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Milo what's wrong with elementals and outsiders? I didn't understand your post.

If summon monster doesn't summon anymore magical beasts but animals his description should be changed.

This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane)

So if the summoned creature is still an animal and not a magical beast does it mean that I can cast Animal Growth on them?

My dire tigers could grab Huge enemies too.

If I can my familiar will soon have a staff of animal growth.

Sorry for necroing this thread but I am having problems too calculating the price of spellbooks.

In my opinion these are the prices. Please correct me if you think that I am wrong.

1-fee to pay to a wizard to have the permission to copy a spell from his spellbook: level^2 * 5gp. for cantrips 2.5gp each.
2-cost of COPYING A NEW spell that your wizard has not in his spellbook from the spellbook of another wizard: level^2 * 10gp. for cantrips 5gp each
3-cost of DUPLICATING AN EXISTING spell from your own spellbook to another spellbook: level^2 * 5gp. for cantrips 2.5gp each
4-price to sell spellbook: level^2 * 7.5. for cantrips 3.75gp each

On points 1 and 2 everyone seem to agree.

On point 3 and 4 I disagree with DM_Blake.

price of crafting and selling
I know that there is a general rule that you should be able to buy for full price, to fabricate for half of the price and to sell for half of the price, but I'm not sure it applies for DUPLICATED spellbook. It surely works for COPIED spellbooks.

In the case of copied spellbook to copy a spell you have to pay level^2*15gp. You can sell the book for level^2*7.5gp. It's the exact half.

Duplicated spellbooks and spellbooks copied from other wizards should have a different price if I follow DM_Black reasoning and this general rule, even if they contain the exact same spells, I think that's unreasonable.

Duplicating a spellbook is a way to have a cheap backup, so I think that it doesn't follow the general rule of item crafting, thus letting players to make a profit.

This means that, if you duplicate a spellbook and sell it, your profit is half of the fee that mages pay to copy your spells. Usually this fee is level^2*5gp, selling a duplicated book you can earn level^2*2.5gp. This is because you can "craft" it for half of the price and sell it for half of the price + half of the fee that mages ask to copy it. So your profit is this half fee.

So selling a duplicated book is like renting it to other wizards and letting them copy the spells for half of the fee price normally paid. It also takes half of the time to DUPLICATE instead of COPYING. So, if you spend a certain amount of time duplicating a spell or if you spend the exact amount of time letting a wizards copying your spell for a fee, you make exactly the same profit.

Cath example
Cath is DUPLICATING her spellbook, so she doesn't have to pay the fee to a mage to copy his spellbook and she can pay half of the cost to transcribe spells, so she has to pay level^2*5gp for normal spells and cantrips*2.5gp. So the cost of duplicating her spellbook is (13*5gp + 9*10gp)/2 = 77.5gp

The price of selling is the fee to pay to the mage (level^2*5gp) + the writing cost (level^2*10gp) and then halving the sum. it's level^2*7.5gp for normal spells and 3.75gp for cantrips. So the price of selling her spellbook is 13*3.75gp + 9*7.5gp = 116.25gp

She can sell her spellbook for a profit of 116.25gp - 77.5gp = 38.75gp

profits
cantrip profit: 1.25gp time: 15 minutes
level 1 profit: 1*1*2.5gp = 2.5gp time: 0.5 hour
level 2 profit: 2*2*2.5gp = 10gp time: 1 hour
level 3 profit: 3*3*2.5gp = 22.5gp time: 1.5 hours
level 4 profit: 4*4*2.5gp = 40gp time: 2 hours
level 5 profit: 5*5*2.5gp = 62.5gp time: 2.5 hours
level 6 profit: 6*6*2.5gp = 90gp time: 3 hours
level 7 profit: 7*7*2.5gp = 122.5gp time: 3.5 hours
level 8 profit: 8*8*2.5gp = 160gp time: 4 hours
level 9 profit: 9*9*2.5gp = 202.5gp time: 4.5 hours

oooops magic aura only works on objects, sorry for suggesting it.

try a hat of disguise, a magic aura spell (it has a very long duration, you can pay a wizard to cast it or you can use potions or scrolls with use magic devices) or Angelskin special material to hide his evil aura.

You can say that he is autistic.

