On Dragons and Simulacra [PF]

[the_david]

Next saturday I'll be GMing a wonderful oneshot where the PCs have to scale the tower of the mad mage (lv. 14 human illusionist)
The PCs will be level 10.
I want to make a simulacrum of an old blue dragon for one of the encounters. (Mainly because the gargantuan blue dragon on my bookcase hasn't seen that much action)
Ofcourse, I've hit an obvious setback:

"Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any creature. The duplicate creature is partially real and formed from ice or snow. It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only half of the real creature's levels or HD (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)."

Now I have to ask myself: What special abilities would an old blue dragon with only 10 HD have? Would that be the same as the abilities of a young blue dragon, or do I have to wing it? Should I give him 4 caster levels instead of 9? Etc.
I'd guess the save thing to do is to keep it to a minimum, so that the PCs will survive.

[Crake]

First instinct says that it would drop to the appropriate age category for a dragon of that HD. But thinking about it, that would mean it would also drop in size and whatnot, which doesn't seem to make sense, as it's supposed to be an "illusory double". Having it be half the size just seems wrong, and counter intuitive to the purpose of the spell.

I guess an easy way to do it would be to have half HD, and also half sorcerer casting?

[the_david]

I just finished. I gave him the special abilities of a young blue dragon, but the size and attacks of a gargantuan dragon. He's a little high on AC and damage, but I solved that by cramming him in a room with a low ceiling.

[Jack_Simth]

Next saturday I'll be GMing a wonderful oneshot where the PCs have to scale the tower of the mad mage (lv. 14 human illusionist)
The PCs will be level 10.
I want to make a simulacrum of an old blue dragon for one of the encounters. (Mainly because the gargantuan blue dragon on my bookcase hasn't seen that much action)
Ofcourse, I've hit an obvious setback:

"Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any creature. The duplicate creature is partially real and formed from ice or snow. It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only half of the real creature's levels or HD (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)."

Now I have to ask myself: What special abilities would an old blue dragon with only 10 HD have? Would that be the same as the abilities of a young blue dragon, or do I have to wing it? Should I give him 4 caster levels instead of 9? Etc.
I'd guess the save thing to do is to keep it to a minimum, so that the PCs will survive.
You might check out Frostburn... it's got an adventure in there where Simulacrum is actually used, and it stats up the Dragon. As far as I'm aware, that's as close as it comes to official word on how to deal with simulacrum dragons.

[Keneth]

A dragon's abilities are correlated to its age, not its HD. To make a simulacrum of a 10 HD Old dragon, just reduce its HD by half, and by extension all HD related things — HP, ability DCs, SLA caster level (and Concentration modifier), BAB (and by extension CMB and CMD), Saves, skill ranks, feats, SR, and possibly breath weapon damage. The rest should remain the same.

[Coidzor]

Do you need a caster level high enough to cast the spell for a spell like ability to be used? :smallconfused:

I seem to recall that you can't cast a spell below the minimum CL to be capable of casting it (e.g. a 7th level spell can only be cast with a CL of 13 or higher), at least in 3.0 and 3.5. Did this get changed in Pathfinder?

[Keneth]

Well, if you look at the SLAs a blue dragon gets, you'll quickly notice that there are none he couldn't cast if you halved its HD, and by extension its CL. But if it makes you sleep better at night, you could either remove the SLAs the simulacrum couldn't cast anymore (for dragons other than blues) , or assign them a static CL for those specific SLAs, which is also quite a common practice. Pathfinder didn't change the rules though, you can't cast spells or use SLAs at a level that's lower than the minimum, although I'm not quite sure in which cases that would pose any problems in the first place.

[Urpriest]

Do you need a caster level high enough to cast the spell for a spell like ability to be used? :smallconfused:

I seem to recall that you can't cast a spell below the minimum CL to be capable of casting it (e.g. a 7th level spell can only be cast with a CL of 13 or higher), at least in 3.0 and 3.5. Did this get changed in Pathfinder?

While that was true in 3.5, there was no definition of minimum CL to cast a spell outside of Psionics. While intuitive, the "7th level spells at CL 13" example has no basis in the rules. However, this is irrelevant, because...


A dragon's abilities are correlated to its age, not its HD. To make a simulacrum of a 10 HD Old dragon, just reduce its HD by half, and by extension all HD related things — HP, ability DCs, SLA caster level (and Concentration modifier), BAB (and by extension CMB and CMD), Saves, skill ranks, feats, SR, and possibly breath weapon damage. The rest should remain the same.

To my knowledge, SLA caster level is not tied to HD unless explicitly stated, neither is SR. Unless Pathfinder changed that?

[Keneth]

It's the other way around, SLA CL is equal to the creature's HD unless otherwise specified. A dragon's SLA CL is always equal to its HD as far as I can tell.


If no caster level is specified, the caster level is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice.

And the previous sentence of the rules also states this:

The creature’s caster level never affects which spell-like abilities the creature has; sometimes the given caster level is lower than the level a spellcasting character would need to cast the spell of the same name.

So I guess you can use SLAs even if your caster level is lower than would otherwise be required. I've never noticed that.

Also, there's this:

A dragon's SR is equal to 11 + its CR.

Since the CR mostly depends on its HD, it would affect SR as well. Probably not linearly though.

[Urpriest]

It's the other way around, SLA CL is equal to the creature's HD unless otherwise specified. A dragon's SLA CL is always equal to its HD as far as I can tell.



And the previous sentence of the rules also states this:


So I guess you can cast spells even if it's caster level is lower than would otherwise be required. I've never noticed that.

Also, there's this:


Since the CR mostly depends on its HD, it would affect SR as well. Probably not linearly though.

Does Simulacrum modify CR? I wasn't aware it did, though I suppose you could argue it sets CR to -- since the creature is now a class feature of someone else.

[Keneth]

A simulacrum is a permanent illusory creation. Although it was created by a spellcaster, it should have its own CR as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise called creatures, golems, and other similar creations shouldn't have a CR either.

[Urpriest]

A simulacrum is a permanent illusory creation. Although it was created by a spellcaster, it should have its own CR as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise called creatures, golems, and other similar creations shouldn't have a CR either.

By that logic, it should have rules determining its CR, like Animated Objects do.

Having looked at Frostburn, it looks like they mostly follow the RAW, with the exception that for some reason caster level for SLAs is always halved, despite the SLAs in question not having a CL equal to HD. The same abilities are still accessible, though.

[Keneth]

By that logic, it should have rules determining its CR, like Animated Objects do.

If simulacra were primarily intended to be presented as monsters, they probably would have (then again, I've never seen a player make one either). Of course, creating a general rule that would accurately propose a new CR for a creature with half the original HD, especially when we consider creatures with special rules, such as dragons, is a tall order in and of itself. That said, all the simulacra in Frostburn have a CR, and estimating the challenge rating in this instance shouldn't be too hard either.

But CR is an abstraction anyway, and one that never really worked well in the first place. While a general power level is quantifiable, the numbers provided are merely an approximation that has no business governing the abilities of monsters in retrospect. I absolutely detest abilities that key off of CR, and PF developers seem to enjoy making these ridiculous rules that make no sense whatsoever. It's like they don't seem to grasp the very basic shortcomings of their own system.

Same crap with the Ghost template or the new Mythic Vampire template. It just pisses me off. :smallmad: