Downtime Task: Counter Magick

Master Wei is quiet, with gentle smiles.
When you approach for your task, he explains that "it is wise to understand many spheres because this is a way to protect yourself against the casting of others."
He urges you to practice with each other, or a willing (NPC) member of the Chantry to cast something and counter it.
"See what it is like to seek sensory insight and be rebuffed, perhaps. Know how to counter, and know what happens when one counters against you."
He'll add:
"The Technocracy is more likely to harden reality. It is the Traditions who will likely counter you, or sometimes the Fallen. Knowing how others would move against you is important."

He's happy to explain more, if desired.

RULE STUFF
Basic Countermagick
• Sphere Knowledge: To oppose another character’s
Effect, you need to have at least one dot in at least one
of the Spheres that are being used to attack you. You
can’t resist a Forces-based assault, for example, if you
don’t understand Forces.
• The Roll: Assuming you have the essential Sphere(s),
make an Arete roll. In Mage 2nd, the difficulty for that roll
is 7. (Under the Reckoning metaplot in Mage Revised,
it’s 8.) We suggest leaving the difficulty at 7.
• Successes: Each success rolled deducts one success from the
attacker’s successes. If the incoming Effect’s results were based
upon the Magickal Feats chart, then the incoming spell is less
effective than it would have been otherwise – see the Degrees
of Success chart instead. If that attack depended upon a
certain number of successes, the assault fizzles completely.

------------------

As a different option:

Protective or Offensive Countermagick
(Optional)
Although countermagick usually deals only with attacks
upon the mage in question, a skillful mage can try to intercept an
attack that’s aimed at someone else. Such protective or offensive
countermagick still requires at least one dot in a Sphere from
the attacking Effect, and demands a full action to cast. This
type of countermagick, however, also requires at least one dot
in the Prime Sphere, too, plus one point of Quintessence. That
mystic energy fuels the protective spell.
At +1 to the basic countermagick difficulty (see above),
the protective mage can try to dispel the assailant’s Effect. At
+2 difficulty, he can try to reflect that assault back upon the
caster. As usual, each success cancels out one of the attacker’s
successes. If the protector tries to reflect the attack and send it
back where it came from, each success scored over the caster’s
original roll works as a level of success upon the caster. (Four
successes scored against a two-success attack, for example,
would inflict two successes’ worth of damage or effect of the
spell upon the attacker.)

Who wants to practice with me??

My offensive spell will be making a handkerchief smell like farts.

Stinky cheese cloth
Alter a portion of the cloth into Sulphur.
Matter 2
Instruments: water, sound
Aspen spritzes the air with water and cries "pheeeeeewwwwweeee!! That smells Bad!"

Coincidencal? Diff 3+2=5
Standard feat? 2 successes needed.

First round: 0 successes
Second round: 2 successes

I dunno if "like" is the appropriate reaction. I need vomit

Hedy's appreciate to countermagic:

She watches the feed for pushed data updates on her Blackberry, and as soon as she sees one that doesn't have a clear source (in this case a cloth turning sulfurous), she checks the previous state and pushes that.

Normally she has to kind of sneak in her code manipulation to avoid data integrity subroutines, but in this case, she just doesn't bother. If it gets flagged, which it almost certainly will, then the Simulation will just revert things to their last recorded state, which is what she wanted anyway.

Trying to undo the stinky cloth, I rolled (1, 5, so nothing happened at first, but trying a slightly different method of pushing the data, i.e., just trying again, I got (3, 9, 9), snuffing the smell.

Hedy gets a high five! excellent work countering my juvinile magic prank!

Doctor takes some time to write a new program for his nanobots, then will ask Nurse and Inventor to help, with them being targets and Aspen helping.  Then Doctor will spend some time casting Threat Assessment to determine which of his brothers will be targeted, then will try to defend against the attack. (0,8,8 )  Using the ambient nanobots he taps into his knowledge of the different machines that his fellow mages employ, has the nanobots charged with his genius use realtime AI to twist the reality enough to fizzle the spell.  Effectively the nanobots run with such advanced AI for a brief moment that it lags reality, a wrench in the machine.

would Aspen allow me to cast a spell on him while he cast his stinky cheese cloth it will require physical contact. I would ask to use the same spell on anyone else that casts for this or unraveling

Aspen's down to have something cast on him for this experiment.
"go ahead, dude!"