Dungeon & Dragons’ new Player’s Handbook nerfs OP Wizard spell

The revised Player’s Handbook clarifies and changes one high-level Wizard spell that’s often been the subject of debate among D&D players.

Dungeons & Dragons is entering a new era with the Player’s Handbook (2024), the first of three revised core rulebooks that will be released between now and February 2025.

While still part of and compatible with all existing Fifth Edition content, the new PHB makes a slew of changes to things like classes and spells.

Notably, one seventh-level Wizard spell – Simulacrum – has been updated in a way that amounts to a major nerf.

Wizards of the Coast

Under the new rules, Simulacrum still fulfills the same basic purpose. The user can create a friendly duplicate of a Beast or Humanoid by touching both the creature and a pile of ice or snow. The simulacrum has the stats and abilities of the creature, though with half the HP and no way to level up or take rests to restore spell slots and class abilities.

While subtle, the Player’s Handbook (2024) makes one crucial change that greatly impacts the spell’s utility: Simulacrums can no longer cast the spell Simulacrum.

This new caveat closes a loophole that previously let players create infinite duplicates. While the spell text says that casting Simulacrum again immediately destroys the previous duplicate, based on the old rules, you could get around that by having a simulacrum cast it.

D&D players have long discussed the potential uses and abuses of this spell. As one commenter on D&D Beyond put it “If [you’re] in a snowy place, you could literally make anything! Get enough of it, it could become a Tarrasque!”

Even Baldur’s Gate 3 players have noted the OP nature of Simulacrum, with some suspecting that its power may have contributed to the game’s level cap.

Though the spell is somewhat balanced by its costly components (snow or ice in the size of the creature and powdered ruby worth at least 1,500 gold that’s consumed by the spell) and 12-hour casting time, it’s likely the developers never intended for it to be used to create infinite duplicates.

While discussing the rules’ revision, D&D’s designers said that many of the changes are meant to clarify the existing rules, particularly in areas that were known to cause confusion or impact game balance.

With that in mind, restricting simulacrums from casting the spell that created them makes sense, even if it may be disappointing for those Wizards hoping to make armies of duplicates.