Can the creature created by a Simulacrum spell be affected by healing magic?

Question

Relevant rules for simulacrum:

The duplicate is a creature, partially real and formed from ice or snow, and it can take actions and otherwise be affected as a normal creature.

And:

If the simulacrum is damaged, you can repair it in an alchemical laboratory, using rare herbs and minerals worth 100 gp per hit point it regains. The simulacrum lasts until it drops to 0 hit points, at which point it reverts to snow and melts instantly.

This seems pretty cut and dry. The spell produces a "real" creature that can otherwise "be affected as a normal creature."

Still, the rules about repairing it have me second guessing whether it can be affected by healing magic. Is there any reason to believe that it cannot be healed by healing magic?* Is it safe to assume that the ability to repair the simulacrum exists parallel to healing magic, allowing characters without healing magic to repair a simulacrum?

_{*Perhaps a monster entry, DMG information, or developer word-of-god.}

Answer 1

No, the alchemical process is the only way it can regain hit points

If the simulacrum is damaged, you can repair it in an alchemical laboratory, using rare herbs and minerals worth 100 gp per hit point it regains.

Repair not heal

First note that this does not say heal it says repair. Though treated as a normal creature it is still a being made of ice and snow. It is that reason that it likely has a special way to repair it.

Allowing other forms of healing means that the alchemical process would be useless

This statement must preclude other forms of regaining hit points otherwise it is meaningless. Even though it does not say so explicitly, the above method is clearly meant to be the only way for a simulacrum to regain hit points.

It does not say that potions or healing magic or rest doesn't work for example, but if they were possible then the expensive complicated process for healing would be meaningless and there would be no point in including it. Sleep especially makes this meaningless because it is free and available to every creature/class and allows for healing completely. Why would anybody ever pay 100gp per hit point if they could sleep or use any of the myriad of other methods for regaining hit points available? This logic also applies to traits or features that let you heal.

RAI agrees

Jeremy Crawford supports this logic as well:

To restore hit points to a simulacrum, you must use the costly alchemical procedure mentioned in the spell.

The Simulacrum is excluded from most healing magic already

The 2018 PHB errata has specified that the simulacrum is now considered to be a construct. As such, many healing spells will not even work on it.

Answer 2

I found a relevant tweet from Jeremy Crawford:

Q: Can the creature created by Simulacrum be healed by spells?
A: To restore hit points to a simulacrum, you must use the costly alchemical procedure mentioned in the spell.

Using must implies that repairing isn't merely an addition to standard healing, it completely substitutes any other means to heal simulacrum.

Answer 3

For all intents and purposes, it is a creature.

This means that any magic or other effects that affect creatures can affect it. Thus healing magic that can work on creatures will work on it.

The rules for repairing it are in addition to this and serve to provide a method for restoring HP that does not require magic. It's also worth mentioning that the creature might also have hit dice (though that is unclear). The spell description seems to indicate that natural healing is impossible so hit dice should be out, but other bits of the spell description suggest this is incorrect.

I had a thought that the creature might be considered a construct, but that is clearly not the case (as such it's not subject to construct limitations on spells).

However, due to the lack of sufficient rules to fully govern all situations, this particular spell will require some discussion and cooperation with your DM in order for all situations (such as healing, hit dice and other things) to be fully clarified.

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This answer, which for when it was published was consistent with what was available in the published material, has been eclipsed by the 2018 PHB errata where (at long last) the creature type (construct) is specified. {KorvinStarmast}

Answer 4

Reading the description in context gives:

You shape an illusory duplicate of one beast or humanoid that is within range for the entire casting time of the spell. The duplicate is a creature, partially real and formed from ice or snow, and it can take actions and otherwise be affected as a normal creature. It appears to be the same as the original, but it has half the creature’s hit point maximum and is formed without any equipment. Otherwise, the illusion uses all the statistics of the creature it duplicates.

What the simulacrum is is an illusory beast or humanoid that is partially real - illusions don't heal naturally or magically.

Reading the Monster Manual, everything is a creature - constructs, undead, beasts, humanoids, etc. Being a creature does not mean it can heal naturally or magically - some creatures can, and some can't.

The simulacrum has the statistics of the creature and half its hit points - it does not have any of the racial or class features except for spell slots that cannot be regained so healing surges and short rests don't come into it.

If the simulacrum is damaged, you can repair it ...

You can repair it; you can't heal it.