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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 6213650" data-attributes="member: 221">And that's a perfectly fine approach, especially for a spell that likely is not going to get a whole lot of use in most campaigns. It would probably be the starting point (or close to it) for my negotiations with players concerning the spell and its use, in an actual game.I mention James Jacobs, because I think it useful to understand how others view the spell, especially from a professional viewpoint, and, while his view point is not directly authoritative for purposes of individual game-play, it does help explain why the spell may have been written the way it was.  And I think he is right, so there is that.To help explain where I am coming from, I do adventure writing and it is useful to understand how different tools can be used in adventure writing.  While it is nice for magic to work consistently on the player's side, there is a distinct advantage, from the writer's side, to having things not always be so black and white; not so as to unbalance the game, but so as to create interesting scenarios.  So I tend, anymore, to look at the rules from three different angles: 1) how do players interact with the rules, 2) how do DMs interact with the rules, 3) how do the rules facilitate story.  There is some interplay here. Ideally, the player's interaction with the rules is going to mirror the way the DM's interact with the rules, but, at the same time, DMs need some flexibility (as do writers) to allow the rules to flex enough to allow for the story they want to tell. Simulacrum provides an interesting case, in all truthiness, because it is one of the few spells written where the DM interaction with the spell, as storyteller, is going to of necessity be more flexible than the player's interaction with the spell via their character, because the spell appears, in all truth, to be written for the purpose of story more than for the purpose of gameplay. This does not negate its usefulness in gameplay, it just means that one the sliding scale between utility and story, it pushes far closer to story, than say, magic missile or mage armor.  (Indeed, I would guess a lot of the spells people have problems with tend to do this).    Which, means, I think, that I am trying to say, that from a pure player/DM interaction, I agree with your take and think that is a very reasonable and simple way to handle it on a case by case basis. But, at the same time, its not the only way to interpret the text and that flexibility is, from my viewpoint, a feature, not necessarily a bug. And, for what its worth, a 14th level wizard who built his own simulacrum adventuring party out of snow, using his own hair, sounds like a really cool sort of idea.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />  (though the poor fighter in that party, with strength being his lowest stat!) (and, we should realize, in this party, the cleric is useless because simulacrums are, among other things, apparently immune to positive energy healing)</blockquote>

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