I hate that the spell continues to allow a character who can cast this spell and has downtime can basically do an infinite money cheat without any repercussions RAW.
Yes, I know, as a DM I can disallow it to be used this way but it's annoying that the spell is unusable as written unless the character exists in a world where gold is useless or they aren't allowed sufficient downtime. It's not only bad from the PC perspective but even NPCs. The kingdom with a high level wizard has no need to collect taxes from it's citizenry since they can just literally print money.
The infinite Wish Money cheat requires two spells, both have changed in 2024. This can not be done any more.
1st step was Simulacrum, which use to be able to be spawned indefinably as the Simulacrum could cast all spells you had prepared.
New 2024 Simulacrum I marked in red the change that prevents this.
Components: V, S, M (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Until dispelled
You create a simulacrum of one Beast or Humanoid that is within 10 feet of you for the entire casting of the spell. You finish the casting by touching both the creature and a pile of ice or snow that is the same size as that creature, and the pile turns into the simulacrum, which is a creature. It uses the game statistics of the original creature at the time of casting, except it is a Construct, its Hit Point maximum is half as much, and it can’t cast this spell.
The simulacrum is Friendly to you and creatures you designate. It obeys your commands and acts on your turn in combat. The simulacrum can’t gain levels, and it can’t take Short or Long Rests.
If the simulacrum takes damage, the only way to restore its Hit Points is to repair it as you take a Long Rest, during which you expend components worth 100 GP per Hit Point restored. The simulacrum must stay within 5 feet of you for the repair.
The simulacrum lasts until it drops to 0 Hit Points, at which point it reverts to snow and melts away. If you cast this spell again, any simulacrum you created with this spell is instantly destroyed.
Wish is the mightiest spell a mortal can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality itself.
The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of level 8 or lower. If you use it this way, you don’t need to meet any requirements to cast that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect.
Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice:
Object Creation. You create one object of up to 25,000 GP in value that isn’t a magic item. The object can be no more than 300 feet in any dimension, and it appears in an unoccupied space that you can see on the ground.
Instant Health. You allow yourself and up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all Hit Points, and you end all effects on them listed in the Greater Restoration spell.
Resistance. You grant up to ten creatures that you can see Resistance to one damage type that you choose. This Resistance is permanent.
Spell Immunity. You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours.
Sudden Learning. You replace one of your feats with another feat for which you are eligible. You lose all the benefits of the old feat and gain the benefits of the new one. You can’t replace a feat that is a prerequisite for any of your other feats or features.
Roll Redo. You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any die roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a Wish spell could undo an ally’s failed saving throw or a foe’s Critical Hit. You can force the reroll to be made with Advantage or Disadvantage, and you choose whether to use the reroll or the original roll.
Reshape Reality. You may wish for something not included in any of the other effects. To do so, state your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a Legendary magic item or an Artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. If your wish is granted and its effects have consequences for a whole community, region, or world, you are likely to attract powerful foes. If your wish would affect a god, the god’s divine servants might instantly intervene to prevent it or to encourage you to craft the wish in a particular way. If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.
The stress of casting Wish to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a Long Rest, you take 1d10 Necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength score becomes 3 for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast Wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
First the money is no longer just the money... It's an item of such value, and if you as a DM run this right, vendors must 1 have a need, 2 must have the ability to buy it, and 3 will resell at the book value, so will only offer up to 50% of the suggested value, I usually start at 25% of the book value, and if they want to haggle, contested rolls against a merchant with expertise and advantage. Also most of my merchants have charm protection rings.
So the other way is to play Gennie with the DM who loves to play corrupt a wish. PC - "I wish for 100 million gold." Evil DM- "Poof you are now a pile of 100 million gold"
I mean, you can't use it the way people proposed with the exponential wizard loop. But you could absolutely combine this spell with wish to generate infinite money.
You just do the following:
Cast Simulacrum as normal providing the material components, while having wish memorized and uncast.
Have the Simulacrum cast wish to create a ruby worth 25,000 or if possible a golden crown that features 16 rubies each worth 1,500 gp each, for convenience.
Rinse and repeat as needed using the item created to acquire the 1,500 gp worth of ruby powder required per casting of simulacrum.
