I know Simulacrum can not be cured, repaired, healed, subject to fast healing, and any other form of repair to damage suffered other than being repaired in a properly equipped lab - even if you are using magic that usually repairs constructs (because the simulacrums type is NOT construct). BUT - I was thinking of allowing one exception to a player running a simulacrum of their High Priestess, stemming from the Renewal Domain from d20 3.5 (I know, mixing the rules, but this character goes ways back).
The Victory In Defeat ability allows the character to "regain a number of Hit Points equal to 1d8 + your Charisma Modifier at the time you fell below 0 hit points" as an immediate action once per day. This domain use does not specify that this is curing (positive energy), simply that it is regained. Am I being too generous by allowing this ability to function on a Simulacrum?
Is it fair? Yes.
Is it RAW? Actually, yes. The spell doesn't say anything about Simulacra being unhealable or unmendable.
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It is sort of implied that normal healing does not work, but RAW there is nothing preventing a simulacrum from being healed in the same ways as the base creature. A couple years ago there was some talk about an potential upcoming Blog on simulacra. Hopefully someday we will get one :)
"At all times, the simulacrum remains under your absolute command. No special telepathic link exists, so command must be exercised in some other manner. A simulacrum has no ability to become more powerful. It cannot increase its level or abilities. If reduced to 0 hit points or otherwise destroyed, it reverts to snow and melts instantly into nothingness. A complex process requiring at least 24 hours, 100 gp per hit point, and a fully equipped magical laboratory can repair damage to a simulacrum."
I don't think it would work, because once the trigger conditions are met, the simulacrum is just a very temporary pile of snow and would no longer have the domain power to activate.
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A few years ago there where a lot of threads about simulacrums, you can find a good recap here.
The part about healing has always been a problem as the spell description don't say "the only way to heal a simulacrum is to use a laboratory".
For sure, if the original creature had fast healing or regeneration, the simulacrum inherit ti and can heal that way.
Spells that give him/it fast healing should work too (infernal and celestial healing, as an example).
Other effects that would heal the creature he is simulating (things like "creature X is healed by fire mage" and so on)? Maybe.
Cure spells and other positive energy effects? Probably not.
Effects that heal hit point of damage but don't use positive energy (there are a few)? Maybe.
Ask your GM. He is the only one that can really reply to this question for your games. Or, if you are the GM, decide how you want it to work.
I think the issue is that the victory in defeat ability kicks in at 0 hps but that the simulcrum, when at 0 hp, disappears into nothingness and isnt even repairable in a magic lab. Im guessing the player wants the ability to avoid having the simulcrum being completely destroyed at 0 hps, even if all it does is limp away from combat or plays dead. Tbh its probably cheaper and quicker just to re-cast simulcrum than repair the current one (100gp/HP vs 500gp/Hit Dice; 24 hours and a lab vs 12 hours and an ice sculpture)
I don't think so. At high levels the damage made by enemies can easily overcome the 'healing' amount of the ability. And we all know that there are worst 'legal' uses of the spell out there.
That doesn't strike me as terribly unfair. My characters use troll simulacrum servants all the time for their innate regenerative abilities.
I recommend disallowing it. Any means of healing should fail for the simulacrum (including troll regeneration), as that drastically changes the cost/benefit ratio of the spell. Instead of every combat permanently diminishing the remaining amount of combat the simulacrum can participate in, it would just take some time in storage to undo for free.
Does their regen even actually work? I am not overly familiar with the spell, but isn't their only one way to repair damage to it, and Regen doesn't work?
Why wouldn't it? There's nothing in the spell preventing a creature's innate abilities from functioning. I suppose a GM could nix an ability that he considers too powerful for a half HD illusion of the creature in question (ie - efreeti wish ability), but other than that, there's absolutely nothing stopping it.
If you were to take the spell description especially literally, it doesn't even prevent mundane healing.
Nothing in that statement is exclusionary. Nothing prevents other forms of healing.
DR,
Since most people in the forums read the rules as permissive, saying that it doesn't say you can't... really doesn't fly.
In any case,
A complex process requiring at least 24 hours, 100 gp per hit point, and a fully equipped magical laboratory can repair damage to a simulacrum.
Note that it says Repair Damage, not heal. The Simulacra are very clever, and apparently unique constructs. (They can't be "mended" except by the above expensive option.). They aren't actually alive, so healing doesn't work on them either, Any healing doesn't work. Thematically, I would rule that they are actually neither exactly living, nor exactly a construct, but, in a twisted, unstable way, approaching both. Thus requiring such expensive repair techniques. I might allow a Portable Simulacra Patcher to exist, at a cost significantly over the 100 gp per hit point, but I certainly would not allow an effectively free sleaze-around.
DR,
Since most people in the forums read the rules as permissive, saying that it doesn't say you can't... really doesn't fly.In any case,
A complex process requiring at least 24 hours, 100 gp per hit point, and a fully equipped magical laboratory can repair damage to a simulacrum.Note that it says Repair Damage, not heal. The Simulacra are very clever, and apparently unique constructs. (They can't be "mended" except by the above expensive option.). They aren't actually alive, so healing doesn't work on them either, Any healing doesn't work. Thematically, I would rule that they are actually neither exactly living, nor exactly a construct, but, in a twisted, unstable way, approaching both. Thus requiring such expensive repair techniques. I might allow a Portable Simulacra Patcher to exist, at a cost significantly over the 100 gp per hit point, but I certainly would not allow an effectively free sleaze-around.
Whoa, nelly, if we're going with permissive rules, where in the Simulacrum description does it say it's a construct? Where does it say they aren't alive? Where does it say they are very clever? Where does it say what you would rule is what is actually permissible under this vague, old, poorly written spell description? All we can say with any certainty is this:
Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any creature. The duplicate creature is partially real and formed from ice or snow.
What does this mean? No one knows! But most real creatures can be healed, so why can't partially real ones?
It's an illusion (shadow) spell with an effect of "one duplicate creature." Why shouldn't it be treated just like a Shadow Conjuration summoned monster, just with half HD/hp instead of full HD and a percentage of hit points? I don't think anyone has suggested that a Shadow Conjuration creature loses or gains vulnerability to poison different from the base creature, or that it can't be hurt or healed by negative/positive energy.
Definitely expect table variance.