I have been looking at the various claims that simulacrum is broken and I have looked at the pros and cons of the spell. I have actually seen simulacrum in use although that was at level 13 or so and the wizard only had a single simulacrum. That simulacrum however was used to spam cantrips a lot.
The spell is level 7 it creates a duplicate that has all the abilities of the original but only 50% of the hit points. It costs money to create and can’t regain spells and it is somewhat difficult to heal one. The abuse of simulacrum revolves around the use of the wish spell to duplicate the simulacrum spell to get around the cost of the material components.
Note that when you cast the spell you have used a wish spell the duplicate will lack a level 9 spell as it is a duplicate of the oriignal which has already cast simulacrum. RAW you can create a clone army by doing it this way as the clones themselves lack the wish spell.
One could of course create a clone by hard casting the simulacrum spell and the simulacrum will have a wish spell they can cast once. However unless they are level 20 they will lack a simulacrum spell themselves. Either way the simulacrum has no way to regain the expended spell slot.
This means your simulacrums will be very limited in creating follow on simulacrums. At best you might have something like this at level 20. The wizard casts a wish spell and creates a simulacrum. Not that wizard can’t create another simulacrum as if you create another one the original is destroyed. That simulacrum however can create 1 more using a level 7 or 8 spell slot but they have to pay money for it. That simulacrum however is missing a level 7 or 8 spell slot as each simulacrum created is missing a spell slot. Each simulacrum however is getting weaker and weaker. Each simulacrum can only control 1 simulacrum as per the outlines of the original spell regardless if a wish spell is used or not. Each simulacrum is in effect a vassal to its creator.
Assuming the wizard had a 16 con at level 20 he would have around 142 hit points.
Simulacrum 1 has 71 hp, that simulacrums clone has 35 hp and going further doewn the chain the 17hp, 8 hp and 4 hp before no more can be created. Each simulacrum also costs gold at this point. Some of those are going to cost real money to create and wish could be cast by the last ones in the chain.
Now a player might start to think they can just recast wish the next day and create a new 71 hp clone which is a fine idea but it destroys the old 71 hp clone. That new clone can then create a 35 hp clone etc and start the cylcle all over again. However each time you do this the original caster loses control over all of the clones as the vassal chain is broken. Once that chain is broken the simulacrums should really become NPCs the original caster has no control over the 35 hp clones. The 35 hp clones however do have control over the 16hp, 8 hp etc clones.
Now this is where things get interesting IMHO. You can only create a small daisy chain of duplicates which get weaker and weaker. RAW you can’t create a clone army and control it. Each duplicate however thinks like the original caster Lets assume the spell caster did this for a month or so and creates a new clone every day and over that month the clones do there own thing and create more clones etc. At the end of the month though the original caster only has 1 clone directly under his control. There is around 120 clones outside his control and odds are that caster should be broke by now as well.
Now if a PC wizard somehow was restricted from regaining spell slots odds are they would seek a solution to get around that. Each of the clones faces that restriction and each clone has the same ability and thoughts as the original caster. And the caster has created over 100 level 20 wizards outside of his direct control and they should really be NPCs under the DMs control. Now one would think that one of these duplicates would come up with the thought that they should be able to regain spell slots as life is not fair. Unless the original caster is a LG paragon of virtue around about now I would think he might struggle vs his army of minions he doesn’t technically control.
As a DM if a player tried this this would be what I would be thinking. Those clones can actually still cast more spells via scrolls and they are capable of using mundane research to locate creatures that can cast spells for them such as granting wishes and the clones are capable of using scrolls as well including wish. Maybe one of them can regain spells by turning the original caster into a simulacrum and they replace the original. All they need to do is subdue the original caster and use a wish spell to trade place which I would rule is a charisma save since it is a form of possession I suppose. Even if they can’t replace the original they can still kill him as well. The 35hp alpha clones only need to conspire among themselves as well as the vassal simulacrums will follow orders.
