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Well, what does local mean?
Does it mean every city in Golarion...or does it mean as per the dictionary...
pertaining to or characterized by place or position in space; spatial.
pertaining to, characteristic of, or restricted to a particular place or particular places:
"a local custom."pertaining to a city, town, or small district rather than an entire state or country:
That's pretty specific.
But, hey...I'll go by what it states in the actual title of the skill...and you can go by...who knows what...local would mean the local where they are originally...
OR do you play it that they instantly forget everything they knew about the old local area they were in if they go to a new local area (so in Sandpoint one day...but even if you have the mayor with you...you forget who this old person is, insulting them in the process...because now you are visiting magnimar on a political visit...which you forgot why because all the information on why the mayor of Sandpoint was visiting Magnimar is now forgotten now that you are in Magnimar...
Because some people are portraying knowledge:Local as being that messed up in this thread.
I'll play it as having the local knowledge of a specific town or city...and that you could actually have the knowledge skill multiple times (it infers that you actually can have knowledge skills in multiples...and nothing says you can't take one knowledge skill multiple times...RAW as far as I know).
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So I'm noticing none of this is about Simulacrum...which is still an issue.
We need to get a hard and fast ruling on this, it's a problem, and a pretty exploitable one as well. I have a villain I want to run using this (and eventually a PC as well) and I'd rather not have this be "GM Fiat: the spell".
Well, what does local mean?
Does it mean every city in Golarion...or does it mean as per the dictionary...
pertaining to or characterized by place or position in space; spatial.
pertaining to, characteristic of, or restricted to a particular place or particular places:
"a local custom."pertaining to a city, town, or small district rather than an entire state or country:
That's pretty specific.
But, hey...I'll go by what it states in the actual title of the skill...and you can go by...who knows what...local would mean the local where they are originally...
OR do you play it that they instantly forget everything they knew about the old local area they were in if they go to a new local area (so in Sandpoint one day...but even if you have the mayor with you...you forget who this old person is, insulting them in the process...because now you are visiting magnimar on a political visit...which you forgot why because all the information on why the mayor of Sandpoint was visiting Magnimar is now forgotten now that you are in Magnimar...
Because some people are portraying knowledge:Local as being that messed up in this thread.
I'll play it as having the local knowledge of a specific town or city...and that you could actually have the knowledge skill multiple times (it infers that you actually can have knowledge skills in multiples...and nothing says you can't take one knowledge skill multiple times...RAW as far as I know).
You cannot take multiple Knowledge (Local) skills. There is only one. Knowledge (Local) is expressly Local Knowledge, it just happens to be Local knowledge from all locales. You don't forget anything. You know the Mayor of Magnimar when you in Sandpoint, because that's how Knowledge (Local) works.
@ N. Jolly: A workable Simulacrum spell ruling would be nice yes.
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Perhaps the Knowledge (Local) debate should be taken into a different thread?
Perhaps the Knowledge (Local) debate should be taken into a different thread?
Debate is a bit generous of a term, but I'm simply going to drop it. Anyone who isn't convinced by the actual text of the skill because "it lacks immersion" isn't going to be convinced. So back to Simulacrums.
Does anyone here actually think Simulacrum wouldn't be mind-blowingly powerful even if creatures only kept SLAs that a level appropriate caster could cast at their HD assuming they still got their Supernatural abilities?
Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
I have been so inspired by the many posts of some players looking to explore exploits I just added this rule to my house rule list:
For any rule that is questionable because of wording or omission of detail (RAW vs RAI) then assume the more restrictive rule applies. Rules are taken RAI by this DM, never RAW.
As an earlier poster indicated, DMs need to stand up to players a little more when dealing with these wording discussions.
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Please consider the existence of PFS before broad sweeping statements are made about GM capability/intestinal fortitude.
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Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
The GM would allow this because that's what the rules say it does. The intent of Simulacrum is to make you a loyal copy of a creature. Why do you believe the intent is not for the copy to have the basic and natural abilities of it's form? The reason I point this is out is as Mathius so aptly puts above, because only by showing "this spell is really powerful and makes caster really powerful" can we hope to see a more balanced game. The problem after all is that Simulacrum is very clear about what it does, it's just that most special abilities (which includes spell like abilities) are not dependent on HD, making the half-HD limiter a wash.
The thing have to realize about Anzyr is not that her thinks knowledge local should run the way he claims. He defends it (an other rules) to show how absurd they are so that maybe they will be changed.
An idea for Sim
You make an exact duplicate of a creature. It can not have more then half your CL in HD. A Sims counts as the base creature type for purposes of spells (you can use enlarge person on a sim). Sims can not duplicate creatures with out separate bodies and souls (no undead, constructs, or outsiders). Sims may not cast spells or use spell like abilities. You must have piece of simed crature. Control is total but can be subverted by magic (dominate person, confusion).
