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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 2424204" data-attributes="member: 141">Dude.  If my DM had a cabal of twenty wizards cooperatively cast disintegrate, I'd laugh at him.  Cast cooperatively the disintegrate does 24d6 damage, assuming the target fails the save (which is a pretty safe assumption).  Cast individually, the disintegrates do 100d6, assuming the target makes every save.  And it's a fort save, so evasion doesn't help.  Even if the target has mettle, he only has to fail his save once to take the 24d6.  Using cooperative spell actually weakens the cabal.Suppose they cooperatively cast charm monster at me.  Well, I fail the save, and so I regard one wizard as a friend and ally (the one that you 1-spellers would call the designated controller).  But that's the minimum that would happen if all 20 cast the spell individually, and I failed only on a 1.  I'd fail 1 of the 20 rolls and so would regard one of the wizards as a friend and ally.  If I failed on a 1 or a 2, then on average I'd be charmed by 2 of them, and the cooperative spell would be *less* effective than casting them individually.Now, the power of cooperative spell increases the more spellcasters you have who have the feat and are cooperating.  But a cabal of 20 casters can't be put together by anyone other than the DM.  And if he uses the 1-spell interpretation he is, in most circumstances disadvantaging them.  If the feat is a disadvantage even in the optimal circumstances, how could the 1-spell interpretation make it anything other than absurdly underpowered for PC use?Now there are some circumstances where a cooperative spell (in the 1-spell interpretation) might be slightly more effective than not using it.  That would be when SR and saves are both very high, and for some reason assay resistance and lower resistance can't be used.  But I'd argue they are very rare circumstances.You might argue that my interpretation (the n-spell interpretation) of the feat is way too powerful.  The cabal is casting 20 disintegrates or 20 charm monsters, and nothing can resist it.  They are an almost irresistible force (provided nobody casts an AoE spell on them).Well, don't you think it is pointless to show that the DM can make a cabal of wizards that is nigh undefeatable?  He's the DM; of course he can make NPC groups that are as tough as necessary.  But a feat is not evaluated by what the DM can do with it; it is evaluated by what a PC can do with it.  And a PC can't do much with it at all except in the n-spell interpretation.Besides, the n-spell interpretation doesn't require you to add extra rules about designating a controller for the spell.  It is closer to the text of the spell, and so should be the preferred reading.  Either of these arguments is, to me, sufficient; together they are so convincing that I can't understand why anyone would hold the contrary position.</blockquote>

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