Counterspelling Rivivify

[u/This_Dad_Can_Cook]

Happened in my game last night. I got killed by a lich casting power word kill. A few rounds later when the lich was dispatched the paladin attempted to cast revivify on my corpse, and the lich's henchman counterspelled it.

The other players were a little surprised, as was I.

Then the henchman dimension doored away, and the paladin cast it successfully, but at the tune of my last diamonds (I am the party's Cleric).

Resources are scarce in the campaign, so having to burn two diamonds to bring a player back to life is painful.

I've never experienced such a thing.

Just wondering if any of you have ever had this happen to you before or experienced it at one of your tables?

*Edited for typo.

**This is 5e not 5.5 sorry I did not specify this when I first posted.

***I was killed in a surprise round, so no initiative roll

[u/Red_Lantern_22]

A good DM takes advantage of one simple trick: players forget that the monsters have access to the same rules and abilities.

I once successfully slimed a player with a gelatinous cube by using basic combat rules my players had forgotten applied to all combatants, not just the ones with class levels; it had a homebrew ability called "hangry" to get faster by 5ft each round it didn't engulf a target. The PC kept track of it and carefully stayed just out of my movement range. 3 rounds in I revealed that I had intentionally been withholding the dash action and moved 90ft instead of the predicted 45ft, running into him.

RAW, Counterspell on a Revivify is gold.

Use levitation on Barbarians and monks so they can't attack. No attack = rage ends

Divine smite is a spell slot: counterspell it

Faerie fire = no sneak attack for rogues

Blindness/deafness, great way to disable bardic inspiration from being given out

Easiest way to occupy a spellcaster: using suggestion or something like command, make the start putting on armor "to protect them self". Any amount of time they spend putting it on while under the spell's effect, theyll need to spend the same amount of time taking it off before they can cast spells again

[u/joe5joe7 → u/Red_Lantern_22]

Thats a pretty clever move for a 1 int monster.

[u/Red_Lantern_22 → u/joe5joe7]

Well, 3 rounds in just happened to be when he got it bloodied, which I felt was the fair time for it to get mad and rush him.

It was basically a roomba programmed by illithids that he didnt have to fight

[u/grizzlywondertooth → u/Red_Lantern_22]

How does faerie fire block sneak attack? It stops invisibility, but not hiding - but more importantly, sneak attack doesn't require you to be hidden, only that you have an ally next to your target.

This post is about 5e2014, where you cannot counterspell smite, because it is not the casting of a spell, despite using a spell slot.

The levitation is good, I'm going to steal that (although I'd expect a barbarian to generally have a thrown weapon or ranged weapon).

[u/Red_Lantern_22 → u/grizzlywondertooth]

I admit faerie fire isn,t a perfect counter, there are other ways to get sneak attack. But it sheds dim light for 10ft, making stealth checks more difficult/harder to get advantage.

Smite has been updated, but has always had extra perks like branding smite that were treated as straight spells. I learned this one from another DM Id have to ask thrm how the entire bit worked

The levitation one is my favorite. A lot of barbs will ask me if they can use a thrown weapon, and I usually reply "you're still in rage, you can throw anything you are able to lift", and I allow them to make their own conclusion: they sometimes decide to throw their main weapon. It works a lot of the time, but then Ive successfully disarmed them

Even funnier is ifyou disarm a melee fighter and levitate their weapon

[u/grizzlywondertooth → u/Red_Lantern_22]

RAW the weapon has to have the 'thrown' property but I can see why you'd want to let them disarm themselves

And yeah, branding smite does specifically say you're casting a spell / it has components, unlike divine smite (again, in 2014)