How are magical effects on a creature copied/transferred when a spell copies/shapechange a creature by "removing" its equipment? [closed]

Question

This becomes important when a spell such as Simulacrum or True Polymorph, or any other shapechanging spell that affects equipment, is cast.

Say I make a Simulacrum of an orc, let's call him Simulacr-Orc, that is armed with an axe and the orc has a Haste spell on it. The spell says that the copy won't have any equipment. So, no axe for Simulacr-Orc. But does Simulacr-Orc gets a Haste spell on itself?

And what about permanent magical effects instead? While the rules don't say much about how a permanent magical effect might exist on a creature, let's suppose that there is such an effect. Something happened to that orc in the past, we have no idea what, except that this orc now has a permanent Haste spell on it. The source of the magical effect, how exactly that happened, is not important here, only the magical effect, in the same way that when a delivery truck brings you a package, it is the nature and content of the package that is important, not the color or size of the delivery truck. So, will Simulacr-Orc also get the same permanent Haste magic on itself? Or a non-permanent Haste magic? Or no Haste magic whatsoever?

After all, creating a permanent magical Haste effect is pretty much like the equivalent of creating a magical item, like, say, some kinds of Boots of Haste. And with Simulacrum, items, magical or not, don't get copied over, right? Our orc's "permanent" Haste would be akin to the orc owning fully invisible, intangible, Boots of Haste, that he doesn't need to wear on his feet to use, that doesn't prevent other boots on his feets, and that also don't need to even be inside his equipment at all. Kind of like I'm here, and I own 1000$, but that 100$ ain't on me, it's in my bank account, and yet I still own it and can I still use it. So, yeah, permanent Haste on orc: will Simulacr-Orc get something or what?

What about some past event (whatever it is) that magically modified our orc, in an instantaneous way. Instantaneous is like how a Fireball is an instantaneous spell, that does it's damage, but then after the spell is fully gone, the damage remains and is still there. Similarly, that mysterious magical event came and modified the orc. Our orc instantaneously gained both a +2 bonus to Strength, and a +2 ability increase to Strength. So, would Simulacr-Orc also gain those benefits? Only one? And then, which one? Or none?

In short: Are magical effects copied over, and, if yes, which ones (aka "to what degree")?

Basically, anything in the RAW rules supporting either interpretation?

Thanks!

Answer 1

In general, magical effects are neither part of statistics nor equipment and are not copied over to a simulacrum

Equipment doesn't have a formal definition in the rules, but it is clear from everything that the rules do call "equipment" that the term applies to objects. Magical effects are usually not objects (generally only when a spell creates an object) and thus generally would not go under equipment. Certainly, there is absolutely no way in which a spell like haste could be considered equipment.

Magical effects that don't explicitly change a creature's statistics don't count as statistics either. See this Q&A for a detailed breakdown of what the rules define to be "statistics". Magical effects are not on there. Haste, for example, is a spell that gives several benefits. None of them change a creature's statistics and thus don't apply to effects which copy statistics. Thus, when you copy a creature with magical effects that don't change statistics, the effects are not copied over to the simulacrum.

If an effect changes statistics, it is copied over

However, if a magical effect has changed a creature's statistics, then that would carry over since the simulacrum copies the creature's statistics exactly at the time the casting is completed with no exceptions made for magical or any other effects. Whether the effects are permanent or not don't matter. Your wish examples would fit here since they explicitly change the statistics of the creature by changing their ability scores which are explicitly part of a creature's stat block.

It is unclear if you copy a temporary statistics change if it would still be temporary on the simulacrum or not, so that would be up to the DM to decide.