You can sim yourself at half level.
If your fix denies outsiders, you don't need to deny casting spells anymore since outsiders are where all the trouble is.
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Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
What loophole? The spell explictly does what it does.
Does anyone here actually think Simulacrum wouldn't be mind-blowingly powerful even if creatures only kept SLAs that a level appropriate caster could cast at their HD assuming they still got their Supernatural abilities?
Nope, which means I would be unlikely to mourn overmuch if it were FAQed to clarify any limits on SLAs and special abilities which might (or might not) be intended.
Why do you believe the intent is not for the copy to have the basic and natural abilities of it's form?I don't assert that the simulacrum spell does not intend such, but the fact that it seems to allude to reducing special abilities for creatures with reduced HD casts enough doubt on the matter that I'm also unwilling to assert that it does intend for a copied monster to retain all special abilities without exception.
It intends for the monster to keep all of the special abilities that aren't based on HD, which unfortunately/fortunately is most of them. That is the biggest problem. The second biggest problem is that you can make copies of things that have HD equal to twice your caster level. If this wasn't the case making simulacrums of Nocticula would be significantly more difficult, rather then easy to perform at the second 7th level spells become available. Not needing to have a piece of the creature also helps to make the spell powerful, though keep in mind this is only true for creatures like Nocticula, since even if you needed a piece of the creature, it is very easy to get Efreet and Solar pieces.
Heh, I changed that post because I noticed your original post hadn't been directed at me (misread originally) - but oh well. I'm still not certain that such was the intent. I concede that it is the stronger interpretation of the wording but I still believe that this rule is unclear and unhelpful enough that that even the stronger reading isn't really strong enough to be confident in.
It intends for the monster to keep all of the special abilities that aren't based on HD, which unfortunately/fortunately is most of them. That is the biggest problem. The second biggest problem is that you can make copies of things that have HD equal to twice your caster level. If this wasn't the case making simulacrums of Nocticula would be significantly more difficult, rather then easy to perform at the second 7th level spells become available. Not needing to have a piece of the creature also helps to make the spell powerful, though keep in mind this is only true for creatures like Nocticula, since even if you needed a piece of the creature, it is very easy to get Efreet and Solar pieces.Why do you believe the intent is not for the copy to have the basic and natural abilities of it's form?I don't assert that the simulacrum spell does not intend such, but the fact that it seems to allude to reducing special abilities for creatures with reduced HD casts enough doubt on the matter that I'm also unwilling to assert that it does intend for a copied monster to retain all special abilities without exception.
Anzyr, I think the main point where I disagree with you about what the rules say here is part of that first sentence. The issue is we have a lot of info under the hood for where humanoids come from, but we don't have that same info for where monsters come from.
For example, if I didn't have the Core Rulebook and I saw a statblock for a 10th level rogue, I might not think of Sneak Attack +5d6 as HD-dependent and I certainly wouldn't know that Improved Evasion was (or whichever Rogue Talent you prefer). But the direction for making simulacrums pretty clearly says to delevel in that way.
Requiring some piece of the creature intended to be recreated would limit targeting unique creatures like Nocticula, raw lawyers would probably need a line in there saying eschew materials does not suffice for this additional material component. And/or have a line that says unique creatures become instantly aware of any simulacrums created of them and the name of the creator.
The wish machine could be turned off by requiring the simulacrum to expend material components for any special abilities including those duplicating spell like abilities.
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It intends for the monster to keep all of the special abilities that aren't based on HD, which unfortunately/fortunately is most of them. That is the biggest problem. The second biggest problem is that you can make copies of things that have HD equal to twice your caster level. If this wasn't the case making simulacrums of Nocticula would be significantly more difficult, rather then easy to perform at the second 7th level spells become available. Not needing to have a piece of the creature also helps to make the spell powerful, though keep in mind this is only true for creatures like Nocticula, since even if you needed a piece of the creature, it is very easy to get Efreet and Solar pieces.Why do you believe the intent is not for the copy to have the basic and natural abilities of it's form?I don't assert that the simulacrum spell does not intend such, but the fact that it seems to allude to reducing special abilities for creatures with reduced HD casts enough doubt on the matter that I'm also unwilling to assert that it does intend for a copied monster to retain all special abilities without exception.Anzyr, I think the main point where I disagree with you about what the rules say here is part of that first sentence. The issue is we have a lot of info under the hood for where humanoids come from, but we don't have that same info for where monsters come from.
For example, if I didn't have the Core Rulebook and I saw a statblock for a 10th level rogue, I might not think of Sneak Attack +5d6 as HD-dependent and I certainly wouldn't know that Improved Evasion was (or whichever Rogue Talent you prefer). But the direction for making simulacrums pretty clearly says to delevel in that way.
