lvl 25 spell.

[Marko_Markoko]

Actually, it was PeVi15 versus a level 15 Mentem spell, remember (Confusion of the Numbed Will). The Ease Factor to dispell was 25 or something I think. And yes, it took every ounce of effort. I had invented it for Dimicatio as a generic all purpose counterspell, but when I used it in the field I realized that it wouldn't work in tournament. But it did pull my arse out of the fire in a pinch and threw the beta sg (Jebrick) a major curve ball. I spent like three fatigue levels and 2 points of confidence just to squeeze off a successful fast cast counterspell. Yes, there are better and more efficient ways of doing it, but it caught the enemy by surprise and saved our lives. Eventually it would probabbly be wise to learn the ten different Unravelling the Fabric of (Form) spells. But that requires identifying the form. The generic counterspel was also useful in my situation because the opponent has Silent Casting, and there was no way to identify Form anyways.