# What is the maximum number of Simulacra I can have?

Simulacrum seems like a very powerful spell. I'm assuming from this part of the description:

Otherwise, the illusion uses all the statistics of the creature it duplicates

that the duplicate gets all my known spells and spell slots.

So let's assume that I have all the material components (which are very expensive). If I cast Simulacrum, have the duplicate cast Simulacrum and continue doing that, what would my limit be?

Would my limit be how many times I can halve my health?:

It appears to be the same as the original, but it has half the creature’s hit point maximum

If not, what is the maximum number of duplicates I can create with Simulacrum?

(Note that I know if I cast Simulacrum more than once the illusion disappears, but I believe having the copy cast the spell itself will bypass this.)

• Historical note: In earlier editions, there was no limit to the number of simulacra a magic user could support. – GMJoe May 9 '16 at 0:23

1. Cast Simulacrum to create an exact copy of yourself (minus one 7th level spell slot).
2. Tell Simulacrum-1 (Sim-1) to cast wish to make a simulacrum of you (does not require materials). Sim-2 has been created.
3. Tell Sim-2 to cast wish to make a simulacrum of you (creating Sim-3).
4. Repeat until you have the desired number of simulacra.

The simulacra all have half your hp, and are missing one 7th Level spell slot (and one 9th level spell slot once they have cast wish).

This can be used as many times as you like (/can be bothered with, as each casting of wish requires an explicit command). Also, the simulacra cannot act independently; they require orders for every action, which can become tiresome once you have too many. Also, they can be got rid of with dispel magic.

Keep those limitations in mind, and you should be able to take over the world with a simulacrum army (assuming your DM doesn't ban the whole thing once he cottons on to what you're doing - I certainly would).

You may wish to look at: Can a Simulacrum cast Wish?

At 20th level, you get 2 7th level spells, so the Simulacura should wait until you are fully rested and and have a full contingent of spells then make a copy of you, not themselves.

Note too, if you are an illusionist, one trick you could do is, after a long rest use Malleable Illusions to "recast" the Simulacrum spell. Now the Simulacura has a full contingent of spells. It casts the Simulacrum spell on you, and voila you have two Simulacra, with one missing a 7th level slot. So then you use Malleable Illusions again to renew the spell slot. Now they both cast the Simulacrum spell on you. You now have 4, 2 of which are missing the 7th level slot. 2 Malleable Illusions actions later the 4 of them begin casting, and so we move on to 8, then 16; 32; 64; etc.

Exponential growth of Simulacra is scary...... I guess the limit there is, how many actions are in a day, and how many 1,500gp rubies do you got?

Malleable Illusions: At 6th level, when you cast an illusion with a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can use your action to change the nature of the illusion (as if you had cast it again), provided you can see the illusion.

• 14,400 turns in a full 24 hour day. Also couldnt the simulcrum cast wish creating a 1500 gp ruby? :O – rpgstar Oct 17 '18 at 10:02
• For what it's worth, Jeremy Crawford has said that Malleable Illusions can't be used to "refresh" a simulacrum, because the spell doesn't have perceivable attributes you can set. Instead, it copies the target's attributes unconditionally, so after choosing a target, there's no further parameters that you could alter with Malleable Illusions. sageadvice.eu/2018/02/28/… – Ryan Thompson Oct 17 '18 at 16:03

Going off of RAW, it looks like this scheme would work until the generated simulacrum had only 1hp. After that, the rounding rules (PHB pg7) would require you to round down, and wind up with less than 1hp; there's nothing in the text of the Simulacrum spell which supersedes the "Round Down" rule.

For example, starting from 100HP:

You: 100 HP
S1:   50 HP
S2:   25 HP
S3:   12 HP
S4:    6 HP
S5:    3 HP
S6:    1 HP
S7:    0 HP; Dead on arrival.


So, here's a formula to determine about how many Simulacra you can create, based on your starting HP:

Log(Hp)/0.301 = Max number of simulacrum (round down).


Example (100 starting HP):

Log(100hp)/0.301 = 6.644 = 6 Simulacra.


With an impossibly "best case" scenario, let's assume a level 30 character had a maximum HP of 636:

1. 14 levels of wizard (max HP rolls at level up): 84 HP
2. 16 levels of Barbarian (max HP rolls at level up: +192 HP
3. 30 Con from level 1 (+10 bonus HP each level): +300 HP
4. "Tough" feat from level 1 (+2 HP each level): +60 HP
5. Total max HP: 636.

This would allow them to create only 9 Simulacra.

Here's a graph of the formula, showing the diminishing returns:

I'm no mathographer, so someone might be able to simply this further.

• I don't think it's reasonable to assume a level 30 character at all. Fifth edition caps at 20. That said, the DMG 230 sidebar "Alternatives to Epic Boons" allows for a (repeatable) ability score improvement capped at 30. Throw in some Manuals of Bodily health for another boost. – Joel Harmon May 8 '16 at 20:35
• It's also not reasonable to assume that a character has a CON of 30 from level 1. I was just explaining why I chose to end the graph at 650, since it's a relatively arbitrary limit. – Liesmith May 8 '16 at 20:49
• Con retroactively increases your HP. If you have +3 con and 35hp at level 3, and at level 4 take an ASI to boost your CON, you go to 49 hp, not 46. – Shem Sep 28 '17 at 18:37
• ummm all the sims will copy the caster not themselves, as long as the caster is in range, so they will all have 1/2 casters hp. – Voromir Kadien Feb 24 '18 at 5:58