Creating Simulacrums of true dragons.

[Doctor Awkward]

I wasn't able to get any opinions in the Simple Raw thread so I thought I might try my luck out here.

The Simulacrum spells states that it creates a duplicate of a creature but with "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)."

Regarding the underlined portion, how does that apply to true dragons who gain their abilities entirely from advanced hit dice?

Specifically, if I create a Simulacrum of an Ancient Bronze Dragon which normally has 33 Hit Dice, this would get halved to 16. Do I still have a copy of an Ancient Bronze or does it somehow become a Juvenile instead, along with all the statistics a bronze dragon that age would normally have? 16 Hit Dice, 8d6 breath weapon, no Frightful Presence, no spell resistance, 3rd-level spellcaster, and so on?

EDIT: The next game is this Thursday, 6/12, and I was hoping to get some feedback before then.

[Feantar]

I think you get a Juvenile, according to the spell. Because those are their appropriate abilities. Possibly excluding size, since simulacra are supposed to look like their original. But that would probably be RAI - just trying to keep things consistent.

[NigelWalmsley]

It becomes a juvenile. The dragon age advancement is basically just a monster progression, if you cut things in half you get whatever the variant at half the hit dice is.

[Nezkrul]

You get the same size being with the same powers, but at reduced effectiveness (HD) and power (caster level). For the pseudo-sorcerer gestalt thing, treat it as a 16hd dragon, but for the spell likes of its age cat, treat it has having them but with 16 hd or half caster level for effectiveness.

Like a snapshot 3d printed clone, but without enough toner

The bigger issue with simulacrum is when you use it to make a copy of a creature who derives a lot of its power from having partook of a ritual requiring a sacrifice of some kind, like a Lich - simulacrums wont have a soul nor a phylactery, so the additive power of the lich template should be ignores IMO

[Quertus]

Afaict, you'd get a Juvenile Dragon.

[Doctor Awkward]

So that's two votes for juvenile and one vote for an ancient dragon but everything is halved as appropriate.

Hm.... here's another way of looking at it that I thought about: if an ancient bronze dragon has 17 hit dice drained by negative energy and then fails the all of the Fortitude saves, is it still an ancient bronze dragon? Just at half the strength it previously was?

[NigelWalmsley]

Maybe it keeps all its abilities? But also maybe you can't lose racial hit dice to energy drain, as most sources just say "level". Overall, I think the better solution is for it to end up a juvenile. That's what the progression indicates, and if you do it the other way you end up creating some stupid optimization tricks with creatures with RHD.

[Nezkrul]

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 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).

@OP: it's not a vote, it's a matter of reading and understanding the spell. You have an ancient bronze dragon duplicate (and everything that goes with that age category, including size), and it just has 16HD for feats, skills, and half caster level for its spellcasting and spelllike abilities. Those tables in the MM are based on age category, not hitdice, that is why each age category has a range of hit dice a typical member of the species should have at that age category. it is entirely possible to have an ancient bronze dragon with only 16 racial hit dice and the size of a juvenile, but has 20 levels of sorcerer added to it - it focused on adventuring and honing its spellcasting abilities instead of just being a dragon.

[One Step Two]

Dragon advancement is weird to boot, just to add to what Nezkrul was saying, a dragon gains HD over the course of years. The aforementioned Juvenile Dragon which at it's youngest is 26 years old, it takes 3 Dragon RHD to enter the new age category, which will take 25 years, roughly 8 years 4 months per HD. If living the Life of an adventurer, it could easily reach over 20 class levels in that time.
(If I remember rightly it's roughly 13.5 encounters to level up? Which being conservative means you can level up once each week assuming you fight 2-3 encounters per day appropriate to your level)

Anyway, this is getting further afield than intended. A simulacrum of an Ancient Bronze Dragon is a pain to math out, if you want to short cut it, use the stats of a Juvenile Dragon and make it still Gargantuan size? But it's stats should remain same, but other than that Nezkrul is right, the Simulacrum should have Half HD for feats, skills, and half caster level for its spellcasting and spelllike abilities, but it still has those abilities afforded to it by age. So it would still have Control Water as a SLA, but the CL would only be 16, for example.

Negative levels are weird to say the least, but affecting a dragon with negative levels would not change it's age category, but it will affect DC's based on it's HD, and their effective Sorcerer Caster level.