You can use simulacrums to manage an empire

== list of empire management simulacra ==

*messengers: you can put a lantern archon simulacrum (500 gp each) in every city, even in little villages if you feel generous and they can report whatever happens, for example if Timmy the little child gets hurt (they can teleport at will).

cost: 500 gp per village or city

*transport: a lantern archon can also transport items, 50 pounds every 2 rounds, that's a lot per day. Very useful to transport food for your marching army.

cost: a single archon (500 gp) can transport 163 tonnes working 24 uninterrupted hours .

*health care: you can use trumpet archons to teleport where the lanter archon asked for help and then he can cure the little Timmy.

A trumpet archon simulacrum costs 3,500 gp and he can heal

1° slot: 6 (4 cleric +2 int)
2° slot: 4 (3 cleric +1 int)
3° slot: 3 (2 cleric +1 int)
4° slot: 2 (1 cleric +1 int)

that's the equivalent of (6 * 1 * 1 * 10) + (4 * 2 * 3 * 10) + (3 * 5 * 3 * 10) + (2 * 7 * 4 * 10) = 1310 gp of spellcasting services from clerics per day, but not a single spell slot is wasted cause the trumpet archon teleports at every little Timmy in the country.

cost: just a few (3,500 gp each) to heal your empire

*food creators: your trumpet archons or solars can also purify food and drink, create water to drink or for the soil or create food and water.

A single create food from a solar simulacrum lets you feed 30 humans for 24 hours.

A solar simulacrum has 13 level 3 or higher spells, so he can feed 13*30 = 390 humans for a cost of 5,000 to create him, it's 12.8 gp per person to feed them forever.

Who needs to cultivate the soil?? That's expensive and impractical.

Just remember to transport the food with your archon lanterns.

cost: 12.8 gp per person with no time limit

*staff chargers to give immortality: (this requires some custom magic items) you can create 3 solar simulacra (5,000gp each), they can recharge 2x staves of restoration (cost: 4*7*400 + 50,000 = 61,200 each) and a staff of reincarnate (same cost) for a total of 183,600 in staves. Or you can create a staff of raise dead for 268,000 to replace the reincarnate staff.

Staves let you pay for material components of spells just once when you create the staff (material component * 50) but after that you can cast this spell without paying the material component anymore, just by recharging the staff in the normal way (expending an appropriate spell slot).

In this way you can reincarnate a person per day or resurrect a person per day (without negative levels) at no cost, just the fixed cost of the staves and the simulacrums.

Reincarnation lets you revive people died of old age.

A person per day, estimating a lifespan of 50 years, is enough for a population of about 18,000 (50*365).

That service will cost you (61.200*3 + 268.000)/18.000 = about 25gp per person to resurrect them forever.

cost: 25 gp per person with no time limit

*soldiers: I suppose you need other simulacra to defend your little happy kingdom. Maybe someone with regeneration and high ability scores?

*concubines: to make your citizens happy, succubus as dominatrixes or aasimar or similar for boring vanilla people. This will cost more gold since you need a lot of them.

Not really. It shows why "Everything not specified in RAW is automatically interpreted in the most abusive manner possible!" is as silly when construing a spell as when construing whether dead characters can take actions.

With abusive you mean creative, right? :D

Just joking

For the same reason, the Lantern Archon idea is out too: "Their bodies, however, are merely globes of spiritual purity and pale light".

The body part requirement was removed in pathfinder but, if you want to use it, you can do a simulacrum of a archon hound to have the same effect, it will cost you 1,500gp

But the flying lantern is a lot cuter for this role. You should really "polymorph any object" the archon hound permanently into the lantern. Not sure if it can fly without the "overland fly" spell.

Maybe you are driving at a different aim than what I think you are.

But you don't really need to jump through those hoops to use simulacrum to get an awakened T-Rex.

Just make a simulacrum of an awakened T-Rex.

Or make a simulacrum of a Half-Celestial Awakened Anarchic T-Rex.

But it will cost 18/2*500= 4500gp and it will have 1/2 hp, 1/2 ranks, 1/2 feats,-7 bab and you must be level 9 (or higher if you use templates) to cast it.

And it will not regenerate hp, nor you can heal it (not sure about this line).

for 5,125gp you can have creature that is a lot better. I think that it can gain levels too.

A balor (21 use magic devices without any item) can control 80HD of undead if he reads a scroll of "animate dead" caster level 20.

Another use:
*t-rex rider simulacrum: This is based on the spell awaken, every creature can give commands to single awakened creature, not more.

