Does a Simulacrum-Wish combo affect the original caster?

Question

I'm in a new high-level campaign which is a continuation of a previous one. I'm an 18th-level wizard, and our DM allowed us to have multiple simulacra at a time in the previous campaign. However, now I am able to cast 9th-level spells, including wish.

The description of simulacrum says:

The simulacrum is friendly to you and creatures you designate. It obeys your spoken commands, moving and acting in accordance with your wishes and acting on your turn in combat. The simulacrum lacks the ability to learn or become more powerful, so it never increases its level or other abilities, nor can it regain expended spell slots.

The side effects of wish:

The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn't 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.

What if I create 2 simulacra (expending 7th and 8th-level slots) and order them to cast a wish for me? Who will be affected by the side effects?

Answer 1

You Are You; and So Is He. If a simulacrum you have created casts wish, both you and your simulacrum suffer the stress associated with casting the spell—including the risk of being forever unable to cast wish again. The inability to cast wish extends to any simulacrum you create in the future.

The above is taken from the D&D Adventurers League FAQ March 24, 2017, currently available here.

However, that stated, these rulings are for the balance and survival of Adventurers League, an organized play setting, and not explicitly the traditional table setting. Without explicit rulings like this on things the books don't cover, a nationally organized play association would not be able to run reasonable events with a common experience across all venues. Having a whole lot of "This DM let me do it at this event" isn't healthy to that ecosystem.

It is well understood by many players and DMs alike that rules as written for Simulacrum + Wish can be exploited for some serious imbalance in player agency and power: you can do anything you want without suffering the usual consequences. While I can't speak to the true intent of Adventurers League, this is likely why Adventurers League has made this decision despite there being no such restriction in the Player's Handbook to that spell combination.

By RAW it works because the Simulacrum is a separate creature, it just happens to have your resources and abilities.
By AL rules it doesn't work, because the Simulacrum is treated as you for the purposes of Wish.

Your DM has Rule 0, not even wizards can stop that!

Wizards doesn't have final say at your table. They give you the system, the basic foundations of the mechanical bits and pieces of your storytelling experience. Your DM can decide to use this ruling as an example of best practices and put it into practice in their game. Or they can decide that your game doesn't need the measures against Simulacrum + Wish synergy and allow players which earn those abilities/spells to be able to use them in that way.

Answer 2

RAW, the simulacra will suffer the quoted consequences.

(just be careful what you Wish for)

To start with, let's set aside the matter of multiple simultaneous simulacra -- that's disallowed RAW, and I'm pretty sure it's besides the point to the question, with a potential caveat I'll try to come back around to at the end.

Whenever you read a spell description, "you" is really shorthand for "the caster of the spell". A simulacrum that uses Misty Step (another spell with a range of Self) will teleport 30 feet; it will not cause you, the creator of the simulacrum, to teleport 30 feet.

There is nothing in the language of either spell that suggests that the quoted effect would apply to anyone other than the caster of the spell.

As a cultural/social/historical note, however, there is a lot of baggage around the Wish spell. It's somewhat notorious for invoking DM fiat. Consider the following from the spell description:

Wish

. . . .You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. . . .

Player's Handbook, pg. 289

This means that using the Wish spell to do anything besides what is explicitly in the text (which, to be honest, is rarely what people use Wish for) amounts to something of a dare to your DM.

Now, your DM may be the sort of gentle soul who doesn't rise to the bait, and that would be great. But it is worth considering that if they've decided to allow you to create multiple simultaneous simulacra, and then you use this to try to circumvent a throttling mechanism on a very powerful spell, they may read that text and say, "Well hey, the PCs aren't the only ones who get to use the rules to greatest effect."

So, in summary, RAW your simulacra are the ones who will suffer "the stress of casting the spell", but also RAW using the Wish spell for shenanigans is a little like handing your DM a loaded gun.