[Doctor Awkward]

Hm. Alrighty. So the spell creates a copy of the original creature, except for certain specific statistics which are halved, and I would wind up with a de-powered version of an ancient bronze dragon.

For my own sanity sake I'm going to try and break down what stays the same and what needs to be changed.

Given the stats found here for an Ancient Bronze Dragon (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm#bronzeDragon)
Ability scores: Str 35, Dex 10, Con 25, Int 24, Wis 25, Cha 24
BAB: +33
Saves: Fort +25, Ref +18, Will +25

Changes:
Hit Dice: 16 (halved from 33)
Hit points: 16d12 + 112 (216)
Skills: 13 * 19 = 247, max rank 19
Feats: Pick six

And the special abilities with save DC's recalculated for the new hit dice, which is 10+8+appropriate modifier:
Breath weapon: 20d4 line of electricity, Reflex DC 25 halves
Frightful Presence: 300 ft radius, Will DC 25 negates
Special abilities: As an ancient bronze dragon


For the spellcasting, I'm curious about something. According to the text in Simulacrum, the only statistic that is explicitly halved is the creatures level and hit dice. The remaining abilities are all "as appropriate for a creature of that level or hit dice." So if a wizard were to make a copy of themselves at level 15, that would naturally get halved to 7, and they would be a 7th-level spellcaster.

However an ancient bronze dragon at 33 hit dice is only a 15th-level spellcaster. Since this is not something explicitly required to be halved, is there any reason it should change at all? It's hardly out of line for any other rules that I can find that a creature with 16 hit dice would have a caster level of 15.

Any other thoughts? Did I miss anything in the changes?

[One Step Two]

I think that you've more or less nailed it for the majority stats, but you bring up an interesting point with the Sorcerer Levels.

Reading the Simulacrum Spell, even a Simulacrum of an Ancient Bronze Dragon still has a Sorcerer Level of 15, because it's a function of the Ancient Bronze Dragon entry. I would give it the Spells of a 15th level caster but I would, where possible, lower the numerical bonuses for half to represent that is is a Simulacrum. For example if it would cast Cone of Cold, it would only do 7d6 damage instead of 15d6.

[unseenmage]

@OP: it's not a vote, it's a matter of reading and understanding the spell. You have an ancient bronze dragon duplicate (and everything that goes with that age category, including size), and it just has 16HD for feats, skills, and half caster level for its spellcasting and spelllike abilities. Those tables in the MM are based on age category, not hitdice, that is why each age category has a range of hit dice a typical member of the species should have at that age category. it is entirely possible to have an ancient bronze dragon with only 16 racial hit dice and the size of a juvenile, but has 20 levels of sorcerer added to it - it focused on adventuring and honing its spellcasting abilities instead of just being a dragon.

This says what needs said.

[Doctor Awkward]

Hm, that's a good idea.
Thanks very much for all the replies, everyone.

[Ruethgar]

I would agree with One Step Two on the spellcrasting. If for example you instead did a Simulacrum of a Spellweaver, the caster level would be lowered since that is a function of their HD directly.

[Jack_Simth]

I wasn't able to get any opinions in the Simple Raw thread so I thought I might try my luck out here.

The Simulacrum spells states that it creates a duplicate of a creature but with "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)."

Regarding the underlined portion, how does that apply to true dragons who gain their abilities entirely from advanced hit dice?

Specifically, if I create a Simulacrum of an Ancient Bronze Dragon which normally has 33 Hit Dice, this would get halved to 16. Do I still have a copy of an Ancient Bronze or does it somehow become a Juvenile instead, along with all the statistics a bronze dragon that age would normally have? 16 Hit Dice, 8d6 breath weapon, no Frightful Presence, no spell resistance, 3rd-level spellcaster, and so on?

EDIT: The next game is this Thursday, 6/12, and I was hoping to get some feedback before then.
The spell is simply poorly defined, and you're applying it to a critter that's not so clear on what's the controlling factor.
You will get some DM's saying "The dragon's abilities are appropriate based on it's age category", and you'll lose only HP, saves, BAB, skill points, and feats. Other DM's will jump down the dragon tables and give you the dragon that matches that hit die total (including loss of size, ability scores, special abilities, and so on). Others will do stuff between. There's an example in Frostburn... but 3.5's examples are notorious for not following RAW (it's hard to find one that's perfect). So... just make a ruling and run with it. Best you can hope for.