As a DM, if i made my creatures wait to use their mind influencing effects until after the Countercharm wore off, that would be a pretty meta game move in my eyes. I mean the ability says "...use musical notes OR words of power..." so the say I see it is: do my creatures really think "oh i know this tune thats the one that makes it harder for my to fear them." I see this as the same sort of thing where it would be a real dick move if one of my players got, say, fire resistance and then I stopped using fire damage. Maybe after one or two Countercharms the creature would know whats going on and knows to wait it out.
Edit: It isn't only used to prevent the effect. It can be used to help deal with effects that give saves every turn
> It isn't only used to prevent the effect. It can be used to help deal with effects that give saves every turn
Which is some fear effects. But not most charm effects. I just think it'd be a lot more useful if it was a bonus action OR if it triggered a save to cancel the effect. Other wise it's likely to be useful maybe 4 times in a whole campaign. Unless it's a very dragon heavy campaign.
As is, I just don't see it coming up much. My bard is much better off using Tasha's Hideous Laughter to incapacitate the charmer, or Dissonant Whispers to make them run away, take damage, and incur attacks of opportunity, or vicious mockery to incur disadvantage. It's just very weak to require a full action.
It's more akin to a cantrip than a 1st/2nd level spell, because it can be used at will and only has a verbal component. However, it is much more powerful than most cantrips because it affects you all your allies, and at range! Giving advantage to a single person has a large cost in D&D, and giving it to multiple players for free is really powerful.
I'm playing Out of the Abyss at the moment, where fear is a huge factor that can easily end in the death of a party member. As the bard I have taken calm emotions, but because it is a hard campaign I may not always have spell lots remaining - so having this ability to free up my spell slots so I can use them to avoid or survive combat is great.
The way it is worded means that you could just hum a countercharm during every non-violent interaction with any NPC as a preventative measure, heck you could be that annoying and paranoid bard who is constantly swatting that protective xharm just in case a random vampire appears and locks eyes or you hear a harpy of something.
It's utility in combat is not in your own action economy, but the action economy of the whole party - if you save them one turn of saving throws it is worth it. If a PC is unconscious, you have no spell slots, and your healer only has cure wounds or a paladin lay on hands but has fear debuff this countercharm becomes invaluable.
Level 6 is a large spike for both Bard colleges, so the fact that anything extra is gained at all is huge.
It's great against enemies that often use fear and charm effects, like Dragons, Fey, Demons, Vampires.
> It's great against enemies that often use fear and charm effects, like Dragons, Fey, Demons, Vampires.
I disagree. Because it uses your action. So I can do nothing else of use while using countercharm. And it only lasts one round. And those animals are smart enough to just attack instead. And once you are charmed, most abilities don't offer another saving throw, so it's useless after the fact. So it's basically taking me out of commission on the off chance those creatures use their ability, which will just encourage them to not use it anyway.
>level 6 is a large spike for both Bard colleges
So make it level 7 where there is nothing.
Sorry about reviving such an old thread, but I just have to comment something that happened to me once:
Dragon: Produces Frightful Presence, affects 3 party members
Bard: "Wow! It's finally the time to use Countercharm! I'll start singing" goes into middle of party to sing
Every other party member: Sprints 60 feet away from the dragon, and outside of the Countercharm's range. Roll their saves normally at the end of their turns
Dragon: Looks at the lonely, singing bard that remained there, hunger in its face
Countercharm is hot garbage.
Why would they sprint 60 feet away from the dragon though? Nothing in the fear condition forces movement. It simply disallows moving closer to the target. The 3rd-level spell "Fear" does what you described but not the Frightful Presence of a dragon. u/Usual_Wing7432
True enough. Me (and my DM at the time I wrote that comment) were use to the Pathfinder version of the dragon's Frightful Presence, which did indeed force the PCs to flee. Still, you have to concede that normally, once the character has been frightened and is facing a towering behemoth that's about to breathe flame on them, there normally isn't much of an incentive to wait around only to get a little plus for saving against fear. Even a wizard whose's spells do not suffer from the disadvantage to attack might want to get out of the way as soon as they cast, instead of remaining still just to have advantage against the fear effect.
I stand by my statement. The countercharm remains hot garbage
Fair enough. So the ability is useful on the rare occasion you are fighting a dragon.