It doesn't matter if the copy loses the ability to cast wish, strictly speaking, your character is never actually casting the spell themself. This basically lets you stockpile a bunch of wish spells for whatever you end up needing them for with no stress placed upon the original wizard.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
I don't understand. Gemstones are money, even in 5th edition. Look at the item Amethyst. It is literally worth 100gp and it costs 100gp to buy it because that's how much it's worth. You would actually have the opposite problem, inflation would shoot through the roof as everyone is suddenly swimming in currency causing the currency its self to lose value. The only person not to suffer from the crumbling economy is the bastard that keeps wishing for gem stones or silver bars or whatever else the economy has switched to this week.
Going back to the amethyst. Say my fighter wants to purchase a suit of Plate armor. So, they go to the local armorer and they will sell my fighter such armor at a fair market price of 1,500gp. So my fighter tells the blacksmith. "would you be ok accepting 15 amethyst gem stones? that are worth 100gp each?" Assuming the blacksmith is able to confirm that the gems my fighter is offering are legitimately worth 100gp each they have no reason not to accept them in exchange for the armor. No actual coins were involved and the blacksmith probably purchases materials in bulk that they can exchange those gems for whatever they need. The character may run out of things to purchase, but they'll never lose the ability to pay for whatever anyone wants to sell to them.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
I don't understand. Gemstones are money, even in 5th edition. Look at the item Amethyst. It is literally worth 100gp and it costs 100gp to buy it because that's how much it's worth. You would actually have the opposite problem, inflation would shoot through the roof as everyone is suddenly swimming in currency causing the currency its self to lose value. The only person not to suffer from the crumbling economy is the bastard that keeps wishing for gem stones or silver bars or whatever else the economy has switched to this week.
Going back to the amethyst. Say my fighter wants to purchase a suit of Plate armor. So, they go to the local armorer and they will sell my fighter such armor at a fair market price of 1,500gp. So my fighter tells the blacksmith. "would you be ok accepting 15 amethyst gem stones? that are worth 100gp each?" Assuming the blacksmith is able to confirm that the gems my fighter is offering are legitimately worth 100gp each they have no reason not to accept them in exchange for the armor. No actual coins were involved and the blacksmith probably purchases materials in bulk that they can exchange those gems for whatever they need. The character may run out of things to purchase, but they'll never lose the ability to pay for whatever anyone wants to sell to them.
Gemstones are not money; they're a valuable commodity. You can try and barter with them, but really they're of limited value for barter- they're not useful in and of themselves the way food, clothes, or tools are so their only value to someone who doesn't trade in them is to then sell them on to someone who does. If you're just yet another tier one or two adventurer bringing in a handful of low value stones for a specific item a barter model holds up, but if you're dumping thousands upon thousands of gold worth of them into the market then, once again, the market gluts because the supply has completely eclipsed the demand and people aren't going to take them in trade because they won't be able to get rid of them for something they can actually use. Even if you say your hypothetical blacksmith is also a jeweler, they're only going to want so much material at a time, particularly high value material that might not sell quickly. Gems converting 1:1 to gold value is just simplifying the payout bookkeeping for stuff the party is almost always only going to want to sell rather than buy, not an absolute law that anyone and everyone must accept them for their given value in any transaction.
TLDR: Once you're talking 5+ figures of gold, a DM definitely has fiat to pump the economic brakes and say only so much material can be converted into currency within a given window.
I hate that the spell continues to allow a character who can cast this spell and has downtime can basically do an infinite money cheat without any repercussions RAW.
Yes, I know, as a DM I can disallow it to be used this way but it's annoying that the spell is unusable as written unless the character exists in a world where gold is useless or they aren't allowed sufficient downtime. It's not only bad from the PC perspective but even NPCs. The kingdom with a high level wizard has no need to collect taxes from it's citizenry since they can just literally print money.
The infinite Wish Money cheat requires two spells, both have changed in 2024. This can not be done any more.
1st step was Simulacrum, which use to be able to be spawned indefinably as the Simulacrum could cast all spells you had prepared.
New 2024 Simulacrum I marked in red the change that prevents this.
