[3.5] Simulacrum of a dragon

[Phelix-Mu]

Alright, this matter is hurting my brain a bit.

Assumptions: A caster has the necessary CL and material components to make a simulacrum of wyrm silver dragon (37HD).

Alright, I see several possible, but conflicting, results. The core of the issue is that the resulting copy has 1/2 HD of the Gargantuan original.

1.) You get a 18HD silver dragon, and then you look in the MM chart for silver dragon age categories. The copy appears as and has abilities of a Large juvenile silver dragon. Seems counter-intuitive.

2.) You get a 18HD Gargantuan silver dragon with the abilities of a wyrm dragon. Also not quite logical.

3.) You get a 18HD Gargantuan silver dragon that has the abilities of a juvenile silver dragon. Basically, it looks like a wyrm, but punches and casts spells as a juvenile.

As a corollary, does racial spellcasting decrease with the simulacrum's reduction in HD? Like does a nymph simulacrum have reduced druid casting? The dragon spellcasting is kind of tied to HD (though it's actually tied to Age Category), unlike the nymph's.

Still looking for that time machine so I can go back and fix some of these spells.

[Fouredged Sword]

A wyrm dragon is a unique monster from the juvenile one. It has it's own stats and abilities based on it's age category, not it's HD. Spells and CL are gained per the age category description, not HD.

Thus you get a wyrm silver dragon with half the HD, not a younger dragon.

Effected are
- saves, BAB, skills, Max HD of effected creatures for frightful presence, and feats.

Not effected are
- spells and CL (the SLA's use the caster level), breath weapon, stats, or anything else.

The 18HD simulacrum would cast as a 17th level sorcerer.

[Phelix-Mu]

Ah, that answer was everything I could have wished for. I seriously hope no one else has any other input.:smallwink:

Thanks. My DM is going to love this.:smallbiggrin:

[Big Fau]

A wyrm dragon is a unique monster from the juvenile one. It has it's own stats and abilities based on it's age category, not it's HD. Spells and CL are gained per the age category description, not HD.

Thus you get a wyrm silver dragon with half the HD, not a younger dragon.

Effected are
- saves, BAB, skills, Max HD of effected creatures for frightful presence, and feats.

Not effected are
- spells and CL (the SLA's use the caster level), breath weapon, stats, or anything else.

The 18HD simulacrum would cast as a 17th level sorcerer.

Nitpick: Affected, not Effected. The former means "altered in some way", the latter means "commenced, started, or enacted". I hate it when people get that wrong.

[Matticussama]

I disagree with the premise that spells and caster level remain those of the original creature:


It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only one-half of the real creature’s levels or Hit Dice (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD).

If you look at the SRD Special Abilities section (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm), Spells are listed under a creature's special abilities. Therefore, the Simulacrum should only have 1/2 of the creature's caster level since its spells count as part of a creature's special ability; in this instance, the 18HD simulacrum would cast as a 8th level sorcerer (1/2 of 17, round down).

[Jack_Simth]

Ah, that answer was everything I could have wished for. I seriously hope no one else has any other input.:smallwink:

Thanks. My DM is going to love this.:smallbiggrin:
The proper answer is 'not clearly defined, ask your DM'.

The problem is that the spell Simulacrum is not clearly defined when used on monstrous creatures, or when abilities are not clearly defined based on hit dice. Simulacrum keys off of levels or hit dice; that works fine on classed creatures. When you get to other things, though, it quickly becomes murky. What's 'appropriate' to an Efreeti with 5 hit dice? Does it still get the spell-like ability to grant Wishes? Not clearly defined. A DM could easily go either way. You don't have a strict Rules-As-Written answer. Likewise, true Dragons have age categories, yes... but if you look at the advancement line for an age category, the hit dice counts are non-overlapping. The Advancement line for a Wyrmling Brass ends at 6 hit dice... and a Very Young brass dragon picks up at 7 hit dice. If you consider a Brass Dragon to be the type of creature, then cutting the hit dice in half from that 37 hit die Great Wyrm Brass Dragon results in getting an 18 hit die Brass Dragon... which is an Advanced Young Adult. If you consider a Great Wyrm Brass Dragon to be a separate type of critter from other age categories of Brass Dragons, then you get an 18 hit die Great Wyrm Brass Dragon... that still casts as a Sorcerer-19 (as the casting is based on age category, not hit dice, with that interpretation).

The rules are, for practical purposes, silent on the issue. The person you need to ask is your DM. If your DM is swayed by random posters on the internet stating their opinion on the matter, then we could take a poll to decide, but really, in the end, you've got fuzzy rules, which is part of why you have a DM in the first place.

[Fouredged Sword]

If I where DM I would allow any caster level that was < HD on a creature. This is just reading into the rules and making a gut check though.

[Phelix-Mu]

Thanks for more feedback.

Our current DM is very fuzzy about stuff not made clear in RAW. If I were DM, the answer would be my 18HD Gargantuan dragon with the ability scores of the wyrm, and everything else of a juvenile silver dragon, with the following reasoning:

1.) The spell's intent is pretty clearly to make something that visually approximates the copied creature (though, based on Disguise check, it may be a poor approximation). A change in size category would seriously challenge any impression of the copy being the original. "I'm just a very short wyrm. Hey! Stop laughing!":smalltongue:

2.) The spell's intent is also that the copy be weaker in pretty much every way that it's meaningful to be different (aside from ability scores), and significantly so (50%). Giving the copy the full 17 sorcerer caster levels would mean that the dragon wouldn't last as long in a fight and it's melee would be worse, but now it can just fall back on it's casting to make up for that.

3.) Balance. While, as DM, I'd be very much in favor of extra full-casting dragons for every dragon encounter, it's probably not a good idea.

Anyway, I will run it by our DM. We are pretty epic, and the dragon is already a questionable target for this spell, so acquiring the aid of a second dragon is probably just a superior option.