Editing Creating Magical Effects (section)

==Countermagic==

Sometimes you just can't let the enemy get the drop on you, and you have to find a way to fight or cancel his spell. That's where countermagic comes in. A mage works countermagic by using his own powers to cancel or wash out his enemy's Effect. Doing so counts as your action for the turn, so you can't do it if you've already acted. The three basic types of countermagic are sphere countermagic, anti-magic and unweaving.

===Sphere Countermagic===

This occurs when you have the Spheres necessary to know what the opponent is doing. You pit your Arete against the enemy's. In
such a case, you make an Arete Test, at the same difficulty as the opponent (although you take your modifiers for distractions and Resonance into effect). If you win, the spell is canceled. If you have Apprentice-level (or better) Prime and your Arete is higher than the opponent's, the Effect can be reflected back upon him, so he might be hit by his own fire bolt or wounding spell.

===Anti-Magic===

This uses Quintessence to strengthen the Patterns of reality against an Effect. You spend Quintessence to raise the difficulty of the opponent’s Effect. You can spend Quintessence up to the limit of your Avatar Background, as usual. 

===Unweaving===

This tries to tear apart a n existing spell. You make a challenge against the difficulty of the original spell (although your difficulty might still be modified by distractions or Resonance). You must have the Spheres necessary to have cast the Effect,
and you must have at least the Apprentice-level Prime Sphere. If you win, the spell loses one grade of success. Unweaving can degrade the duration of a spell. If the spell has no grades of effect left (i.e., it’s down to a simple Effect),then an unweaving destroys it