pogre
Legend
Dang it! You made me realize I probably need this house rule too....
D&D 5E Campaign Encounter Help (High Level)
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
The "Enhancing Tomb of Annihilation" thread and a few others discuss Acererak's spell list as provided, and describe better potential loadouts. He, like your mage, should have every spell in 5e available to study and pick the most effective.
Invisible stuff and illusory stuff - like a fake bridge over a chasm with the real bridge hidden a few feet off to the side.
Perma-cast Druid Grove (what is that named?) in his garden. To make the PCs spend some resources before they even get in the door.
Give the Mage a Lair Ability to cast something like Storm of Vengeance (but not as messy) and the lair holds Concentration until the spell is done.
His familiar is not just a rat, it's a werewolf.
The PCs need an elevator to get to him (Levitate is not enough) and Feather Fall to get back out.
Extra-dimensional space that makes "a closet" into a big hall full of something dangerous.
Are the PCs trying to sneak? Molly & Fibber McGee's closet. (All sorts of stuff falls out when you open the door, CRASH)
Invisible stuff and illusory stuff - like a fake bridge over a chasm with the real bridge hidden a few feet off to the side.
Perma-cast Druid Grove (what is that named?) in his garden. To make the PCs spend some resources before they even get in the door.
Give the Mage a Lair Ability to cast something like Storm of Vengeance (but not as messy) and the lair holds Concentration until the spell is done.
His familiar is not just a rat, it's a werewolf.
The PCs need an elevator to get to him (Levitate is not enough) and Feather Fall to get back out.
Extra-dimensional space that makes "a closet" into a big hall full of something dangerous.
Are the PCs trying to sneak? Molly & Fibber McGee's closet. (All sorts of stuff falls out when you open the door, CRASH)
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Each with probably 61 hit points or more? Hmm... 7000 (or a lot more) x 61 = 427,000 hit points (or a lot more) to kill them all. Not to mention the 122 for the original.And half the hit points
I'm okay with that.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Yeah. I've written to WotC and suggested it be updated in the next errata. It would be easy enough to change the last paragraph:
Add the sentence:
If this spell is cast on a humanoid or beast that has a currently active duplicate, the currently active duplicate is instantly destroyed.
There, problem solved.
Oofta
Legend
Which is my house rule, if it ever come up in a game. Fortunately my players have always respected the spirit of the game to not look for exploits from poor wording.
Only somewhat.
You cast simulacrum.
Optional: Then you wait a day, recover your spells. The simulacrum wishes for a simulacrum of you. You now have a simulacrum with a full set of spells.
You then get the simulacrum to make a wish outside of the standard set. Any backlash belongs to the simulacrum. Already pretty game breaking.
Optional: Your simulacrum casts down all of their spells except a 9th level one. Then she casts wish to replace herself, and gets a full set back.
Repeat ... an infinite number of times per day (well, 10*60*60*24, but close enough). You only have 1 at a time, but you have unlimited spell slots.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
I'm not sure I'm following you but I'll try. With my addition, when the simulacrum wishes for a simulacrum of you, the original simulacrum is destroyed.
I'm not sure what you mean by "make a wish outside of the standard set."?
If you are implying that a Wish could be used to "make a simulacrum" without it simply duplicating the Simulacrum spell itself, I suppose that could be DM fiat, but since you are creating a duplicate, I wouldn't rule that Wish would work in that sense. But for people who want to interpret it that way, you could just modify it slightly:
If a humanoid or beast has a currently active duplicate when another is created, the currently active duplicate is instantly destroyed.
Now, it is not contingent on the duplicate being made by the simulacrum spell itself, but by any means.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Interesting thought:
What would stop the archmage from having an huge number of clones?
Basically, with Wish, you could cast Clone every day, making another clone, and after 120 days, it would be fully grown. All you'd be missing out on is the equipment, which probably could be handled by other means.
What would stop the archmage from having an huge number of clones?
Basically, with Wish, you could cast Clone every day, making another clone, and after 120 days, it would be fully grown. All you'd be missing out on is the equipment, which probably could be handled by other means.
So a major restriction of wish to do anything but cast a 1-8th level spell is blowback.
With a simulacrum, it can take it for you.
For example, you cast simulacrum. This costs you some snow and ruby dust.
It then wishes for a bag of 25,000 gp in ruby dust. It has a 1/3 chance to never be able to cast wish again; you don't care.
So the cost of simulacrum? Nullified. (Ok, you also need some snow and toenail clippings)
Want to make any other wish? Similar, first cast simulacrum, then have it wish. If you have time, cast simulcarum, wait a day, then have it cast wish to duplicate you (destroying itself, but the new copy has full spell slots). It then wishes for whatever you want, and then uses your infinite supply of ruby dust to ... create a new simulacrum of you (again, full spell slots).
So now you get consequence-free wish every 12 hours.
No.
Suppose you have a use for 400,000 casts of a 8th level spell slot.
Step 1: Cast simulacrum. Generate CLONE 1
Step 2: CLONE 1 casts 8th level spell.
Step 3: CLONE 1 WISHes for a simulacrum of you. CLONE 1 destroyed, CLONE 2 created
Step 4: Goto step 2, with CLONE 2 replacing CLONE 1.
There, an infinite fountain of level 8 spells cast every 12 seconds or so.
Time required: 36 hours.
Ingredients required: Components to one casting of simulacrum.
The fundamental bottleneck is ... toenail clippings. Which you can use strategy 1 to generate an elephant-sized pile of.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Blowback has nothing to do with any of this. There is no blowback for casting Simulacrum or Clone via Wish and I don't care about the ruby dust component since I would let the wizard have the components anyway... no wish is needed to create them. But if you needed it, then sure do what you are suggesting (I never commented or suggested otherwise so I really don't know why you are bringing it up...).
As for having consequent-free wishes, so what? Who cares? That strategy has been around forever so nothing new there, either.
Anyway, you don't have an army of simulacrums because each time the spell is cast, any current ones are destroyed (with my wording added to the errata of course).
And then you get into Clone (I have no idea why since it has nothing to do with Simulacrum...). Clones aren't destroyed when you make more of them, hence the post I made immediate after the one you responded to. The issue with Clone is it takes 120 days to mature.
Now, a more compelling concept would be to argue that you are making clones of the simulacrums, but as they are illusionary creatures, I think most DMs would simply rule they have no soul to transfer to the clone when the simulacrum is destroyed, so that really wouldn't work either.