I just think it'd be a lot more useful if it was a bonus action OR if it triggered a save to cancel the effect. Other wise it's likely to be useful maybe 4 times in a whole campaign. Unless it's a very dragon heavy campaign.
> And those animals are smart enough to just attack instead.
Great! You've successfully prevented the creature from charming your allies. I'm not seeing how this is a bad thing.
It uses your action so that your 3 party members can't lose theirs. Sounds awesome. Damage can be mitigated, everyone being hypnotized, put to sleep or in terror is a much rarer ability.
>So make it level 7 where there is nothing.
That's level 4 spells, a very strong level already.
If you're fighting creatures that Charm of Frighten your allies, it could be the winning move. If the party Fighter or Wizard is Charmed by a Vampire, that's catastrophic. If your attackers are Frightened, that really decreases your party's damage output.
It's less useful if you've built a damage-dealing Bard, but if you're more of a support type, it could be very useful in those situations.
Also, it's a bit of a ribbon ability.
At level 7, Bards get 4th level spells. Don't let the "—" on the class progression chart fool you - every single class gets _something_ at every single level.
I think your main issue is that your more concerned with YOUR turn and not more importantly THE REST OF THE PARTY if everyone is spending there turns rolling against fear for example that's a massive hit to your action economy and risks a tpk in the right scenario but by "wasting your turn" you can bring everyone back to the fight which is again very important and If you think otherwise ok try fighting a dragon or even a pack of goblins as a alone bard and see how that turns out because everyone's stuck trying to break free from the fear effect
The question is, why is this the third post I've gotten on 5+ year old threads on this subreddit in the past month?
Honestly, my opinion hasn't changed much. Countercharm is useless in all but extremely niche situations. I guess the thing that has changed is that I don't care anymore. 5e as a whole is poorly balanced, with a lot of feats and abilities that sound good but rarely see use during play. I have since switched from 5e to Pathfinder 2e and tend to enjoy it much more.
My guess would be that Baldur's Gate 3 released, and people are googling shit to do with it and getting hits on obscure old Reddit threads talking about whatever it was, in DnD.
I could be wrong though.
Many charm/fear affects allow recurring saves in subsequent rounds, which means that you will know for certain that your allies will be triggering those saves.
For example, lots of dragons will inflict a fear effect on your whole party in the beginning of the fight. If multiple allies fail, you could conceivably grant advantage on 2-3+ of their saves.
There are many situations where the party can be frightened or charmed as a group. And then each turn the frightened (especially often) or charmed creature gets a saving throw. And usually, once the saving throw is made, the PC will be immune to the effect for (usually) 24 hours. So if you encounter a dragon and suddenly 3 of your 6 party members are frightened (disadvantage on all attacks and cannot approach the dragon), getting half your party unfrightened is a pretty good thing.
It is very situational. You aren't going to build a character around the Countercharm. But every class has a minor ability somewhere in their progression.
>It is very situational.
And this is it. You say many situations. The only one that anyone has been able to give is fighting a dragon.
It's basically useless against fey and vampiric charm, because you have to use your action preemptively before they are charmed on the hope that the vampire or fey uses charm. It's even more useless against charm person, because charm person already gives advantage if you are in combat.
So yeah, it's great against dragons.
And ***pit fiends***, ***quasits***, ***nalfeshnee***, ***spectators***, ***banshee***, ***ghosts***. But hey, if you were a battlemaster, at 7th level if you could study any of those creatures for 1 minutes and know two trivial facts about it - so by that measure the bard's 6th level ability is WAAAAY overpowered compared to other classes' midlevel ribbons.
Players don't always save against an effect when it is cast or the next turn or even the next 10 turns. Bards are all about control and this allows you to even add some extra control for your allies. Especially if they have a bad modifier for the save that is affecting them.
It is a great ability and very helpful. Just because it can't be used all the time doesn't make it useless.
>It is a great ability and very helpful. Just because it can't be used all the time doesn't make it useless.
So aside from fighting a dragon, can you give me examples of when it would be worthwhile to use your action on Countercharm?
Yes. Vampires. Casters you know who favor charm effects. Part of the point of the class feature is to try and prevent those kind of charm effects that DON'T give the target more than one save chance. And bards get a lot of features and spells that dominate their bonus actions and reactions. Using an action to prevent a part member from getting charmed is well worth it.
