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This question was provoked by a discussion in the comments of my answer to this question: What is the maximum number of Simulacra I can have? (the discussion itself has now been removed).
The wish spell text reads:
By simply speaking aloud, you can alter the very foundations of reality in accord with your desires.
Can a Simulacrum have desires? In other words, can you order the simulacrum to have a desire and thus cast wish?
I am looking primarily for RAW answers.
Though the simulacrum spell description does not state that they are mortal, they also do not state that they have no emotions. Because it does state that (emphasis mine):
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.
RAW seems to show that they do in fact have emotions, as well as stating that:
Otherwise, the illusion uses all the statistics of the creature it duplicates.
So I would assume they would be able to cast wish. However, remember they still do have that 33% chance of failing to cast wish ever again, if they cast wish to do anything other than duplicating a 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." (p. 276, PHB).
Wish is the mightiest spell a mortal1 creature can cast. (p. 288, PHB)
At first blush, being a creature it can cast the wish spell.
Is the simulacrum alive or dead? The strongest case is for alive ("partially real") but this is open to some question (see repair below). I see partially real as a condition like partially pregnant: you either are, or you aren't.
Once the spell is cast, there it is standing there in front of you, your simulacrum. It's real, and it's really there (in game reality) until dispelled or reduced to zero hit points. It acts as a creature acts.
It has the capacity for emotions (because it can be friendly) and it has life, albeit 1/2 the HP of the caster.
One of the cons to this approach is that when it takes damage, the simulacrum is repaired rather than healed.
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. (PHB, p. 276)
So while it dies, or is destroyed, when reduced to 0 HP (similar to most creatures) the simulacrum (like a door or a wall) is repaired if it has taken HP without being destroyed. Most creatures are healed of their damage/wounds. We don't see any rule that a simulacrum could be raised from being dead via the appropriate spell (reverts to snow and melts) as mortal creatures can be so that's a point against the simulacrum having a soul, and being a mortal creature rather than a thing, or an object.
A simulacrum is classified as a construct. It is made not born. (MM p. 6, Constructs). The simulacrum arises from "snow or ice in quantities sufficient to make a life sized copy of the duplicated creature." (PHB, p. 276)
Constructs are a creature type just as undead or dragon or beast is a creature type. They can be programmed automatons, or can have sentience and independent thought.
Some are programmed by their creators to follow a simple set of instructions, while others are imbued with sentience and capable of independent thought. (MM, p. 6)
Compare the simulacrum to a homunculus (a construct) in terms of relative power, strength, and complexity.
Given the level of spell that this made-not-born creature comes from (7th), and the capacity in the description for having emotions, sentience and the capacity for independent thought, ruling that it is a mortal creature and can thus cast the wish spell is reasonable and looks to have solid rules support.
The efreeti can cast the wish spell three times for you. It disappears when it grants the final wish or after 1 hour, and the bottle loses its magic.
Choosing to emphasize the made / repaired quality of the simulacrum would support a ruling against it casting the spell. The problem with that ruling is: what other spell can't it cast it if can't cast that particular spell?
1 Mortal creature: in the context of D&D 5e, souls exist as does an actual afterlife. If the in-game meaning of 'mortal' means that a creature has a soul, then a simulacrum is not a mortal creature, but it is still a creature. Given the research @pokep did for the answer on desires and mortal, that quality is not specified (though it could be assumed or inferred).
FWIW, Adventurer's League rules operate in the basis that simulacrum can cast a wish:
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. (AL, FAQ).
The text you quote is flavor text and does not hold any bearing on how the spell actually works. It does not require a mortal soul and does not require desire any more than any other spell does -- more like it requires intent. So yes, your Simulacrum could cast Wish as long as all the other requirements are met (ie: if it could cast a level 9 spell and if it knew the Wish spell).
If you're going to say that every sentence in the book is a rule, you're going to be diving into a philosophical argument on what it truly means to have a "desire" or "want", and frankly I think that's just silly and not what the rules intended when they were written that way. Much of the book is written in a way to not only describe, but also captivate and to inspire players and DMs alike, rather than reading the PHB like a car manual.
Nothing prevents a simulacrum from casting Wish in any way short of the source original creature would have had to be able to cast it either naturally (efreet pasha for example) or have it prepared at the time of the completion of the spell.
Now it would be up to the DM... would you suffer the stresses of casting the Wish that your simulacrum cast at your command? I think that would be an interesting role-play to say the least and personally I would probably impose some "stress" but not likely the full brunt of it. Since the Simulacrum can't regain slots RAW (something I don't necessarily agree with) it could, in theory be used as a proxy to cast a secondary wish each day and thereby destroy the Simulacrum in the process (something the DM could easily impose)... assuming of course you had some sort of way to keep making 17th level Wizards or Efreet Pashas each day as well :D
I just spent too much time with the SRD PDF gathering up quotes using "mortal" and "desire". Here's what I came up with:
"Desire" is used in only two spell descriptions other than wish - almost always the authors prefer "choose" or "choice". "Mortal" is used twice as an adjective in the mundane sense of "subject to death". The clear majority of uses connote something more.
To me, it sounds like the writers intended to limit the spell from being cast by simulacra and other constructs (such as might come up in later books), but didn't want to spell out a specific metaphysical test. One thought-experiment to consider here is to ask, "How else could they have written it to achieve the same result?" Any other formulation that comes to mind would sound awkward in comparison.
