Listen man, just be happy they didn’t bring anti-magic field grenades.
For real though, even in settings that aren’t high magic, it would be reasonable that law enforcement would have something to neutralize magic. You think you’re the first spell-slinging murder hobo to come through here?
anti-magic field grenades
And the Lord spake, saying, ‘First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once at the number three, being the third number be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.’
Where do they even get 30 people who can cast 3rd-level spells? That’s like an entire region’s supply of 5th-level characters. Are they in Eberron and using mass-produced wands of counterspell? Maybe they’re the entire high-threat response team of a major empire or planar metropolis.
I’m trying to game out how many of my characters it would take to rescue the player if that’s really 30 5th+ level antimages, and with that many counterspells on the field I think the answer is that they could probably shut down every spellcaster I’ve ever played, at least for long enough to take out the primary target. The only D&D character I’ve played who really has a hope of accomplishing anything is a very high level 4th edition fighter, and even at near-epic levels things still look dicey because I bet those guys are all packing a bunch of other spells like hold person and only one of them has to hit to really mess up his day. Maybe if he teamed up with the high level half-celestial paladin of freedom from 3.5…
Actually I just remembered you have to see your target to counterspell them, so actually some people like the 3.x Sublime Chord would be in the clear as long as they cast improved invisibility while out of sight, but I’m betting the anti-mages are prepared for that too, somehow. It might even things up though!
That’s like an entire region’s supply of 5th-level characters.
And they’re paladins, so they have to be 9th level redemption paladins.
I played one character that would have been able to deal with 30 5-th level paladins, but she made it to 40th level before the DM retired her and made her part of the pantheon. Once she was 17th it would have been barely doable, do to her having taken silent spell, still spell, and eschew materials, but once she was 21st level she’d steamroll that many low level characters with a single spell.