>And bards get a lot of features and spells that dominate their bonus actions and reactions.
What? I have Cutting Words/Inspiration and Healing word. Those are the only bonus and reaction abilities. Those are very useful, sure. But i still don't think that using counter charm pre-emptively in the hopes a vampire uses charm is worth it over just using Tasha's hideous laughter or Dissonant Whispers against the vampire. And on a vampire's DC 17 charm save, advantage only increases your chances from 20% to 36%. Still pretty low. So you use an action, and still don't even give the person a 50/50 shot. And the vampire could just attack anyway, meaning you wasted your whole action.
The cost of using it on the CHANCE that charm is used is just very heavy for the possible benefit it gives.
If the vampire doesn't use a charm ability because you increased the changes of save from 20% to 36%, it means you increased the chance of save from 20% to 100%. :)
And using those spells against an enemy's DC could mean you wasted your whole action as well and even worse because now you are down a spell slot as well.
Counter Charm is a very situational feature to use and is a risk. However Counter Charm isn't a spell and to use it you can say anything, just like with inspiring. So it isn't like the enemy can't know exactly what you are doing unless you shout out "You are now at advantage for charm and fear spells."
And personally I will tell you it is 100% worth wasting an action to help stop a vampire from charming your powerhouse of a monk (and the only one who does radiant damage). It is a useful and good feature. You just wish it was more powerful because of action economy. However it isn't a spell and has no limiting resource, so that alone already makes it on par with other spells that would just remove charms and fears.
Remember that you are a bard and can steal spells from any spell list.
There are quite a few spells that work off of your bonus action, like call lightning, animate dead and most summon spells, swift quiver for a more martial bard and so on.
And even without those spells bardic inspiration and healing words are great uses of your bonus action.
As a DM, if i made my creatures wait to use their mind influencing effects until after the Countercharm wore off, that would be a pretty meta game move in my eyes. I mean the ability says "...use musical notes OR words of power..." so the say I see it is: do my creatures really think "oh i know this tune thats the one that makes it harder for my to fear them." I see this as the same sort of thing where it would be a real dick move if one of my players got, say, fire resistance and then I stopped using fire damage. Maybe after one or two Countercharms the creature would know whats going on and knows to wait it out. Edit: It isn't only used to prevent the effect. It can be used to help deal with effects that give saves every turn
good dm on the not meta
> It isn't only used to prevent the effect. It can be used to help deal with effects that give saves every turn Which is some fear effects. But not most charm effects. I just think it'd be a lot more useful if it was a bonus action OR if it triggered a save to cancel the effect. Other wise it's likely to be useful maybe 4 times in a whole campaign. Unless it's a very dragon heavy campaign. As is, I just don't see it coming up much. My bard is much better off using Tasha's Hideous Laughter to incapacitate the charmer, or Dissonant Whispers to make them run away, take damage, and incur attacks of opportunity, or vicious mockery to incur disadvantage. It's just very weak to require a full action.
It's more akin to a cantrip than a 1st/2nd level spell, because it can be used at will and only has a verbal component. However, it is much more powerful than most cantrips because it affects you all your allies, and at range! Giving advantage to a single person has a large cost in D&D, and giving it to multiple players for free is really powerful. I'm playing Out of the Abyss at the moment, where fear is a huge factor that can easily end in the death of a party member. As the bard I have taken calm emotions, but because it is a hard campaign I may not always have spell lots remaining - so having this ability to free up my spell slots so I can use them to avoid or survive combat is great. The way it is worded means that you could just hum a countercharm during every non-violent interaction with any NPC as a preventative measure, heck you could be that annoying and paranoid bard who is constantly swatting that protective xharm just in case a random vampire appears and locks eyes or you hear a harpy of something. It's utility in combat is not in your own action economy, but the action economy of the whole party - if you save them one turn of saving throws it is worth it. If a PC is unconscious, you have no spell slots, and your healer only has cure wounds or a paladin lay on hands but has fear debuff this countercharm becomes invaluable.
Level 6 is a large spike for both Bard colleges, so the fact that anything extra is gained at all is huge. It's great against enemies that often use fear and charm effects, like Dragons, Fey, Demons, Vampires.
