Zardnaar
Legend
This thread is a bit old...
Glorious.
This thread is a bit old...
You are correct that it's not an exponential growth scenario; each clone can only produce one more. However, wish has a 1-action casting time, so the growth, while linear, is very rapid. In one hour, you can have 600 clones. In twelve hours, you can have over seven thousand.no the spell says if you cast the spell again previous simulacrums are destroyed and the simulacrums can work as completely independent cretures so every clone could only create one more clone
You are correct that it's not an exponential growth scenario; each clone can only produce one more. However, wish has a 1-action casting time, so the growth, while linear, is very rapid. In one hour, you can have 600 clones. In twelve hours, you can have over seven thousand.
They will, of course, be lacking 9th- and 7th-level slots (since you used your 7th-level slot to cast simulacrum, and each clone has to cast wish to create the next in the chain). That makes them roughly equivalent to 13th-level wizards, only with an 8th-level slot instead of a 7th-level one. Seven thousand 13th-level wizards is... scary, to say the least.
Necromancy thread! Back from the dead!
Solve the problem with a tweak - there can be only 1 (copy) regardless of who makes it. If you make a simulacrum of you and then it makes a simulacrum of you, it destroys itself.
Solve the problem with Divine Intervention - The Gods of Magic don't like it and step in to prevent you from meddling in magic in ways that you shouldn't - perhaps they give the simulacra free will and competing goals to the PC? Or they just destroy them? Or they prevent the wizard from ever using wish or simulacrum again?
Solve the problem with an arms race - If the PCs can do it, so can enemies. What do the wizards of the world do when someone comes up with a spell that could conquer everything? A treaty that prevents the use of the spell.
Necromancy thread! Back from the dead!
Solve the problem with a tweak - there can be only 1 (copy) regardless of who makes it. If you make a simulacrum of you and then it makes a simulacrum of you, it destroys itself.
Solve the problem with Divine Intervention - The Gods of Magic don't like it and step in to prevent you from meddling in magic in ways that you shouldn't - perhaps they give the simulacra free will and competing goals to the PC? Or they just destroy them? Or they prevent the wizard from ever using wish or simulacrum again?
Solve the problem with an arms race - If the PCs can do it, so can enemies. What do the wizards of the world do when someone comes up with a spell that could conquer everything? A treaty that prevents the use of the spell.
One area that hasn't been explored that much is around the quote "it operators as you direct on your initiative".
That suggests to me it has no independent thought...even intelligent mounts get their own initiative.
Further, you could really push the "cannot learn" notion. For example, if a simulacrum cast another one...would it actually know it had done so?" Would it even know who to direct? Now it's intelligent so it could be told...but how long would it retain that knowledge?
One interpretation is that the simulacrum needs constant instruction...else it forgets what you told it.