Wonderful, broken Simulacrum

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Huh. Well that's a surprise. I was sure that XP was kept, just like aborting an incomplete magic item creation. Mooo, moo-moo.

Man ... Not having a good day, huh?

The character must spend the gold and XP at the beginning of the construction process.

...

A character can work on only one item at a time. If a character starts work on a new item, all materials used and XP spent on the under-construction item are wasted.

 

[F5]

Moment of Prescience, Sor/Wiz/Luck 8; 1 hour/level, minimum caster level 15, works on any Opposed skill check ONCE. As the Disguise roll is for opposition at a later date, it should work.

Oooo...now THAT'S what I'm talkin about. It's an insight bonus, too, so it would stack with pretty much all of the other bonuses we've come up with.

Unfortunately, I'm only 14th level at this point, so 8th level spells are still a little ways away. I think maybe I can be patient for a +21 to my disguise roll (aid another, CHA bonus and masterwork tools figured in), with no funky new research to be done. Even rolling a 1 on the Disguise roll, that makes it largely impenetrable to all but a seriously astute observer. Hee hee...

This could be a must-have spell for any task that requires a single make-or-break skill check to set future DCs.

I thought about the bonuses included in the disguise skill that Meeki mentioned, but I can't convince myself that they'll aply...the +5 bonus is for making only minor changes in appearance. Lump-of-snow disguised as skinny-human-mage is more than a minor change. Better to leave that particular can of worms unopened, I figure.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Is Simulacrum still broken? With the prohibitive XP cost it seems just about right to me... of course the only time I've seen it used IMC was when a prince was kidnapped and those responsable left a Simulacrum under their control to take his place.

 

[F5]

I don't know if I'd call the XP cost "prohibitive". At 20th level you can manage a 20 HD simulacrum for 2000xp. That's a lot, but that's also a lot of creature you can create. I think the thing that really brings the spell under control is the fact that it scales to HD now...unlike the travesty that was the 3.0 version, where you had no real controls on what you could do with it. You have an effective limit to how big a Simulacrum you can create, and you are dishing out an appropriately large amount of resources to do it. So, no, I don't think the spell is really, actually "broken" anymore. But any spell that gives you unlimited control over, say, a half-hit-dice Balor, needs to be handled with care.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't know if I'd call the XP cost "prohibitive". At 20th level you can manage a 20 HD simulacrum for 2000xp. That's a lot, but that's also a lot of creature you can create. I think the thing that really brings the spell under control is the fact that it scales to HD now...unlike the travesty that was the 3.0 version, where you had no real controls on what you could do with it. You have an effective limit to how big a Simulacrum you can create, and you are dishing out an appropriately large amount of resources to do it. So, no, I don't think the spell is really, actually "broken" anymore. But any spell that gives you unlimited control over, say, a half-hit-dice Balor, needs to be handled with care.

The more worrisome ones are creating creatures that use lots of powerful SLAs. My fave is a beholder.

Oh, and why bother creating a simulacrum that looks like the original creature? My personal tactic would be to flub the disguise roll SO badly that noone who sees my simulacrum beholder would recognise it as a beholder... And therefore they have no idea what powers it has.

For that matter, if I flub the roll badly enough, can I make a beholder the shape and size of an amulet? Robes? A snowball? A brick?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I think the thing that really brings the spell under control is the fact that it scales to HD now...unlike the travesty that was the 3.0 version, where you had no real controls on what you could do with it.

The best part about 3E Simulacrum was that if you double-Empowered it (via a Metamagic Rod, for example), it received 102%-120% the level of the original.

So a 2Emp-Simulacrum of a Wiz-20 could, conceivably, be a Wiz-24. And if you 2Emp-Simmed him, you might get a Wiz-28.

Of course, eventually, one of them might research an Epic spell that allows them to break the command the caster has over them, and suddenly you've got an army of Epic Wizard Simulacra out for revenge...

-Hyp.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

By the time you can cast Simulacrum, putting Disguise Self on something is asking to have it detected as a fake.

Oh, I didn't know a simulacrum wouldn't light up as a christmas tree all on its own when checked out with Detect Magic. I suppose the flickering lvl 1 illusion spell aura could be discerned through the glare of that lvl 7 illusion spell aura if the caster was really perceptive.

I figured that the whole point of the exercise was to make the simulacrum appear normal to a casual observer, not immune to dection by expert casters with divination magic.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Oh, I didn't know a simulacrum wouldn't light up as a christmas tree all on its own when checked out with Detect Magic. I suppose the flickering lvl 1 illusion spell aura could be discerned through the glare of that lvl 7 illusion spell aura if the caster was really perceptive.

I figured that the whole point of the exercise was to make the simulacrum appear normal to a casual observer, not immune to dection by expert casters with divination magic.

Detect Magic is usually irrelevant by then because everyone has magic on. The thing is that Simu stands up to True Seeing, despite being Illusion-based, unless you throw other illusions on top of it.

 

[JimAde]

Detect Magic is usually irrelevant by then because everyone has magic on. The thing is that Simu stands up to True Seeing, despite being Illusion-based, unless you throw other illusions on top of it.

I don't think Detect Magic will detect a Simulacrum. The duration is Instantaneous.

 

[F5]

I don't think Detect Magic will detect a Simulacrum. The duration is Instantaneous.

I think you;re right. A Simulacrum won't detect as magic (unless it actually has some effect on it), can't be dispelled and isn't adversely effected by Antimagic. It's like a Wall of Stone; it's a magical effect that creates it, but it's self-sustaining and real once it's there.

Another thought that occurs to me: if you create a simulacrum of a troll, does it regenerate? The spell says that you can repair damage to the Sim with an expensive ritual, but does that mean that this ritual is the ONLY way it can heal damage? If a Sim dragon gets a breath weapon, why wouldn't a Sim troll regenerate? Could a Sim cleric Heal itself?