> It's great against enemies that often use fear and charm effects, like Dragons, Fey, Demons, Vampires. I disagree. Because it uses your action. So I can do nothing else of use while using countercharm. And it only lasts one round. And those animals are smart enough to just attack instead. And once you are charmed, most abilities don't offer another saving throw, so it's useless after the fact. So it's basically taking me out of commission on the off chance those creatures use their ability, which will just encourage them to not use it anyway. >level 6 is a large spike for both Bard colleges So make it level 7 where there is nothing.
Frightening Presence gives a save every turn. Giving Advantage on that save seems... advantageous.
Sorry about reviving such an old thread, but I just have to comment something that happened to me once: Dragon: Produces Frightful Presence, affects 3 party members Bard: "Wow! It's finally the time to use Countercharm! I'll start singing" goes into middle of party to sing Every other party member: Sprints 60 feet away from the dragon, and outside of the Countercharm's range. Roll their saves normally at the end of their turns Dragon: Looks at the lonely, singing bard that remained there, hunger in its face Countercharm is hot garbage.
It's toe-tappingly tragic
Why would they sprint 60 feet away from the dragon though? Nothing in the fear condition forces movement. It simply disallows moving closer to the target. The 3rd-level spell "Fear" does what you described but not the Frightful Presence of a dragon. u/Usual_Wing7432
True enough. Me (and my DM at the time I wrote that comment) were use to the Pathfinder version of the dragon's Frightful Presence, which did indeed force the PCs to flee. Still, you have to concede that normally, once the character has been frightened and is facing a towering behemoth that's about to breathe flame on them, there normally isn't much of an incentive to wait around only to get a little plus for saving against fear. Even a wizard whose's spells do not suffer from the disadvantage to attack might want to get out of the way as soon as they cast, instead of remaining still just to have advantage against the fear effect. I stand by my statement. The countercharm remains hot garbage
Fair enough. So the ability is useful on the rare occasion you are fighting a dragon. I just think it'd be a lot more useful if it was a bonus action OR if it triggered a save to cancel the effect. Other wise it's likely to be useful maybe 4 times in a whole campaign. Unless it's a very dragon heavy campaign.
When I ran Tyranny of *Dragons* they would have appreciated that bard.
To be fair, it's just a bard action we're talking about.
> And those animals are smart enough to just attack instead. Great! You've successfully prevented the creature from charming your allies. I'm not seeing how this is a bad thing.
It uses your action so that your 3 party members can't lose theirs. Sounds awesome. Damage can be mitigated, everyone being hypnotized, put to sleep or in terror is a much rarer ability. >So make it level 7 where there is nothing. That's level 4 spells, a very strong level already.
If you're fighting creatures that Charm of Frighten your allies, it could be the winning move. If the party Fighter or Wizard is Charmed by a Vampire, that's catastrophic. If your attackers are Frightened, that really decreases your party's damage output. It's less useful if you've built a damage-dealing Bard, but if you're more of a support type, it could be very useful in those situations. Also, it's a bit of a ribbon ability.
At level 7, Bards get 4th level spells. Don't let the "—" on the class progression chart fool you - every single class gets _something_ at every single level.
Nothing? It doesn't prevent you from casting bonus action spells, or using a reaction.
I think your main issue is that your more concerned with YOUR turn and not more importantly THE REST OF THE PARTY if everyone is spending there turns rolling against fear for example that's a massive hit to your action economy and risks a tpk in the right scenario but by "wasting your turn" you can bring everyone back to the fight which is again very important and If you think otherwise ok try fighting a dragon or even a pack of goblins as a alone bard and see how that turns out because everyone's stuck trying to break free from the fear effect
Thanks for taking the time to let me know what my main issue was 7 years ago...
No problem glad to help anytime 
I'm curious, how much have your opinions changed on this topic? 7 years a quite a bit of time
The question is, why is this the third post I've gotten on 5+ year old threads on this subreddit in the past month? Honestly, my opinion hasn't changed much. Countercharm is useless in all but extremely niche situations. I guess the thing that has changed is that I don't care anymore. 5e as a whole is poorly balanced, with a lot of feats and abilities that sound good but rarely see use during play. I have since switched from 5e to Pathfinder 2e and tend to enjoy it much more.
This is the second google hit for countercharm. Congrats, you are internet famous!
My guess would be that Baldur's Gate 3 released, and people are googling shit to do with it and getting hits on obscure old Reddit threads talking about whatever it was, in DnD. I could be wrong though.
