D&D 5E Simulacrum and True Polymorph

ThePolarBear · Dec 24, 2016

Even if you manage to make a Simulacra chain without using either an immense amount of gold or their 9th level spell slot used, you would still end up with either:

1) True Polimorph cast on the snow mound the simulacrum is made of - ending up destroyed, breaking the simulacrum spell and having a perfectly normal "new form" ex snowpile with no special power
This is if you allow "illusion bypassing perception" powers to see over the simulacrum spell.

2) True Polimorph cast on the Simulacrum - a perfectly normal simulacrum of the new chosen form.
This is if there's no bypass.

The Simulacrum spell creates an illusion that's considered a creature and on top has extra limitation. Those extra limitations do not disappear when a spell affect that creature, no matter what that creature becomes. Those extra limitation would disappear if something somehow would end up changing the simulacrum spell itself - something like "i wish i was a real boy" or, as point 1),breaking the true "body" of the simulacrum, ending all effect of the spell.

Obviously, imho.

Balfore · Dec 24, 2016

All good points.
How about having all the Simulacrum cast Clone on the original caster, and then true polymorph the clone?
Can a clone come to life? Or is it a lifeless form and nothing will happen?

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Fanaelialae · Dec 25, 2016

Balfore said:
All good points.
How about having all the Simulacrum cast Clone on the original caster, and then true polymorph the clone?
Can a clone come to life? Or is it a lifeless form and nothing will happen?

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So long as the original creature is alive, the clone is nothing but an empty vessel. So while you could true polymorph an inert clone body into whatever you wanted, it would be functionally the same as polymorphing an inanimate object into whatever you wanted. In both cases you end up with a living creature, but it's just whatever you polymorphed it into and nothing more. The polymorphed clone body wouldn't have any of the knowledge or powers of the original creature.

Of course, if the DM allows the polymorphed clone body to still function as a vessel, it might be useful to have your backup body running around with you on an adventure (so that it's there to immediately loot the corpse of your original body). The downside of that being that the backup body might be destroyed before the original dies...

Balfore · Dec 26, 2016

Fanaelialae said:
So long as the original creature is alive, the clone is nothing but an empty vessel. So while you could true polymorph an inert clone body into whatever you wanted, it would be functionally the same as polymorphing an inanimate object into whatever you wanted. In both cases you end up with a living creature, but it's just whatever you polymorphed it into and nothing more. The polymorphed clone body wouldn't have any of the knowledge or powers of the original creature.

Of course, if the DM allows the polymorphed clone body to still function as a vessel, it might be useful to have your backup body running around with you on an adventure (so that it's there to immediately loot the corpse of your original body). The downside of that being that the backup body might be destroyed before the original dies...

Just looking for a way to make hundreds of copies of the original host. They don't have to have any knowledge, they could be indoctrinated into a cult easily by the Simulacrum that bring them to life.
If you had hundreds of years as a wizard/necromancer, you could make thousands of copies of yourself thru the following process:
Cast simulacrum.
The Simulacrum casts Simulacrum on you.
Then casts Clone on you.
Then casts True Polymorph on the clone. (Specifying any humanoid, mundane creature, farmer, mage, fighter, bandit...etc...)
Lather, rinse, repeat.
...I'm the DM by the way... just want it to be 'legal' for rules lawyering ;-)

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matskralc · Dec 26, 2016

shadowoflameth said:
Simulacrum is an illusion, so I would just rule that it isn't a valid target for spells that need creature. Wish can trump those limitations, but that only works a limited number of times.

Simulacrum specifically states that the duplicate is a creature and can be affected as a normal creature.

Mad_Jack · Dec 26, 2016

shidaku said:
By the rules, it's annoyingly difficult. But that's because the rules are designed to prohibit players from certain shenanigans.

But if he's the NPC bad guy you don't really need a rules-based solution. Like, there are liches and obviously there's a way to become a lich but there's no magic spell or system detailed in 5E on how to do so.

