Simulacrum Questions

[fishyfishyfishy]

In my 3.5 gestalt game the players have encountered a dragon that has the Simulacrum spell on his spell list. I've already decided that his current total of Simulacrums is 5, and they have many different tasks throughout the day and report back to him. The initial meeting was largely a RP one and I am still putting some finishing touches on his stat block. It was just a short conversation and then it flew away, but they do plan on pursuing it (they don't know it was only a Simulacrum). The dragon in question is an Old White with 10 levels of Frost Mage so he has a grand total of 34 HD and the Simulacrums have 17 HD. How exactly should these HD be split up? Do they get 12 dragon HD and 5 Frost Mage HD and get stats reflecting that? Or do they have 17 Dragon HD and no levels of Frost Mage? It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for a 12 HD white dragon to have any levels of Frost Mage since they don't have spell casting yet and are only Juvenile.

I'm kind of at a loss. I've not dealt with this spell much.

[Jack_Simth]

In my 3.5 gestalt game the players have encountered a dragon that has the Simulacrum spell on his spell list. I've already decided that his current total of Simulacrums is 5, and they have many different tasks throughout the day and report back to him. The initial meeting was largely a RP one and I am still putting some finishing touches on his stat block. It was just a short conversation and then it flew away, but they do plan on pursuing it (they don't know it was only a Simulacrum). The dragon in question is an Old White with 10 levels of Frost Mage so he has a grand total of 34 HD and the Simulacrums have 17 HD. How exactly should these HD be split up? Do they get 12 dragon HD and 5 Frost Mage HD and get stats reflecting that? Or do they have 17 Dragon HD and no levels of Frost Mage? It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for a 12 HD white dragon to have any levels of Frost Mage since they don't have spell casting yet and are only Juvenile.

I'm kind of at a loss. I've not dealt with this spell much.
The spell is poorly defined when it gets down to that sort of nitty-gritty.

My recommendation for this specific situation?
1) Keep the size of the dragon the same (it wouldn't be much of an impersonation without this!).
2) Cut the RHD in half.
3) Cut the PrC levels in half.
4) Set the casting to half that of the original dragon (irrespective of 5)
5) Give it the dragon special abilities (other than size) of a dragon of an age suitable for it's RHD.

The spell is poorly defined, however, so the RAW could cover... well, a wide variety of responses. They get whatever is "appropriate".

[fishyfishyfishy]

That's probably the most logical way to handle the situation. Thank you for the reply.

While I'm at it: if anyone has any ideas on cool magic items to include in it's treasure hoard, or how to improve its lair I'd love to hear them.


As of right now the entire region is frozen over, and the lair itself gets down to -60 degrees F (well below what Endure Elements can protect you from). There areally living spells (Cone of Cold) and spellstitched undead roaming around. He has laid down some Symbol of Pain traps and made a few pits filled with freezing water that are cloaked with Illusions. He will lay down a Blood Snow or two and some Mind Fog spells near the Illusions before any enemies can approach too close. Any other thematic ideas?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I think jack smith has the right of it.

Remember that the dragon's RHD are a result of aging, not the other way around. Cutting the HD in half woudn't have any effect on the apparent age of the copy and so wouldn't have any effect on the abilities granted by aging. Given how poor dragon spellcasting scales I might even argue that no loss to his racial spellcasting should occcur.