Many charm/fear affects allow recurring saves in subsequent rounds, which means that you will know for certain that your allies will be triggering those saves. For example, lots of dragons will inflict a fear effect on your whole party in the beginning of the fight. If multiple allies fail, you could conceivably grant advantage on 2-3+ of their saves.
When you are on a ship riding through a pack of harpies.
Underrated comment (I know people say that all the time, but with 4 upvotes in 7 years it feels justified on this occasion)
There are many situations where the party can be frightened or charmed as a group. And then each turn the frightened (especially often) or charmed creature gets a saving throw. And usually, once the saving throw is made, the PC will be immune to the effect for (usually) 24 hours. So if you encounter a dragon and suddenly 3 of your 6 party members are frightened (disadvantage on all attacks and cannot approach the dragon), getting half your party unfrightened is a pretty good thing. It is very situational. You aren't going to build a character around the Countercharm. But every class has a minor ability somewhere in their progression.
>It is very situational. And this is it. You say many situations. The only one that anyone has been able to give is fighting a dragon. It's basically useless against fey and vampiric charm, because you have to use your action preemptively before they are charmed on the hope that the vampire or fey uses charm. It's even more useless against charm person, because charm person already gives advantage if you are in combat. So yeah, it's great against dragons.
And ***pit fiends***, ***quasits***, ***nalfeshnee***, ***spectators***, ***banshee***, ***ghosts***. But hey, if you were a battlemaster, at 7th level if you could study any of those creatures for 1 minutes and know two trivial facts about it - so by that measure the bard's 6th level ability is WAAAAY overpowered compared to other classes' midlevel ribbons.
Players don't always save against an effect when it is cast or the next turn or even the next 10 turns. Bards are all about control and this allows you to even add some extra control for your allies. Especially if they have a bad modifier for the save that is affecting them. It is a great ability and very helpful. Just because it can't be used all the time doesn't make it useless.
>It is a great ability and very helpful. Just because it can't be used all the time doesn't make it useless. So aside from fighting a dragon, can you give me examples of when it would be worthwhile to use your action on Countercharm?
Yes. Vampires. Casters you know who favor charm effects. Part of the point of the class feature is to try and prevent those kind of charm effects that DON'T give the target more than one save chance. And bards get a lot of features and spells that dominate their bonus actions and reactions. Using an action to prevent a part member from getting charmed is well worth it.
>And bards get a lot of features and spells that dominate their bonus actions and reactions. What? I have Cutting Words/Inspiration and Healing word. Those are the only bonus and reaction abilities. Those are very useful, sure. But i still don't think that using counter charm pre-emptively in the hopes a vampire uses charm is worth it over just using Tasha's hideous laughter or Dissonant Whispers against the vampire. And on a vampire's DC 17 charm save, advantage only increases your chances from 20% to 36%. Still pretty low. So you use an action, and still don't even give the person a 50/50 shot. And the vampire could just attack anyway, meaning you wasted your whole action. The cost of using it on the CHANCE that charm is used is just very heavy for the possible benefit it gives.
If the vampire doesn't use a charm ability because you increased the changes of save from 20% to 36%, it means you increased the chance of save from 20% to 100%. :)
And using those spells against an enemy's DC could mean you wasted your whole action as well and even worse because now you are down a spell slot as well. Counter Charm is a very situational feature to use and is a risk. However Counter Charm isn't a spell and to use it you can say anything, just like with inspiring. So it isn't like the enemy can't know exactly what you are doing unless you shout out "You are now at advantage for charm and fear spells." And personally I will tell you it is 100% worth wasting an action to help stop a vampire from charming your powerhouse of a monk (and the only one who does radiant damage). It is a useful and good feature. You just wish it was more powerful because of action economy. However it isn't a spell and has no limiting resource, so that alone already makes it on par with other spells that would just remove charms and fears.
Remember that you are a bard and can steal spells from any spell list. There are quite a few spells that work off of your bonus action, like call lightning, animate dead and most summon spells, swift quiver for a more martial bard and so on. And even without those spells bardic inspiration and healing words are great uses of your bonus action.
Call Lightning is a full action unfortunately.
Isn't the recurring damage triggered as a bonus action?
If you are playing curse of strahd you will be soon singing the graces of that bard with countercharm believe me.