Counterspell & Monster Spell Level

I have a player who really wants to take counterspell (and who wouldn't, it seems pretty sweet), but I am not sure how to run it in the game now that monsters no longer have levels.

For reference, here is the counterspell move, from p.147 of the most recent release:

Counterspell
When you attempt to counter an arcane spell that will otherwise affect you, stake one of your prepared spells of equal or higher level on the defense and roll+Int. ?On a 10+, the spell is countered and has no effect on you. ?On a 7-9, the spell is countered and you forget the spell you staked. Your counterspell protects only you; if the countered spell has other targets they get its effects.

The crucial problem that I have run into is "stake one of your prepared spells of equal or higher level on the defense."  Back when monsters had levels, I could just assume that the monster's spells were of the monster's level.  Now, since I run most monster spells as monster moves and avoid using wizard or cleric spells (there being only one Wizard or Cleric, of course), I don't have a baseline by which to judge monster spell level.  I could try to draw a parallel between each monster move and a spell from one of the spell books, but I worry that that would be inconsistent and cumbersome.

What have you folks done?  Do you have a means of determining monster spell level that works well for you?  Is this a move that is going to be reworded as more editing is done?

We're totally rewording it.  Basically, if you stake a spell, the GM can use the relative power level of the spell to figure out how to narrate the countering.  If it's against a PC, you have to stake a spell of the same or equal level.

Also, when an NPC uses a spell that appears on the list (so a lich casts fireball, etc) then the GM will be able to gauge whether countering is possible.

I and my group came up with an alternative for the Counterspell move, since I think we might play with it before the next version comes out, and I figured we should share:

Counterspell
When you attempt to counter a spell that will otherwise affect you or your friends, stake one of your prepared spells in defense and roll+Int.  On a 10+ choose 3, on a 7-9 choose 1:
-You don't lose your preparation of the spell you staked
-You counter the effects of the incoming spell on yourself
-You counter the effects of the incoming spell on your friends
-There are no strange repercussions for twisting the magical energies around you.  These would be worse if the spell you staked was not as powerful as the spell you tried to counter.

The 6+ advance could then be something like:

Virtuoso of Spell Disassembly, requires Counterspell
When you attempt to counter a spell that will otherwise affect you or your friends, you always choose 1 additional option.  On a 10+ choose all 4, on a 7-9 choose 2, on a 6- choose 1.


Other thoughts, and potential drawbacks:

This doesn't make any clear distinctions about power levels, but instead leaves such things up to the fiction.  That is perhaps sub-optimal, but perfectly good for giving the DM a free soft (or even hard-ish) move.

My Wizard's player also pointed out that Dispel Magic seems well suited to countering spells, though I think you'd have to defy some danger to get a vaguely similar effect.

This also increases the relative power of the move, perhaps significantly.  It allows countering to protect your friends without a second advance, and it doesn't specify that the countered spell must be arcane.  But it does these things with good reason; the differences between "arcane" magic and "divine" magic are inherently setting based, so there's no distinction in the move, and by offering the choice of protecting friends or self in the same move I think you give people the opportunity to make more fun choices.  You could protect the whole party AND keep your spell, but then you give the DM a free soft move.

That's a cool move structure. Personally, I would shorten the list and make countering the spell just part of what it does. On a 10+, you counter the spell with no ill effects. On a 7-9, you counter the spell but choose one side effect...

The way your move is written, on a 10+ the player only gets 3 out of 4 options so it feels like a compromise. I don't think a 10+ should feel like a compromise.

Thanks Scrape.  I've adopted it from a common move structure in AW (kind of like Seize by Force), and you can see something similar in Defend.  I hear what you're saying about giving the players what they want without compromise, but I think I disagree with you: the structure of the above move will always offer a player the ability to counter a spell on a hit, they just have to pick what they'll give up to do it on a weak hit.

With the new version of Counterspell I suggest (and without the suggested 6+ advance Virtuoso of Spell Disassembly), on a 10+ you can get exactly what the current move allows: you keep your spell, you counter something affecting you, and you don't get weird side effects.  It also makes more options available from the start: with the current move it is impossible to counter something that targets other people, meaning that the Wizard can't protect the party until they get the level 6+ advance Protective Counter.

But this new take I presented offers party protection as well.  If you are willing to take one for the team, you could counter something effecting other people, suffer no repercussions, and either keep your staked spell or counter any effects on you.  Finally, the 6+ advance I suggest offers 1 extra choice, letting you always counter no matter what and maybe get super amazing goodness on a 10+.

Actually, reading up on the current 6+ advance Protective Counter, perhaps the move I suggested is too good.  Here's Protective Counter (p.148) for reference:

Protective Counter
Requires: Counterspell
When an ally within sight of you is affected by an arcane spell, you can counter it as if it affected you.  If the spell affects multiple allies you must counter for each ally separately.

I don't really see a problem with choosing between yourself and the rest of your party (I think it lends dramatic tension), but if you wanted to have the new version be more like the old version, you could replace the option "-You counter the effects of the incoming spell on your friends" with "-You counter the effects of the incoming spell on one of your friends. You may choose this more than once."  That way you might still have to counter multiple times, like with Protective Counter.

Personally, I'm torn over having my players roll more times for something like that.  I enjoy players rolling dice and giving me more opportunities for moves, but I don't want to slow things down too much.  Also, the basic AW system is so elegant (and occasionally punishing) that I'm inclined to keep dice-rolling to a minimum.  Asking the wizard to roll once for each party member (and what about the hirelings?) offers much greater potential for failure.  Even spending choices through the move I suggest would still be risky for a moderately sized party.  You could argue that there's only one spell being flung, and thus only one counter is needed, but then you lose out on the tension of choosing between protecting yourself and protecting your party members, and the risks associated with losing spells or suffering strange side effects.

What do you think?  Should it be more like Protective Counter, or should it be more forgiving?  And Scrape, did I answer your concerns about compromise by putting the move in perspective?

I really like your latter version: having to pick multiple times makes the choice even more difficult. Which is a good thing.