D&D 5E Paladin: watcha up to citizen who is on parole? Lore Master Wizard: Pain and mischief. Paladin: oh dear sweet Pelor no!

[Umbran]

There's always the old Chain Simulacrum trick, in which you create a Simulacrum, which in turn creates a Simulacrum of itself, repeat ad infinitum

No. The chain is rather short.

You, 20th level wizard, have 2 spell slots of 7th level. You use one to cast Simulacrum. The Simulacrum then has only one 7th level spell slot, as you used one of yours. The Simulacrum then casts the spell, and its copy then has no seventh level slots at all, and it cannot then copy itself.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

No. The chain is rather short.

You, 20th level wizard, have 2 spell slots of 7th level. You use one to cast Simulacrum. The Simulacrum then has only one 7th level spell slot, as you used one of yours. The Simulacrum then casts the spell, and its copy then has no seventh level slots at all, and it cannot then copy itself.

So i went and looked up the spell. I think i may have noticed something you missed.

The chain is in fact actually quite infinite and speeds up at an exponential rate (but starts very slow).

Range: "Touch"

Excerpt: "You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within range for the entire casting time of the spell."

So...as far as i could find there is nothing preventing you from creating simulacrum who then target you (not themselves) to duplicate with simulacrum. Its actually not restricted to self.

In this scenario you will have FAR more than a couple hundred by year's end.

If you did it for 10 years (why not) you could have an insanely large number of wishes and other high level spells. Effectively infinite usage of master of magic too.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

but im not trying to break the game. I just want to see what happens when at the start of every day d360 random people's wishes get granted in the local country with 60 of them being granted within a 12 mile radius centered on me.

I wanna see the most dangerous spell in the game be in the hands of mere peasants who cant do higher maths.

 

[Umbran]

So...as far as i could find there is nothing preventing you from creating simulacrum who then target you (not themselves) to duplicate with simulacrum. Its actually not restricted to self.

In this scenario you will have FAR more than a couple hundred by year's end.

Perhaps. But you aren't doing much else, either, because you have to stay in touch of the caster for each 12 hour casting.

And, there's the simple fact that the GM, seeing you trying this nonsense, is apt do something about it.

This is less an actual tactic, and more an example of how no complicated rule set is without bugs. This one is super-easy to patch - "Simulacrums cannot cast Simulacrum or Wish". Done.

 

[MarkB]

In this scenario you will have FAR more than a couple hundred by year's end.

Well, it still has a casting time of 12 hours, and you're still only able to do it one at a time (if the same caster casts Simulacrum a second time, the first one vanishes), so you're restricted to only producing two Sims per day. And unless you have infinite resources, you may want every fifteenth-or-so Sim to sacrifice their Wish spell in order to summon a 25,000 gp ruby to be crushed into dust for material components.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I'd say a large part of the general population would use their wish for monetary creation. 25,000 gp is a lot in D&D setting. Even if you go by the 1 gp a day wage, that's a life of revenue. Instant retirement! (except they won't calculate that if everyone wishes for gold, gold value will drop....) It wouldn't change the lives of most people (once all that gold is circulating) but it will equalize the wealth with those who used it as a store of value.

With regards to the simulacrum chains, I have (for when the party reach, if ever, the level where they can cast Wish) planned a new opponent : the first wizard to ever devise the wish spells used the simulacrum chain to have simulacra in reserve to cast "I wish for BBEG to be restored in the exact same state he was this morning" (in case Wish goes bad) and another to cast "I wish for my Master to be immune for the effect of the stress linked to casting Wish, without any other detrimental effect to him". Until it kinda worked. Then he always has a simulacrum with an active Wish "I wish to know whenever a new spellcaster in the plane gains the ability to cast the wish spell, along with his identity and current location". And alpha-striking competition if he feels they can't be turned into followers. Using armies of simulacra to sustain concentration on defensive buffs.

Party, meet a 3.5 wizard and die.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Perhaps. But you aren't doing much else, either, because you have to stay in touch of the caster for each 12 hour casting.

And, there's the simple fact that the GM, seeing you trying this nonsense, is apt do something about it.

This is less an actual tactic, and more an example of how no complicated rule set is without bugs. This one is super-easy to patch - "Simulacrums cannot cast Simulacrum or Wish". Done.

Not true. The first couple days sure...a lot of my time will be spent creating the first couple simulacrum.

But after that...then the gloves come off. Because then the simulacrums start using reduce person on self once per day and i start using enlarge person on self once per day. I carry them around in a large sack with a single lock of hair leading down into it for them to constantly touch and they just sart exponentially increasing population without me having to do anything. (Why dont they make it so that reduce person can be used twice? Or upcast?).

"And, there's the simple fact that the GM, seeing you trying this nonsense, is apt do something about it."

I think ill probably be rewarded for my creativity. But also it will attract strong foes.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

also there are historic reasons why simulacrum will likely always be able to cast simulacrum and wish.

Farrrr to much plot history is bound up in that.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Well, it still has a casting time of 12 hours, and you're still only able to do it one at a time (if the same caster casts Simulacrum a second time, the first one vanishes), so you're restricted to only producing two Sims per day. And unless you have infinite resources, you may want every fifteenth-or-so Sim to sacrifice their Wish spell in order to summon a 25,000 gp ruby to be crushed into dust for material components.

Wrong. The sims can cast sim on me.

Thats why after the brief slow start it rapidly picks up speed.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I'd say a large part of the general population would use their wish for monetary creation. 25,000 gp is a lot in D&D setting. Even if you go by the 1 gp a day wage, that's a life of revenue. Instant retirement! (except they won't calculate that if everyone wishes for gold, gold value will drop....) It wouldn't change the lives of most people (once all that gold is circulating) but it will equalize the wealth with those who used it as a store of value.

With regards to the simulacrum chains, I have (for when the party reach, if ever, the level where they can cast Wish) planned a new opponent : the first wizard to ever devise the wish spells used the simulacrum chain to have simulacra in reserve to cast "I wish for BBEG to be restored in the exact same state he was this morning" (in case Wish goes bad) and another to cast "I wish for my Master to be immune for the effect of the stress linked to casting Wish, without any other detrimental effect to him". Until it kinda worked. Then he always has a simulacrum with an active Wish "I wish to know whenever a new spellcaster in the plane gains the ability to cast the wish spell, along with his identity and current location". And alpha-striking competition if he feels they can't be turned into followers. Using armies of simulacra to sustain concentration on defensive buffs.

Party, meet a 3.5 wizard and die.

3.5 is my jam.

Also sounds like a challenge. If i could play under you id like to see if i could crack that nut.

When wizards go to war the troops have support casters.

When wizards DECLARE or are AT war extinction events may happen. By extension druid job security peaks during these times.