Wonderful, broken Simulacrum

[Rystil Arden]

for the sim you make is 0 years old to start; as it can't advance in any way, it will always be that age for purposes of draconic abilities.

That's misleading. It starts at the same age as the thing you're duping. Otherwise, when you dupe yourself, you'll get a mewling infant.

 

[Pielorinho]

Rystil and Jack, may I suggest that this particular argument is complicated enough to warrant a new thread?

Daniel

 

[Jack Simth]

Actually it does not. It specifies that it has the special abilities of a creature of the type and HD. In D&D, Ability scores are not included as a type of special ability. Even though it is not how Simulacrum works by the effect description, I'm curious: in your 10s example, if I copy a level 20 human paladin, does he have all 10s in his stats?

It doesn't actually use the word "type". it just uses "a creature" theoretically, a cruel GM could make your copy of a dragon be, for all purposes, a new kind of creature, "snow golem", that has the listed HD and the feats, skills, special abilities, and such of his snow golem of that HD (including the fact that it starts taking damage (melting) if the temperature rises above freezing ) that just happens to be the shape and color of the dragon you simmed. It's still a duplicate creature (it looks and acts pretty much the same - one reasonable definition of duplicate creature) but it's a totally different type.

That aside, if all you need is proof that age category is not a function of hit dice, its easy enough. Let's say my dragon takes 5 Hit Dice in Hidecarved Dragon PrC. I don't gain any age categories, so no new DR or SR, but my breath weapon DCs go up (based on HD).

HD and Class levels are treated differently in many, many respects - check out the Increasing hit dice Tables under Improving monsters; specifically, the note about class levels: (srd.pbemnexus.com/improvingMonsters.html)

INCREASING HIT DICE


As its Hit Dice increase, a creature’s attack bonuses and saving throw modifiers might improve. It gains more feats and skills, depending on its type, as shown on Table: Creature Improvement by Type.

Note that if a creature acquires a character class, it improves according to its class, not its type.

Levels in a prestige class are treated seperately.

Edit: Age category is not a special ability. It is a category. It is like a template being applied on a dragon of the next lower category. It is this category that determines other features. Hit Dice does not determine age category, and Age Category does not determine Hit Dice per se, although each time you apply an extra age category, the dragon does gain 3 HD, in addition to other benefits. So if you simu the dragon, he loses the benefits of his new shiny Hit Dice, but he doesn't lose his very identity, or he wouldn't be a duplicate creature. What about the monsters in the MM3 that exist under separate entries on separate pages but are part of the lifecycle of the same creature (can't remember which ones at the moment). If I simu the big one, does the simu become one of the little guys? No. It stays as a "duplicate creature"

That's one interpertation. Another is that the spell specifies that it has the special abilities of a creature with the reduced HD, and most draconic abilities are special. What's the skills, feats, and special abilities of a black dragon with 12 HD? Asked in that way, a person looks at the summary table, finds a close match on the HD (a 2 HD improved Juvinile), and takes the special abilities off the chart from that row, grabs the age category, and uses that to correspond with the other special abilities appropriet to those HD on the second table.

Now consider consequences of the two methods:
Situation: By definition of the Special Materials, a suit of medium half-plate Black Dragonhide armor (cost: 1,500 gp) required the hide of a dragon of size Gargantuan (medium + 3) which is either a Wyrm or Great Wyrm (when selecting off black Dragons; base CR 20 and 22, respectively). Thus, such a character could, theoretically, use a small piece (after smashing) of such a suit of armor to Sim a dragon. Suppose we have a character who was focusing on power spells, and thus wanted the highest caster level he could get, and he has a character level of 16. So let's see... he takes Wizard up to 13, 3 levels of Archmage (selecting Spell Power each time), and buys an Orange Ioun stone. He has a caster level of 20 (13 wiz, +3 arch, +3 spell power, +1 stone), but spells per day and spells in his spellbook appropriet to Wiz-16. You know, something you might find in a game with characters high enough up to cast Simulacrum.
A sim made from such will thus have 17-19 HD (depending), cost 1700 to 1900 exp, the same in GP for rubies, and a 12-hour casting time (for each dragon). If the character decides to delay leveling up for a while, he can make nine or eight of these with the recources it would take him to reach level 17. Now lets look at party power for the two takes of the spell:

Your take:
Call it 1-2 CR less for the reduction in HD and some abilities, which leaves the sim dragon at CR 18-21; 8 18's (low-end of both variables) would make for a ECL of 24 - "Overpowering" for a 4-character level 17 party. (calculated by http://www.d20srd.org/encounterCalculator.htm in case you are interested)

My Take:
Those HD translate to an Improved Young Adult or an Adult, CR 9 to 11. 9 of them (high end of both variables) makes for an ECL of 17; "challenging" for a party of 4 level 17 characters.

Which do you think a decent DM would choose?

 

[Rystil Arden]

Wow, some of that was pretty funny. You are absolutely right that it doesn't say HD and type, but want to know where I got that incorrect information from? It was you.

Jack said:

It specifies that it has the abilities of a creature of that type of that HD.

So I quote you and you turn around and lecture me about how you were wrong? Interesting.

