PF - What is the CR of a Simulacrum?

[unseenmage]

What is the CR of a Simulacrum (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/simulacrum.html)?

I suspect the answer is to go use the Monster Creation (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monsterCreation.html) rules but would simply halving be good enough in a pinch?
Or are there enough non-HD dependent monster special abilities to make simply halving CR not viable?

[Cosi]

Halving would work pretty well for PCs or other classed stuff, because you end up with a character that is just half the level. For monsters, it's not clear precisely because of the abilities you mention. If a Pit Fiend simulacrum still gets CL 18 blasphemy, it's definitely not CR 10 (the specific example is 3e, but the principle holds in general). Honestly, the spell is pretty horribly underspecified. For example, it straight up does not tell you what the "appropriate abilities" for a creature of half HD are. Does a 9 HD Pit Fiend keep its wish SLA? It's fireball SLA? The caster level of its SLAs is the same as its HD, but they aren't explicitly linked (the rule for linking them only applies to non-specified CLs), so does that change? Does it keep it poison or it's sumon ability? What size is it? How you answer each of those questions is going to effect what the appropriate CR is to some degree or other.

There's no good answer, but if I had to pick a rule of thumb, I would say a simularcum's CR should be two less than the CR of the creature it's a duplicate of, on the basis of the way doubling creatures per encounter works. However, that assumes it keeps many of it's abilities, and if you rule it does not the CR should fall.

[ArendK]

If it has half the hit dice, but can still use spell like abilities that can level the entire party in a single move, is that level appropriate?

[Eldariel]

As a spell, Simulacrums are by RAW a part of the CR of their creator. Of course, that makes them horribly unrewarding and dangerous. I'd just go case-by-case: brawlers tend towards half their CR while dangerous Special Abilities might tend towards CR-2 or CR-1 as their fragility hardly matters if they get to act even once.

But you have to do them case-by-case like with most things to be fair. And how you rule SLAs and racial casting in particular makes a huge difference. Thus table-dependent too.

[unseenmage]

As a spell, Simulacrums are by RAW a part of the CR of their creator. ...

Except in cases where the creator is destroyed and the Simulacrum is encountered as a free willed creature.

Or, as I am expecting, the GM has a Simulacrum break free of its creator and turn on the party, in which case it's own CR would be useful.

[Eldariel]

Except in cases where the creator is destroyed and the Simulacrum is encountered as a free willed creature.

Or, as I am expecting, the GM has a Simulacrum break free of its creator and turn on the party, in which case it's own CR would be useful.

I don't think the rules have provisos for either happening; dead or alive, creatures produced through spells are a part of their creator's CR. Like if the caster sends some animated undead against the party, I don't think rules as such consider them worth any CR either. Thus the scenario would require determining the CR manually either way, to make it fair.

[Anxe]

If the simulacrum is made of a person with levels, then I think its CR would be half the original's. That's assuming that it has gear to bring it up to at least an NPC's WBL. Without gear it depends, but probably -1 or -2 CR.

If the simulacrum is of a creature I believe you would treat it similarly to how a HD advanced creature's CR is calculated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#addingHitDice). So a Pit Fiend simulacrum loses 9 HD and is thus 4.5 CR lower than the original.

As for the Pit Fiend's Caster Level for spell-like abilities, that's kind of up in the air. Is it 18 or 9? I'm inclined to say 9, but I feel like another DM might say 18.