So you create a simulacrum of creature that can use "use magic devices" or a creature with a high charisma bonus, like a succubus, awaken is a 5° level spell, so to use the scroll you must have 9 points in "use magic devices", she has +8 bonus for charisma and +4 ranks in "use magic devices" (after 24 hours if you give her a headband of vast int with skill points in "use magic devices") for a total of 12 points in "use magic devices".

succubus simulacrum: 2,000gp
headband with ranks in "use magic devices": 4,000 gp (reusable)
awaken scroll: 1,125gp + 2,000gp = 3,125gp

total: 9.125gp for the first, 5,125gp for others after the first

a t-rex is a good creature to cast awaken on, let me know if you find better animals.

You get an improved (+2HD plus various bonuses) CR 9 creature ridden by a succubus at the cost of a CR 4 construct (look at the table that I don't know how to link).

*magic scrolls reader succubus: With a craked Pink and Green Sphere (200gp) and a headband of vast int with skill points in "use magic devices" a succubus will have a value of 13 in "use magic devices" and she can cast lvl 7 spells from scrolls.

With a headband with +4 int +4cha (costly) she can cast lvl 9 spells of every possible scroll, but not in combat (you need to roll a 20 to succeed but you can retry).

a Balor costs less and he has 21(31-10) use magic devices without any headband.

I just found a new use
*ghost simulacrum: ghosts have a special attack called malevolence (Su)

Malevolence (Su): The ghost's jealousy of the living is particularly potent. Once per round, the ghost can merge its body with a creature on the Material Plane. This ability is similar to a magic jar spell (caster level 10th or the ghost's Hit Dice, whichever is higher), except that it does not require a receptacle. To use this ability, the ghost must be adjacent to the target. The target can resist the attack with a successful Will save. A creature that successfully saves is immune to that same ghost's malevolence for 24 hours.

So with a low level ghost simulacrum you can control a high hit dice creature body without any of the simulacrum restrictions.

It's better than the dominate person spell cause it offers no saving throws apart from the first.

I don't know how malevolence works in conjunction with dominate person and how long it lasts.

You can use simulacrum to make it even more broken.

You cut your hand and create a simulacrum of a tarn linnorm. It will cost 11*500 = 5,500 gp, so 12 points of strength, most casters have them, if you don't have them you can cast a bull's strength on yourself.

Then magic jar into him, you will have 42 base strength, but he regenerates 15 hp per round, so you can cut 1 hand per round.

At this point you can create a simulacrum every round.

When you deplete the strength of one (after 3 simulacrum) you can magic jar your body into a new simulacrum at full strength.

Repeat 1,000,000 times to have an army.

And at 42 you only need 9 more strength to have 51 to have free wishes. Only 4 strength if you have 5 inherent bonus after the wishes, that's a bull's strength spell.

I have another idea for a simulacrum
*know monster simulacrum: a pixie has +10-2 knowledge nature, an imp has Knowledge (arcana) +7-2, Knowledge (planes) +7-2.

I don't know other low level monsters with knowledges.

But you could use simulacrum with a high level monster with high intelligence and give him a headband of vast knowledge +2 with a knowledge.

A level 20(10) simulacrum costs 5,000gp, a headband 2,000 gp, so for 7,000gp you could create a simulacrum with a vast knowledge on a single topic. For other 1,600 gp you could give him a flawed Mossy Disk +5 in that single knowledge. 800 gp if you craft it yourself.

You can "polymorph any object" him permanently into something small that flies and let him tell you all the vulnerabilities etc. of the monsters that you meet.

*intelligence room simulacrums:
You can keep them in your safe keep room with a crystal ball with telepathy and let them send info to you.

Or maybe use an intelligent monster that can use scrying at will, like the pit fiend. He has 3 knowledges: arcana 28-10, planes 31-10, religion 31-10. His simulacrum costs 5,000gp.

I wanted to list all the uses in this thread to my initial post, adding credits to the people, but it seems that I can't edit it anymore, is there any way to do it?

Even if you can't ask your simulacrum questions you still can use it to substitute the king or other important persons, another thing that I didn't think about, thanks sunbeam.

You could do it with charm person or dominate person, but a simulacrum works as well or maybe better.

What about a crafter simulacrum? is there any crafting creature?

If it works as advertised the lantern archon is a great idea. If you also have a portable hole it's good for party transport also. Get in the hole>Archon folds it up> Teleports> Archon opens hole> Get out.

Great idea, I didn't think about it, the only problem is that the lantern archon has no arms, it's basically an intelligent lantern that uses rays of light that bypass everything as an attack.