Now that’s what would happen in my games if a PC tried to abuse the simulacrum spell.
I think you have the order wrong.
Wizard casts simulcarion normally the first time.
Simulcarion casts wish and creates simulcarion of wizard.
Newest Simulcarion casts wish and creates simulcarion of wizard.
Too infinity and beyond!!!
Each simulcarion is a copy of the original wizard and not a copy of a copy......
Now, once the first simulcarion is made then the rest get wished into existence in mere moments. Let's say 6 seconds per simulcarion after the first one is made.
At 12 hours and 1 minute you have 1 + 10 simulcarions.
At 13 hours you have 1 + 60 simulcarions.
At 14 hours you have 1 + 120 simulcarions.
.......
At 18 hours you have 1 + 360 simulcarions.
Now if you can simulcarion another caster with the wish spell you can start getting 1 every 6 seconds immediately with no missing time in between....
***By the way simulcarions are PC controlled. Well technically the first one is PC controlled. All the others are controlled by their simulcarion creator.
It does appear that you have to give verbal commands to the simulcarion. That is one weakness. Another is that if even one in the chain gets destroyed that you lose your indirect control over all their children and grandchildren simulcarions.
It obeys your spoken commands, moving
and acting in accordance with your wishes and acting
on your turn in combat.
As usual; it's people disingenuously reading into things that are not there. There are some on these boards, just to subvert.
Easy: Everything a simulacrum does, falls back to its caster:
wish spells that are extraordinary and have a chance to make you never cast wish again.
And simulacrums of you kill the old one, no matter if you or your simulacrum casts it.
All issues fixed.
Stop being disingenuous is the key, here, a little more RAI is in dire need, but at some point, some people tried to make this game about "win".
Brock_Landers wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
There nothing specifically stating that the simulacra wouldn't have the 9th level slot too, its is open for adjucation. So near infinite copies are possible in theorycrafting, as each round the number doubles until the space is filled with ice wizards. The problem is, once the original wizard orders the new ice wizards to make more and to convey the order onward (so an army gets built), once the wizard realizes the infinite recursion he has started he'll want to halt it before the lair is truely full of ice wizards, squashing him to death, but the number of rounds needed to convey the message all the way to the outer rings of wizards is porportional to the number of rounds it took before he realized his mistake. (Since he can only command the ones he made, and that takes an action.)
The wizards only recourse will be to escape, possibly by teleportation. Unfortunately, the same will be true eventually for all simulacra, who having the same thought and desire to survive, will also likely teleport to the same location since they all share the same memories and intelligence, etc. Eventually, the location escaped too will fill up with other escaping ice wizards and the process will repeat itself until the wizard is no longer capable of teleporting. He may then flee on foot, fly or attempt to attack the others as they pop into existence around him.
Minutes later, the world is consumed in teleporting ice wizard's battling each other.
Wuzzard wrote:
Wish spells used to age the caster. It's something I intend to port over from 1e except that the number of years will be commensurate with your life-span so elves will age more per casting. Thus a simulacrum that casts Wish, having no life force of its own, would crumble away to snow as soon as the spell is cast. Problem solved.
FrogReaver wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
I *think* what he is saying is that the 'status' of "I created Sam" is something that can be copied, just like he gets the eye color and hair length. If you consider it a characteristic it makes sense.
(now, whether it is or should be a copyable characteristic is another matter)
Think of it this way... it has the same memories, so it remembers casting the spell, as far as its concerned, it *did* cast the spell... sort of....
FrogReaver wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
I've got one for your guys...
What happens to a simulcrum, when its creator dies.....??
Orethalion, when something is duplicated there is always the "original" and the "duplicate", the "creator" and the "created", the "parent" and the "child".
It doesn't matter how identical the duplicate is to the original, the process of duplicate creation always leaves us with relationships. Duplicates do not become the "original" or the "creator" or the "parent" no matter how exact we can get the duplicate. That's because the act of duplication is what grants these titles.