I've always looked at it as this is what the bad guys have been doing while the good guys were off adventuring - if a person spent 100 years adventuring, they'll have a bunch of gold and magic items and probably be 20th level, whereas the evil necromancer is still only 12th level because he's spent most of that 100 years researching and experimenting on how to create duplicates of himself to put his evil plan into action.
If one of the PCs wanted to spend a hundred years working on something not explicitly covered by the rules, I'd let them do it too...

Fanaelialae · Dec 26, 2016

Balfore said:
Just looking for a way to make hundreds of copies of the original host. They don't have to have any knowledge, they could be indoctrinated into a cult easily by the Simulacrum that bring them to life.
If you had hundreds of years as a wizard/necromancer, you could make thousands of copies of yourself thru the following process:
Cast simulacrum.
The Simulacrum casts Simulacrum on you.
Then casts Clone on you.
Then casts True Polymorph on the clone. (Specifying any humanoid, mundane creature, farmer, mage, fighter, bandit...etc...)
Lather, rinse, repeat.
...I'm the DM by the way... just want it to be 'legal' for rules lawyering ;-)

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I'm just unclear what benefit creating inert duplicates of yourself that are sealed inside a container, and then polymorphing that container (with inert body inside it) into a creature is supposed to accomplish. They're only duplicates in the loosest sense.

You should also decide what will occur if the original dies. Does the clone spell fail because the vessel was polymorphed? Does the original's soul enter the first (or last) clone made such that he now has hundreds of lives (careful with this one, since players with a lot of time might be able to do the same at very high levels)? Does the strain of having that many clones shatter the original soul, and each clone activates but is insane due to receiving merely a fractured shard of the original soul? The simplest answer would be to simply rule that a creature can only have one clone at a time (although that admittedly doesn't help you create a multitude of duplicates).

One option might be that the wizard in question researched a new spell to accomplish exactly what he needs. Maybe it's a variant of true polymorph that makes copies of the caster out of inanimate objects. Or a variant of Clone where, once mature, the clone body becomes active (albeit without a soul). Frankly, this is the route I would go. Since researching new spells is 'legal', your rules lawyers won't have a leg to stand on. If they want to be able to do the same thing, they can take the time and expense to research the same spell too.

shadowoflameth · Dec 27, 2016

Yes, the sim is a creature and can be affected as a normal creature, but a creature is unaffected by having a sim made of it. The DM could just rule that the sim doesn't get to have sims made of it, it's an illusion as per the spell description, and when you cast simulacrum on it, you're casting it on an invalid target and it fails. If that wasn't discouraging enough, the DM can also rule that you don't control the sims sim, and that it turns on you in Manshoon fashion.

Balfore · Dec 27, 2016

The sim of a sim cam always be told by the first sim to follow every command you give it... that's never going to be a problem

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Leatherhead · Dec 28, 2016

Balfore said:
Just looking for a way to make hundreds of copies of the original host. They don't have to have any knowledge, they could be indoctrinated into a cult easily by the Simulacrum that bring them to life.
If you had hundreds of years as a wizard/necromancer, you could make thousands of copies of yourself thru the following process:
Cast simulacrum.
The Simulacrum casts Simulacrum on you.
Then casts Clone on you.
Then casts True Polymorph on the clone. (Specifying any humanoid, mundane creature, farmer, mage, fighter, bandit...etc...)
Lather, rinse, repeat.
...I'm the DM by the way... just want it to be 'legal' for rules lawyering ;-)

If I was a high level Necromancer with hundreds, if not thousands of years experience, I would just make up a new ritual spell to create my own horde of biological copies.
Seriously, that's what Wizards do, especially when they are NPCs, it's more efficient. Then if you want the PC's to have that kind of power for whatever bizarre reason, you just give them the Necromancer's spell book at the end of the day.

But the more important question, is why? What is the endgame here? A bunch of Decoys, A cult? I don't think cults work if the creatures don't have souls to begin with.