We report the results of studies of various aspects of the counter diabatic field paradigm, a recipe that generates adiabatic population transfer between levels by assisting a given field so that the total field generates the population transfer that the adiabatic approximation suggests for the given field. The sensitivity of this recipe to the pulse parameters and to Gaussian stochastic phase fluctuations between the fields has been investigated. Ladder-climbing population transfer between the vibrational levels of a nonrotating Morse oscillator is examined, and a numerical demonstration of the efficiency of the scheme is given.