Which do you think a decent DM would choose?

This is an implied ad hominem attack that comes at the end of an argument that your attempt to massively twist the rules of simulacrum in order to weaken the spell in one specific application makes you a better DM. I think that Power Attack gets out of control when you get 2-for-1 with a 2-handed weapon, so I house-ruled it, but I don't try to say that I am right, or that someone who doesn't isn't a "decent DM."

Your strange and bizarre rulings, contrary to the spell's description and apparently created on the fly in order to cover this one particular circumstance, fall apart completely when dealing with human targets, as I showed above.

Your twisted "balance" argument holds no real weight. If I want to power-game, I'll be mass-producing Pit Fiends from Day 1 for the Meteor Swarms. And there's nothing your strange rules can do against that or anything else except dragons because Wizards didn't give them an unambiguous age category system that you think is ambiguous.

So basically, what you are doing here is saying to yourself that you don't like the power of the spell for dragons, so you will try to twist the rules to weaken the spell on duping dragons, with no regard to the actual text on dragons in the SRD, and not caring that this twist won't do anything for other creatures.

Anyway, as Pielorhino said, we are cluttering up this thread, and you will refuse to see the rules no matter what anyone says because you have decided that you can rules-lawyer a way that you think is more balanced (and maybe you can do so successfully, but your logic has been exposed in the process as twisted and self-contradictory, so it is obvious by the point you reach your conclusion that it is a rules-lawyering attempt). There's nothing more that I can say to convince you because even if the person who wrote the spell description were to have a face-to-face chat with you and show you why it doesn't work the way you think it does, you would try to find loopholes in his language to tell him that he is wrong. So I'm just not going to bother continuing this. You are fond of saying that discussion on the matter goes in circles, and you are partly right. I continue to bring up new ideas and persepctives and you go in circles by repeating again and again the mantra that your rules-lawyering defeats all ideas and perspectives unless I can beat it first.

And I'm sure that everyone else who was reading this thread isn't bothering to continue reading this discussion, since they have long ago concluded that your arguments are leading us nowhere fast, so nobody really benefits from this. Hence, I'm not going to answer any more. It is clear that you want the last word, so by all means take it. You and the people (if there are any, which I doubt) who agree with you can call it a victory if you want, but I am tired of honestly looking for new evidence and having you write long (unimportant to the main point) diatribes about how specific wording, which I sometimes got from you, was wrong in my post and then say the same thing over and over again (the effect of "I'm right, so assuming I'm right it doesn't matter about those other things.").

 

[silentspace]

Out of curiousity, has WoTC statted any simulacra in any of their modules? I can't think of any of the top of my head, but if they did, it would be a pretty good indicator of the intent of the spell

 

[silentspace]

There are simulacra in one of the adventures in the Frostburn book. While I haven't done an exhaustive point by point analysis, it seems to agree with Rystil Arden's interpretation (which also is my interpretation - my comment seems to have touched off this debate).

 

[JimAde]

So, question: Would it be worthwhile to Sim yourself? Say you are a 13th-level wizard (minimum to cast the spell). Would it be worth 1000 xp to have a perfectly loyal 7th-level follower who can cast up to 4th level spells and stand in for you in some situations? I'd have to say yes. In fact it would probably be worthwhile to have a few of them.

I had another question: What happens to simulacra if the creator dies? Do they melt? Are they free-willed? They can never grow more powerful or develop, but do they age? That Instantaneous duration leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

And what are the requirements for the repair ritual? Can the sim do it himself if the resources are available?

Questions, questions questions...

 

[Rystil Arden]

Ah! We are actually have an interesting discussion on this thread again. Woohoo! I would say that it isn't worth it to dupe yourself if you can dupe something better, like for instance a pit fiend. The duped pit fiend can cast meteor swarm once a day and Wish once a year. Just that one Wish makes it worth it to dupe him, since it would cost more XP to just cast the Wish.

If you don't have something better to dupe, then duping yourself is a pretty good deal (though you'll have to worry about the simu getting killed, unlike the Pit Fiend simu which only takes subdual damage except from silver+holy weapons).

 

[Rystil Arden]

There are simulacra in one of the adventures in the Frostburn book. While I haven't done an exhaustive point by point analysis, it seems to agree with Rystil Arden's interpretation (which also is my interpretation - my comment seems to have touched off this debate).

Oh, good hunting! The stats for the White Dragon there prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that your take (and mine) on the rules for Simulacrum and dragons are indeed the correct rules.

 

[JimAde]

Ah! We are actually have an interesting discussion on this thread again. Woohoo! I would say that it isn't worth it to dupe yourself if you can dupe something better, like for instance a pit fiend. The duped pit fiend can cast meteor swarm once a day and Wish once a year. Just that one Wish makes it worth it to dupe him, since it would cost more XP to just cast the Wish.

If you don't have something better to dupe, then duping yourself is a pretty good deal (though you'll have to worry about the simu getting killed, unlike the Pit Fiend simu which only takes subdual damage except from silver+holy weapons).

True, but the Pit Fiend can't keep the tax collector talking while you and your friends run out the back!