Cooperative Spell: One spell for the Price of four?

[MonkeySage]

The spell increases the save dc, but instead of casting 4 spells and dealing 4 spells worth of damage, you get one spell dealing unaltered damage, or at least that's the way it seems to work... Am I missing something?

Were the ones who wrote this feat being overly cautious regarding game balance?

This is a cool concept, but the mechanics of the feat seem really underwhelming.... Is there a way to fix it?

[Long_shanks]

I don't think it is intended for damage spells (the feat text just uses a bad example); it is more powerful for Save-or-suck or Save-or-die spells, since only the DC and the caster level check to overcome SR are modified.

However, the odds of an enemy suffering ill effects from a spell are greater when it has to make four saves at a lower DC than one save at a higher one (somebody can run the math as my statistics skills are quite rusty, but I'm pretty sure about that one).

So yeah, the feat isn't really good for PCs as is. The main problem with it is simply action economy : 4 actions become one, which, unless the spell casted wins the encounter, is going to put the PCs on the back foot. Add to that that the spell is casted on the lowest initiative count, which means giving the enemies initiative... Not good.

I don't think we can alter the feat (and remain in the spirit of it) to get rid of those three big problems.

[Oracle71]

There are literally 0 cases that I can think of where this would be a viable tactic. If you have 4 casters who can cast fireball, for example, there is no permutation where one guy casting it with a bonus of +3 to the DC would out damage 3 other guys each adding their own fireball. If they are casting something else, like charm person, they would STILL be better off by each casting their own charm person,because they would have a higher probability that at least one of those spell would work than if the cast it once cooperatively.

The only function cooperative spell seems to have is as a feat tax to get into Mage of the Arcane Order.

[Nifft]

The only function cooperative spell seems to have is as a feat tax to get into Mage of the Arcane Order.

This.

It's a speed bump feat for a powerful PrC.

[Lapak]

However, the odds of an enemy suffering ill effects from a spell are greater when it has to make four saves at a lower DC than one save at a higher one (somebody can run the math as my statistics skills are quite rusty, but I'm pretty sure about that one).There are breakpoints where it is more likely. Well, at least one anyway: when the target would only fail to save with a 1 but any increase in the DC would change that.

Take four casters. Assume the DC is exactly such that the target will only fail on a 1. (5% chance.) Chance of making four saves = .95^4, or ~81.5%.

Have them combine to increase the DC instead. +4 total adjustment (+2 for the first, +1 each additional.) Now the target fails on 1,2,3,4,5. 75% Chance of save success.

(Though even then the initial +2 means you are better off with a mixed approach: 2 spells at +2 means .85^2 = 72.25% chance of save success.)

But for most any other values (fails on a 1 by a comfortable margin, more than 5% base chance of failure) you’re better off casting multiple spells.

[Lapak]

Wait, I assumed too soon. .9^2 is 81% chance of saving; that’s a better shot than the 80% if we add +2. So fails-on-1-or-2 it’s better to use the feat as well. But fails-on-3-or-worse is the tipping point, it looks like.

edit: of course we are talking seriously marginal gains here, especially at the cost of a feat on multiple characters.

[Shalist]

There are literally 0 cases that I can think of where this would be a viable tactic.Combining the feat with spell-storing weapons, or using it with touch spells (i.e. bestow curse) bypasses some of the suck:


Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject, either in the same round or any time later.
Meaning you can, within reason, cast the spell whenever or wherever you want, and actually deliver it later on with a handshake or something.

Bonus points if you're hiring NPC casters and/or utilizing "temporarily gain a bonus feat" shenanigans.

[Oracle71]

Combining the feat with spell-storing weapons, or using it with touch spells (i.e. bestow curse) bypasses some of the suck:

If you can hold that charge indefinitely, then that works, assuming you have prep time. But if you have 4 spellcasters of comparable levels working together, there are an astronomically high number of more effective tactics they can use by casting their own spells. I mean, ONE GUY casting enervation can (barring immunity) effectively do what the effect of those other 3 guys using the cooperative spell feat did, but without completely wasting 3 spellcasting actions and and acting on the worst initiative count.

[Anthrowhale]

Cooperative Spell is actually a great feat for certain niche uses.