We sort of kinda do. If it doesn't advance with HD, then it doesn't go down with HD. No matter how many HD an Efreet gains its Wish SLA remains unchanged.
What loophole? The spell explictly does what it does.Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
A 7th level spell that gives a few castings of a 9th level spell without the 25k component.
Come on . . . really?!?
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What loophole? The spell explictly does what it does.Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
A 7th level spell that gives a few castings of a 9th level spell without the 25k component.
Come on . . . really?!?
Just because it's broken doesn't mean it's not right.
It just means it's broken.
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We sort of kinda do. If it doesn't advance with HD, then it doesn't go down with HD. No matter how many HD an Efreet gains its Wish SLA remains unchanged.
The rules actually suggest that special abilities may improve with monster advancement or even that advancing a monster in HD can provide entirely new special abilities; however they provide no specific guidance.
Adding racial Hit Dice to a monster is a similar process to building a monster from scratch. As additional Hit Dice are added, other abilities increase in power as well. Additional Hit Dice usually results in better attack bonuses, saves, hit points, and skills, as well as more feats. It can also include additional spellcasting capability and other powers.
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I get that Coriat. But an 18 HD advanced Efreeti with 4 levels of Fighter has the same CL 11 Wish SLA as a 10 HD one.
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Sure. The rules provide no guidelines for actually advancing the spellcasting capability and other powers that they say can advance, so when you go to actually write out that advanced monster, it ends up with unadvanced abilities by default.
Due to the rules that should cover such advancement being missing in action.
"The rules tell you something can advance, but don't tell you how, so you don't do it." is different from "the rules tell you something stays the same" though (and even from "the rules say nothing about it"). There's no rule that states that such abilities cannot be affected by HD changes, and in fact, the rule I quoted states that they can be. It's simply the lack of further guidance that causes a strict RAW approach to stop and do nothing, knowing that it is supposed to proceed but ignorant as to how; it's not that non-advancement is the rule.
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What loophole? The spell explictly does what it does.Bizarre discussion. How any DM would allow this is beyond me.
As a DM, I nerf loopholes and go by the intent of the rules, not the exact wording. If your player's idea of fun is to find loopholes to exploit, you need new players lol.
A 7th level spell that gives a few castings of a 9th level spell without the 25k component.
Come on . . . really?!?
It's not a loophole, it's just something you don't like. You should be more careful with your language use.
This really seems to be a non issue...
Under the spell simulacrum, it says:
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 half of the real creature's levels or HD (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD).
Is the monster introduction part of the bestiary it has a list of categories in the monster stat blocks, where we see at the end:
Special Abilities: Finally, any of the creature's more unique special abilities are detailed in full here.
So, we look up the Genie, Efreeti stat block, and under Special Abilities it says:
Special Abilities
Change Size (Sp) Twice per day, an efreeti can magically change a creature's size. This works just like an enlarge person or reduce person spell (the efreeti chooses when using the ability), except that the ability can work on the efreeti. A DC 13 Fortitude save negates the effect. The save DC is Charisma-based. This is the equivalent of a 2nd-level spell.
EDIT: I know several folks have mentioned this in this thread so far, but it bears repeating.
Heat (Ex) An efreeti's body deals 1d6 points of fire damage whenever it hits in melee, or in each round it grapples.
Where does this say they get Wish? That's listed under SLAs, not special abilities. Maybe this is why there has been no serious update from the devs?
And that is an excellent point Kryzbyn!
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Kryzbyn, spell-like abilities are a subcategory of special abilities as per CRB 221 and 554 as well as Table 16-1 (and likely other places). It is true that they are located in a different part of monster statblocks, but they are special abilities.
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And in a game, if the situation comes up, what happens is that the DM decides arbitrarily how much to advance the spell-like abilities, from not-at-all to however-much, as the state of the rules requires a DM decision, they are not sufficient by themselves.
("Advance the SLAs not at all" is still a ruling in this case, not the book rule, because of the incompleteness of the written rules regarding ability advancement).
Similarly in reverse. "Appropriately" in the case of feats, skills, BAB, etc, refers you to rules that are written. "Appropriately" in the case of special abilities refers you to rules that are missing.
The wish machine could be turned off by requiring the simulacrum to expend material components for any special abilities including those duplicating spell like abilities.
Spell-like abilities do not require material component.
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I would really like to see SLAs standardized.
1. Every critter with SLAs gets one per 2 CR (round up), of ascending spell level: a 1st level for a CR 1 critter, a 1st and a 2nd level for a CR 3 critter, and so on. Yes, that means efreet need to be CR 17 to grant wishes. I'm okay with omnipotent genies -- they work fine in Aladdin.