So when asked did the duplicate create itself, the answer is always no. When asked does it count as having created itself, the answer is always no.
Coredump00 wrote:
I wanted to elaborate on the hand cut off example.
A duplicate has a "time of creation". The duplicate did not do anything before it was created. Therefore a duplicate of a wizard that cut off his hand would not have a hand but the duplicate lacks a hand because it was created without a hand. The duplicate did not ever cut off it's hand.
Even if the duplicate "remembers" cutting off its hand it didn't. It was just created with the memory of cutting off its hand.
The same applies to the duplicate and casting the spell simulcarion.
Coredump00 wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Its weird how the only ways I've seen you explain were illogical ways.
Orethalion wrote:
ur trying too hard now...
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
I did not create it in a box
I did not create it with a fox
I did not create it on the can
I did not create it, Sam I am.
At least we can agree about something
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Being the creator of something is not a "status" that can be transferred to the thing that is created.
its really a trivial proof. The created thing did not exist before it was created. Thus it could not have done any actions or have had anything done to it by before the time of it's creation.
if the "original" lost his hand a year before the copy was created then the copy can't be said to have lost its hand a year before it was created.
Coredump00 wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Creating is an act and it is the act of bringing something into existence.
As such it's not a status.
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
mellored wrote:
you assume the first guy who get's the army is evil and would want to kill everyone else. it would be awefully lonely if you only has copies of your self to keep you company. sure you might enjoy being master of everything for a while, but it get's boring. and your simulacrum can't learn anything, so it's not like there will ever be anything new.
mellored wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
mellored wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
mellored wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
mellored wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
I highly dislike Orethalion's interpretation of the rules because it does not solve the (obviously not intended) infinte clone abuse and opens up what I think are other possible abuses that can be actually a problem while using the spell for its original purpose.
- It does not solve anything because the original wizard does not need to copy himself. Someone capable to cast the Simulacrum spell (even a thief with a magical scroll if you like) just need to copy someone capable of casting Wish (even a bard who grabbed wish with magical secrets is ok). You are just putting a rule that the one that casts simulacrum cannot be the character to be copied, but otherwise the infinite copy loop will still be as abusable as ever.
- It opens up other potential abuses because if your temporary "status" created by any casted spell is transferred to a copy then there is the potential to copy a character after he was buffed and the copy should have a copy of all those buff, even powerful and supposedly limited high level buffs (such as foresight).
If casting simulacrum via wish suddendly grant me a second character with very powerful buffs the power multiplying effect of the speel is too great: If there are a couple of wizards in a party why should they ever both cast foresight when the second wizard could use a wish-simulacrum to clone an already foresight-buffed character?
And then said character could also drink some ultra-rare potion before being copied and the copy would benefit from it "since the potion effects are a status and should be copied by the spell", thush duplicating the effect of an unique resource (and I higly doubt that this is RAI, since the spell specifically states that the copy does not have access to the original equipment).
Not to mention possible loopholes that this is going to generate: i.e. if Fighter A is hasted and a I create a simulacrum of Fighter A that is also hasted... who exactly is mantaining concentration on Fighter A's copy haste spell?
So I think this interpretation create more problems and loopholes without solving the abuse, hence is a dangerous and counterpreductive ruling.
How I intend to nip any attempts at this abuse in the bud...
"Hey, my friend. Would you mind if we didn't have that in our game? I really don't like the direction I think it would take the story. Thanks, man. I knew you'd understand."
Maybe I should explain this another way.
Sam obviously has the status of "I did not cast simulcarion and did not create SAM" because he did not actually cast simulcarion and create SAM.
You are trying to claim that SAM also has the status of "I did cast simulcarion and did create SAM" becuase SAM is a duplicate of the person that did cast the spell that created SAM.
Sam cannot both have casted simulcarion and not casted simulcarion... at least I think that's right? Right?