You could use a archon trumpet for this, but it's a 14hd creature, so a simulacrum of it would cost 3,500gp.

Or better yet you could cast a polymorph any object on him, it has a +9 bonus

Same kingdom (animal, vegetable, mineral) +5
Same class (mammals, fungi, metals, etc.) +2
Related (twig is to tree, wolf fur is to wolf, etc.)+2

So it's permanent. It has a casting cost of 8*15*10=1,200 gp if you teleport to a mage and ask him to cast it.

thanks sunbeam, it seems that I missed the most obvious use of the simulacrum

*mount simulacrum: use simulacrum to create a very big and powerful creature, like a tarrasque to ride as a mount

I just had a new idea:
*social simulacrum: a succubus has also change shape, tongues and very high bluff +27, diplomacy +19 and disguise +19 skills. A simulacrum will only lose 4 in these skills

bluff 23: +8cha +8 racial +8skill(simulacrum +4) +3from class or race skill??

diplomacy 15: +8cha +8skill(simularcrum +4) +3from class or race skill??

disguise 15: +8cha +8skill(simularcrum +4) +3from class or race skill??

And charm monster (DC 22), detect thoughts (DC 20) at will.

She can also give a suggestion with a kiss, with a +8cha and knowing exactly what people want (detect thoughts) very few people will not kiss her.

I want to open a thread about creative uses of simulacrum, here are some things that popped up in my mind

*shopper, item mover simulacrum: a lanthern archon costs only 500gp and has greater teleport self and items (50 lbs) at will. Compare it with ring gates, they cost 40,000 gp and can transfer only 50lbs of items per day and only to a fixed location (that can be moved transporting the ring gates).

The shopper simulacrum can transport money too and he has truespeech, so he can buy anything from merchants and he can bring the items back to you. He can teleport anywhere, to the capital city too, so you can have access to *everything*

He can also bring all the items in a dungeon to a safe location, maybe in your house, tavern room or keep, a lot better than a bag of holding or a portable hole for 20,000 gp.

And he can bring messages to allies wherever they are.

*castle builder simulacrum: not my idea, I read it on these forums. It only costs 6,000gp, an ancient copper dragon can cast Wall of Stone and transmute mud to rock at will, at a caster level of 23, so he can buy an entire castle at a very high speed, maybe a few hours or a few days, at no cost. You can put some points in engineering or buy a headband of engineering or in craft stonemansory and you can cast on yourself (if you direct the dragon) or on the dragon itself "crafter's fortune" to know how to build it. Wall of Stone permits to build complicated or horizontal stone shapes too, not only vertical walls as the name suggests. With wall of stone he can build 23 5foot squares with a thickenss of 5 inches per casting (every 6 seconds).

*profane gift simulacrum: for 2,000gp you can have a succubus that gives you and all your party members a +2 to a single ability (it's a profane bonus that nobody else can give, as far as I know).

*dominate person helper simulacrum: lamia for 2,500gp, she has wisdom drain, so you can reduce the wisdom of a creature to 1, useful for the dominate person saving throws "against its nature". With a bestow curse and a widsom of 1 you can lower a lot his saving throws.

*healbot simulacrum: if you find a creature that could be a good healbot let me know.

*scout simulacrum: I don't know any suitable creature, maybe a fine creature? (fine creatures have +16 to stealth). Is there any fine creature that has special senses?

So a character level 20 with 880,000 gp (according to the Table: Character Wealth by Level) could craft an homunculus with a +100 str bonus (500,000 / 5,000) and 100 hit dice (200,000/2000).

Is that 20 attacks for 100 damage each? That's 2000 hp of damage per round. Imagine him with a composite longbow +100 str (10,000 gp to fabricate) :O

His hitpoints are 5.5*100 = 550.

The total is 710,000 gp, less than the 880,000 gp for a character of that level.

For example, does a Flawed Pale Green Prism (+1 morale bonus on attack rolls, saves, skill checks, and ability checks) stack with a Pale Green Prism (+1 competence bonus on attack rolls, saves, skill checks, and ability checks) or are they "the same source".

Or for example a Scarlet and Blue Sphere (+2 enhancement bonus to Intelligence) with a Cracked Scarlet and Blue Sphere (+1 competence bonus on one Intelligence-based skill).

Can I purposely craft a cracked ioun stone for half of its price? For example a cracked Pearly White Spindle for 1700 gp, instead of crafting a Pearly White Spindle for 10000 gp and then breaking it.