2. If CR = 4x level of SLA, it's usable 3/day instead of 1/day. If CR = 6x level of SLA, it's usable at will.
Done. Now SLAs are always level-appropriate and are standardized in terms of uses per day and so on, instead of just being totally random. If you make a CR 8 simulacrum of a CR 16 critter, it gets only the following SLAs:
1/day--3rd, 4th
3/day--2nd
At will--1st
And it loses the base creature's 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th level SLAs.
On that note, I would also like to see CR- (not HD-) based limits on magic minions, much like the ones that exist for the Leadership feat.
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On that note, I would also like to see CR- (not HD-) based limits on magic minions.
This is something I would have sincerely liked as well. Not just for balance reasons, but also just for ease of use. There are lists of monsters by CR, not by HD.
Kryzbyn, spell-like abilities are a subcategory of special abilities as per CRB 221 and 554 as well as Table 16-1 (and likely other places). It is true that they are located in a different part of monster statblocks, but they are special abilities.
Those are descriptors of the things themselves and how they work, in the CRB, in any situation, no matter who or what has them. More specifically in the bestiary, it says under the stat block that Special Abilities are "any of the creature's more unique special abilities". Unique, beyond the ones laid out in the CRB, but also falling under the generic header of special abilities. However, this would be a case of specific trumping generic, would it not?
My position is that the spell says you can create a copy of an existing creature. Mechanically, the statistics for creatures that can be copied in PF mostly reside in the Bestiaries. In the Bestiary, it tells you how to read a stat block, which you would need to do in order to recreate a creature for that spell.
Logically this makes more sense on what's RAW AND RAI other than just the other interpretation of what's RAW, that seems to grant an absurd amount.
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Indeed. That's something I've been thinking about recently. Additionally, using the same pool of "CR" for all of your magically acquired minions would reduce the impact of binding/simulacrum-ing tons of creatures as strong or stronger than you, while enabling you to do more cool things like have an army of thousands of skeletons.
@Kryzbyn
I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation (it seems to be ignoring some parts of the text to favor a specific part), but assuming it's accurate or that a GM decides to run with it, you still have problems. A wizard can still make an army of mini-mes, get a succubus snow cone for a permanent ability score boost, or make a copy of something big and nasty that has Change Shape for a sweet new body to ride around in with magic jar. It's less crazy, but still an issue.
Kryzbyn, spell-like abilities are a subcategory of special abilities as per CRB 221 and 554 as well as Table 16-1 (and likely other places). It is true that they are located in a different part of monster statblocks, but they are special abilities.I'm using the PRD. Where do those page numbers and table number map to?
(Table: Special Ability types = Table 16-1)
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I suspect the reason why devs largely haven't really fixed or commented much on these types of issues, is because they are mostly theoretical. A lot of groups don't get high enough for some of these exploits, and most groups that do don't really try to tactics like this. Those that do probably get shut down by the GM/other players.
So while things like this may definitely need revamping or clarification, they are pretty low on the list of priorities for developers.
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I would say it's more likely a matter of the sheer complexity of the issue. As a lot of the discussion in the thread has indicated, Simulacrum would basically need to be rewritten from the ground up in order to function smoothly, and would probably have to take up half a page more than it currently does. The devs like to focus on simple changes over complicated ones.
Indeed. That's something I've been thinking about recently. Additionally, using the same pool of "CR" for all of your magically acquired minions would reduce the impact of binding/simulacrum-ing tons of creatures as strong or stronger than you, while enabling you to do more cool things like have an army of thousands of skeletons.
@Kryzbyn
I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation (it seems to be ignoring some parts of the text to favor a specific part), but assuming it's accurate or that a GM decides to run with it, you still have problems. A wizard can still make an army of mini-mes, get a succubus snow cone for a permanent ability score boost, or make a copy of something big and nasty that has Change Shape for a sweet new body to ride around in with magic jar. It's less crazy, but still an issue.
That's fine. My interpretation just focuses on the book that matters when looking up stats of creatures to mimic, vs. the CRB. As a GM, PFS or otherwise, I would have no problem using this as a counter to a RAW argument that simulacrum allows what some folks think it should.
It has the beauty of being just as valid without direct input from the Devs.
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I suspect the reason why devs largely haven't really fixed or commented much on these types of issues, is because they are mostly theoretical. A lot of groups don't get high enough for some of these exploits, and most groups that do don't really try to tactics like this. Those that do probably get shut down by the GM/other players.
So while things like this may definitely need revamping or clarification, they are pretty low on the list of priorities for developers.
Hmmm, If I was developer, and part of my game for the last 15 years was literally broken such that no one could use it ever, I would actually place priority on that!
Also, guidelines on memories and what a simulacrum knows would be nice, as currently, if yo know the big bad of an ap, you can make a simulacrum of him at level 13, then learn all his plans and the locations of all his minions?
Big Bad only has half the skill ranks, therefore, half the knowledge. He may know he lives in the Fortress of Del'zoun, but not know that it's located in a demi-plane.