It provides universal metamagic cost reduction with Arcane Thesis like Invisible Spell. The feat itself adds a capability when multiple casters cast the same spell, but you still cast a cooperative <X> on your own and have the normal effects.
It's actually quite devastating for long-lasting effects since there is no DC cap. For example, use a simulacrum army to cast a Cooperative Symbol of Pain on the fighter's shield and then add permanency. It's immune to dispelling and everything not immune to necromancy fails a save 95% of the time providing a very broad debuff.

[Shalist]

Addendum to my previous post, needing multiple doses of material components is another obstacle between this feat and not sucking.

It can still have a place if you can utilize it 'for free.' That is, if you restrict yourself to non-combat usage (i.e. establishing wards, spell-storing shenanigans, etc.), gain the feat temporarily via NPC hirelings or bonus HD or whatever (i.e. 'inspire greatness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm#inspireGreatness)'), and expensive material components aren't a deal breaker.

[MonkeySage]

Hmm... I'm trying to adapt the Prestige Class to another game... I like the idea behind the feat- tandem spellcasting producing a more powerful effect than any one spellcaster could achieve, but the mechanics of the feat make it so that the only reason to take it would be to get into the prestige class, and I could probably remove that requirement in my adaptation.

I could look into pathfinder's teamwork feats, see if there's anything better there.

[Blue Jay]

Yeah, the feat just seems to have been done poorly, but it has really cool story potential. I backdoored it into a story once as a DM recently, because the boss fight I designed turned out to be way too difficult. The "boss" had been dominated and buffed by a demigod, and I'd overestimated the party's ability to deal with that.

As it turned out, a couple of my NPC's had Cooperative Spell as a gimmick I had wanted to try out, but the opportunity hadn't come up during the story. So, to give the PC's a way out of the crap I'd gotten them into, I fudged the Cooperative Spell feat so that it only required one of the casters to know the feat. And I made it function like an Aid Another check: the highest dispel check counted, and the rest only had to meet a lower DC to add +2 to the roll. So all three spellcasting PC's got to pile all their spells together with one of the NPC's for one big, dramatic dispel check against DC 31 to defeat the dominate effect, while the melee PC's had their hands full breaking up a brawl between the two NPC factions. The dispel check succeeded and freed the boss from the mind control, ending the battle. And that helped to improve relations between the two NPC factions, who then united under the PC's to wipe out an invading army.

I thought Cooperative Spell really facilitated a good plot point in that instance, but it's hard to justify actually investing in it as a PC in most games, because it's just not going to be the best use of your resources with any sort of regularity.

[icefractal]

For long-distance attacks like Vision of Doom, a single save the target probably fails may be better than multiple where they have a chance to put up protections after the first one.

Permanent illusions are another case I've seen it be useful.

[Fizban]

First off, Cooperative Spell is one of those feats that's written as metamagic even though it has no reason to be: with zero cost and no downsides to casting the modified spell by yourself, there is no reason for a wizard with Cooperative Spell to ever not put it on their spells. It's meant to basically be an ability you have all the time. Except this was when they were still convinced everything that modified a spell had to be a metamagic feat, so its a metamagic feat.

Second, the boost on caster level checks in particular is significant. Cooperative Spell is basically a watered down form of "ritual" or "circle" casting, where if you have a bunch of people who can cast the spell, you can pump it up. Great for laying wards and traps, and also useful for say, using a bunch of lower level casters to boost the cl check for the leader to get a (lower level) spell through SR more reliably, when the lower level casters have no chance at all. The same applies to the DC, assuming the enemy has a high save.

Finally, it's not so concrete that you only get the one spell. It's only the one line in the example where it says "The base DC of the spell's save. . . " that actually implies you only get one spell. All the other text refers to "cooperatively cast spells," plural, and the fact that the other casters are all casting the same spell. There is no direct statement that only one of the spells actually takes effect.

You rule on the feat the same way as anything else: if by your reading it seems useless, that's probably not how they meant you to read it.

[Nifft]

if by your reading it seems useless, that's probably not how they meant you to read it.

I dunno, man.

Some of the stuff written elsewhere also seems useless.

I don't think there's always a gem of hidden brilliance inside every single rule of this game.

[Telok]

No cap save DC bonus.
Yeah, it's lousy for combat and for just three or four people. But trap spells and rituals can get pretty big boosts.