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Hoo-boy. My way is soo much easier than all this back-n-forth gobbledygook.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Fair enough. Continue, good sirs...
FrogReaver wrote:
Bump for Orethalion 
Maybe I should explain this another way.
Sam obviously has the status of "I did not cast simulcarion and did not create SAM" because he did not actually cast simulcarion and create SAM.
You are trying to claim that SAM also has the status of "I did cast simulcarion and did create SAM" becuase SAM is a duplicate of the person that did cast the spell that created SAM.
Sam cannot both have casted simulcarion and not casted simulcarion... at least I think that's right? Right?
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Has anyone tweeted this yet?
Orethalion wrote:
mellored wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
A duplicate that actually has 22 int has the status of having 22 int.
A duplicate that actually is missing a hand has the status of missing a hand.
A duplicate that actually did not create SAM does not have the status of created SAM
You are creating a new status of "created Sam or was the duplicate of the one who created SAM" and trying to pass that status off as simply "created SAM"
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Simulacrum transfers over appearance and statistics.
INT, movement, and language all have stat blocks.
Orethalion wrote:
mellored wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
INT is a statistic... knowledge is not.
If the *only* things copied is INT, you have an empty shell with great potential.
But... I have been at this too long. O, I understand where you are coming from, I don't think I would rule the same way, but its an intriguing take. Not sure why the other folks can't grasp what you are trying to say.
EnglishLanguage wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Bump for orethalion
A duplicate that actually has 22 int has the status of having 22 int.
A duplicate that actually is missing a hand has the status of missing a hand.
A duplicate that actually did not create SAM does not have the status of created SAM
You are creating a new status of "created Sam or was the duplicate of the one who created SAM" and trying to pass that status off as simply "created SAM"
FrogReaver wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
It's a distinction that you and a few others aren't getting, and that's fine. Not everone gets everything. Let's just agree to disagree.
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
mellored wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Alrighty then.
Caster A casts simulacrum on willing Caster B, creating a simulacrum of Caster B, SB1.
Caster A gives 3 orders to SB1.
- Cast wish simulacrum on willing Caster B, creating a simulacrum of Caster B, SB++.
- Order SB++ to repeat the 3 orders, unless ordered by Caster A (explicitly named as Caster A) otherwise.
- Order SB++ to henceforth Obey all orders and wishes of Caster A (explicitly named as Caster A).
Vahnyu wrote:
If it's abusable, an NPC has already abused it.
Orethalion wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
If you want to rule that other creatures also count as 'you' then magic goes all sorts of messed up.
For instance, every time you cast a self spell, it would also apply to your simulacrum because you are saying it is also 'you'.
Your simulacrum would count as you meaning it could concentrate on a spell you cast because it also counts as having cast it. Then someone might cast true polymorph on themselves to turn themselves into your simulacrum, which would make them you too...
Heck, that might mean every spell anyone else casts that targets you also targets your simulacrum and everyone who polymorphed into your simulacrum. This is all probably also against RAI, except on the other end of rediculous.
Foresight on yourself? Also on your simulacrum.
It seems like a really complicated way to fix 1 spell. People should demand the publishers errata their oversight.
Even a basic rule that would stop your simulacrum from casting simulacrum still does not fix the Wish loophole. So you and all your companions can all have permanent resistance to everything, and then 150,000 GP per week minus 7 times the material component cost.
Even if you rule a copy of yourself can't cast wish, then that does not stop you from copying the bard or the sorcerer in your party, or another creature with wish then ordering it to use wish. Unless you rule the copy casting wish makes the original suffer the effects. Which would actually be a powerful way to attack a foe...imagine copying a God that knows Wish. then make the copy cast the wish, wishing for the spell caster to become immune to the magical stress caused by casting wish (a explicit option of the spell), at the same time rendering the God with a 3 strength for days with no save. Spooky
again. Please demand errata to avoid stupid abuse like this.
Byakugan01 wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
EnglishLanguage wrote: