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The spell Simulacrum says:
You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within range for the entire casting time of the spell.
The casting time is 12 hours, the range is touch.
I read it that you must be touching the original for the entire 12 hours. Is that correct?
It would somehow make more sense to me if the original needed to be within x feet and you needed to be touching the duplicate, but that's not what it says.
Even though the spell says the casting time is 12 hours, the "touch" component is just that, a quick touch. Let's look at other spells that have a non-Action casting time but require touch.
Awaken: 8 hour casting time
After spending the casting time tracing magical pathways within a precious gemstone, you touch a Huge or smaller beast or plant.
Here it is quite clear that you first spend the 8 hours in prep work, then there is a momentary touch.
Create Homunculus: 1 hour casting time
While speaking an intricate incantation, you cut yourself with a jewel-encrusted dagger, taking 2d4 piercing damage that can’t be reduced in any way. You then drip your blood on the spell’s other components and touch them, transforming them into a special construct called a homunculus.
Once again, there are a number of actions that do not require you to be in contact with all the of the spell components. Only at the end do you finally touch the completed mixture.
Glyph of Warding: 1 hour casting time
When you cast this spell, you inscribe a glyph that later unleashes a magical effect. You inscribe it either on a surface (such as a table or a section of floor or wall) or within an object that can be closed (such as a book, a scroll, or a treasure chest) to conceal the glyph.
This one is not as straightforward, but if we take it to mean that the touch much be for the entire hour, that means you cannot remove your writing utensil the entire time. You would have to create your glyph as an etch-a-sketch. So I would still go with the definition of a definitive touch last to activate.
Create Magen: 1 hour casting time
While casting the spell, you place a vial of quicksilver in the chest of a life-sized human doll stuffed with ash or dust. You then stitch up the doll and drip your blood on it. At the end of the casting, you tap the doll with a crystal rod, transforming it into a magen clothed in whatever the doll was wearing.
This one really pushes the point home, but since it's only available to people that bought the book I saved it for last. There are a LOT of motions going on with a doll, a vial, stitching, and then finally a tap (touch) to finish the spell.
From those examples (and more I didn't include), it's clear that a range of Touch only means that there needs to be physical contact at the end of the casting, not the whole casting time.
You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within range for the entire casting time of the spell.
So the subject needs to be within touching distance the entire time. But the actual touch happens at the end. You spend the eight hours sizing up the subject and building a snowman (snowwoman, snowbeast), but you don't have to hold their hand the whole time.
the end of the spell I think you mean when the character finishes casting the spell. A better distinction between a spell's casting and the actual spell could make this answer more clear.
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Jan 11, 2022 at 11:47
You aren’t touching the sand castle at all times. The magical forces of the weave are not waiting to say:
Gotcha! You didn’t have at least one body part touching the target/duplicate for the entire 12 hours! The spell fails!
No. Read the spell description:
M (snow or ice in quantities sufficient to made a life-size copy of the duplicated creature; some hair, fingernail clippings, or other piece of that creature’s body placed inside the snow or ice; and powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp, sprinkled over the duplicate and consumed by the spell)
You shape an illusory duplicate
The spell description and material component description contain detailed instructions for making a simulacrum. You are taking the time to craft a statue of snow, ice, hair, and ruby dust. If you take your hands off for a second to measure the length of the nose with a ruler, the spell does not fail.
So how should we understand the range of touch? Within reach. You are capturing the details of your model, or yourself, with the ice and snow as you weave the magic into the sculpture, culminating with a breath of life into your creation. This is a long, magical, creative process, and you should feel free to take some liberty with how you narrate crafting your simulacrum. Any DM who would say “Ha, you took your hands off the target, spell fails” needs to spend some time in the naughty corner.
Summary: You need to spend 12 hours shaping the duplicate, that involves touching it. The original does not need to be nearby.
You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within range for the entire casting time of the spell.
In 5e range refers to the distance between the caster and the target. In this case the target is the duplicate which is being created. So while this text may seem to be ambiguous, in terms of mechanics there is only 1 possibility.
To confirm, I analysed the text of 50 spells containing the word "range" and found all of them used "range" as a game term to refer to the distance from caster to target.
A few interesting examples are Sleep which states: "Creatures within 20 feet of a point you choose within range" and Acid Splash which says: "If you choose two, they must be within 5 feet of each other" - this is the kind of wording that WotC uses when talking about distance between two things that are not target & caster.
In 5e the body of the spell text defines how the spell works. This can be confusing because it's common to assume that the range listed is a "requirement" to cast the spell or somehow dictates how the spell functions. That isn't true, the range is only relevant when it is mentioned - if it is at all.
Shocking Grasp is a good example of a spell that assumes you are not in range when you cast the spell:
Lightning springs from your hand to deliver a shock to a creature you try to touch. Make a melee spell attack against the target.
Planar Binding is a good example of a spell that requires you to remain in range for the entire casting:
With this spell, you attempt to bind a celestial, an elemental, a fey, or a fiend to your service. The creature must be within range for the entire casting of the spell.
The spellcasting rules say:
Most spells have ranges expressed in feet. Some spells can target only a creature (including you) that you touch.
Simulacrum's text states that you "shape" the duplicate. This is where the touching is involved.
Simulacrum range is touch, so spell description becomes
You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within touching range for the entire casting time of the spell.
So that's the requirement, literally. Nothing here says you need to actually touch it for the entire casting time, just being in touching range is enough.
Range of touch does not mean you have to touch the target(s) for the the entire casting time. There are touch range spells which can have multiple targets, for example Enhance Ability can target up to 8 creatures, and a humanoid caster only has 2 hands. So it must be enough to touch each target once during the casting, not for the duration of entire casting.
Would Simulacrum be any different if instead it said "must be within 5 feet", or something like that? Probably not, though there may be some corner cases, like casting touch spells through a familiar. Still, the spell text it has to be something, and "within range" is nice and short.
According to the spell, the creature must be within range for the duration. The way that the sentence is written to me also reads that the 'within range for the entire casting time' is a specifier on the immediately preceding object—the humanoid or beast which is the target of the spell, rather than the resulting spell effect.
Note that a spell range of 'Touch' does not indicate that you must touch the creature—that's usually specified instead in the spell's description (such as that of cure wounds or greater restoration), which might explain why the spell has that range. However, for this spell, you don't need to be touching the creature for the whole casting—or at all—only within range of touch.
I remember a mention of 'Touch' range being the melee reach of the creature, but I can't find a reference to it at the moment, so I may be mistaken, but I'll still mention it here in case anyone else finds it (please link in a comment), as well as for food for thought.
In summary, you must be in range to touch the target of the spell for the whole duration—not necessarily touching it: neither creature nor duplicate must be touched at any point for the spell to be cast.1
1Unless you interpret 'you shape [the duplicate]' to be the manual shaping of the duplicate, to be done by hand.