Thanks for your reply Hitomi, I already know about the base price and that merchants buy at half of it, but I didn't think about consumables to produce the item, just at the hours of work needed to create the item.

This poses an interesting question, do the fabricate spell need all the consumables too? For example all the carbon or wood used to fabricate the metal goods? Or its magic permits to shape the iron without any aid?

The dragonhide description seems to confirm your point of view that the special material price adds to the base price:

"Cost: Dragonhide armor costs twice as much as masterwork armor of the same type, but it takes no longer to make than ordinary armor of that type (double all Craft results). If the armor or shield is later given the ability to protect the wearer against that energy type, the cost to add such protection is reduced by 25%."

But this page http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/giants/giant-tr ue/giant-rune (I don't know how official is this "Rune Giant Bags" thing) says otherwise

"Hunk of mithral ore (2,000 gp, 4 lbs.)"

It seems that 500gp per lb is the price of raw mithral.

And I have another question now, can a character pay 3500 for the raw materials for a full plate mithral (not 3550 cause the 150 of the masterwork item is included in the price of mithral as the mithral special material description says) and then pay 7*5*10=350 gp to a wizard to cast a fabricate spell on it?

In this way a character can have his mithral full plate for 3850 gp instead of the usual 10500.

The wizard needs to roll a 20 (with the bonuses) on the Craft armor skill but it's easily achievable, Craft is a class skill for mages (+3) so I think that NPC wizards spend some ranks on them (1/2 per level? 3 ranks), they apply the int bonus (at least +5 for a lvl 7 wizard) and the 1° level spell "crafter's fortune" adds +5 (maybe paying additional 10gp to cast it? or maybe 70gp cause the wizard is 7° level) for a total of 16. So only 1-3 fail the spell and don't waste materials (according to the Craft skill description you need a fail of 5 or more to ruin materials).

Not sure if masterwork tools add +2 to the craft skill when you use the fabricate spell, this is another question for paizo :D. In this case only a roll of 1 fails the spell.

If you are unlucky you can pay additional spell casting until you succeed.

If you think that I stretched too much the Craft armor calculation for a wizard you can pay a little more a higher level wizard (with a higher int bonus) to obtain the same result.

I wanted to bring with me some raw materials to use "fabricate" on them (the 5° level spell) to equip my minions, maybe shrinked with the spell to 1/4096 of their weight, a full plate weights 50 lbs but the price of iron in the table: trade goods is 1 sp for pound.

So the raw material cost should be 5gp according to the table: trade goods and 500gp (1/3 of the price) as the craft skill says.

I am not sure what to tell my gm, should I bring with me iron that costs 30gp per pound (300 times its price)? or 100 times the amount of iron that is needed? (maybe 99% of it is lost in the fabrication). It has consequences on the weight that my character can carry.

And then, if I change my minions, can I use fabricate again to make new full plates with the old plates as a raw materials? Should I consider their weight? or their price/3 to calculate the amount of raw materials that they provide?

What if I find 5 heavy flails on my enemies? Their price is 15 gp and their weight is 10 lbs. So their price is 1.5 gp per metal pound (15 times the amount of raw iron instead of 3 as the craft skill states).

Can I use fabricate on them to create a full plate? The weight is ok, but their price is only 150gp, their raw materials cost is 50gp, but I need to buy 500gp of raw materials to fabricate a full plate.

What about armors for unusal creatures? (Table: Armor for Unusual Creatures). Should I consider their weight multiplier or their cost multiplier using the fabricate spell? The spell description says that I should treat it as the craft skill, so I should use their cost multiplier but the actual materials only multiply according to the weight.

For example the armor for a Colossal nonhumanoid creature costs 32x but it has a weight of 12x.

Are the prices in the special materials page the prices of the raw material or the prices of the finished item of that material?

If I craft an item of a special material, for example a full plate mithral armor (1500 gp + 9000 gp), do I need to pay 1/3 of the price (10500/3 = 3500) in raw materials or do I have to pay the 9000(-150??) of the mithral full but I only pay 1/3 of the 1500+150 for the masterwork full plate?

Is the time of production proportional to the 10500 price or the 1500 price?

Can I use the fabricate spell to produce a mithral full plate for 3500 gp?

Can 3 different crafters work on the same magic item at different time shifts, for example one works from 00:00 to 08:00, another from 08:00 to 16:00 and a third from 16:00 to 24:00 to triple the amount of money crafted per day?

Can 6 different crafters do the same thing if they rush the production at 4 hours adding the +5 to the DC?