Components: V, S, M (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Until dispelled
You create a simulacrum of one Beast or Humanoid that is within 10 feet of you for the entire casting of the spell. You finish the casting by touching both the creature and a pile of ice or snow that is the same size as that creature, and the pile turns into the simulacrum, which is a creature. It uses the game statistics of the original creature at the time of casting, except it is a Construct, its Hit Point maximum is half as much, and it can’t cast this spell.
The simulacrum is Friendly to you and creatures you designate. It obeys your commands and acts on your turn in combat. The simulacrum can’t gain levels, and it can’t take Short or Long Rests.
If the simulacrum takes damage, the only way to restore its Hit Points is to repair it as you take a Long Rest, during which you expend components worth 100 GP per Hit Point restored. The simulacrum must stay within 5 feet of you for the repair.
The simulacrum lasts until it drops to 0 Hit Points, at which point it reverts to snow and melts away. If you cast this spell again, any simulacrum you created with this spell is instantly destroyed.
Wish is the mightiest spell a mortal can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality itself.
The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of level 8 or lower. If you use it this way, you don’t need to meet any requirements to cast that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect.
Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice:
Object Creation. You create one object of up to 25,000 GP in value that isn’t a magic item. The object can be no more than 300 feet in any dimension, and it appears in an unoccupied space that you can see on the ground.
Instant Health. You allow yourself and up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all Hit Points, and you end all effects on them listed in the Greater Restoration spell.
Resistance. You grant up to ten creatures that you can see Resistance to one damage type that you choose. This Resistance is permanent.
Spell Immunity. You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours.
Sudden Learning. You replace one of your feats with another feat for which you are eligible. You lose all the benefits of the old feat and gain the benefits of the new one. You can’t replace a feat that is a prerequisite for any of your other feats or features.
Roll Redo. You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any die roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a Wish spell could undo an ally’s failed saving throw or a foe’s Critical Hit. You can force the reroll to be made with Advantage or Disadvantage, and you choose whether to use the reroll or the original roll.
Reshape Reality. You may wish for something not included in any of the other effects. To do so, state your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might be achieved only in part, or you might suffer an unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a Legendary magic item or an Artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. If your wish is granted and its effects have consequences for a whole community, region, or world, you are likely to attract powerful foes. If your wish would affect a god, the god’s divine servants might instantly intervene to prevent it or to encourage you to craft the wish in a particular way. If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.
The stress of casting Wish to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a Long Rest, you take 1d10 Necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength score becomes 3 for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast Wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
First the money is no longer just the money... It's an item of such value, and if you as a DM run this right, vendors must 1 have a need, 2 must have the ability to buy it, and 3 will resell at the book value, so will only offer up to 50% of the suggested value, I usually start at 25% of the book value, and if they want to haggle, contested rolls against a merchant with expertise and advantage. Also most of my merchants have charm protection rings.
So the other way is to play Gennie with the DM who loves to play corrupt a wish. PC - "I wish for 100 million gold." Evil DM- "Poof you are now a pile of 100 million gold"
I mean, you can't use it the way people proposed with the exponential wizard loop. But you could absolutely combine this spell with wish to generate infinite money.
You just do the following:
Cast Simulacrum as normal providing the material components, while having wish memorized and uncast.
Have the Simulacrum cast wish to create a ruby worth 25,000 or if possible a golden crown that features 16 rubies each worth 1,500 gp each, for convenience.
Rinse and repeat as needed using the item created to acquire the 1,500 gp worth of ruby powder required per casting of simulacrum.
It doesn't matter if the copy loses the ability to cast wish, strictly speaking, your character is never actually casting the spell themself. This basically lets you stockpile a bunch of wish spells for whatever you end up needing them for with no stress placed upon the original wizard.
Ok you have a ruby or crown worth a bunch of gold, more than one, spend a week or two making a bunch of them.
As a reminder, level 9 spell means you are at least a level 17 wizard, who regularly has to pay out of pocket to cast spells. Simulacrum costs a minimum of * - (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
So let break this down, and how I as a DM run this. You as a Wizard will have to either take Simulacrum when leveling, at the cost of other more useful spells, or find the scroll (No free spells... and it can only be purchased at specialty shops in Wizard focused communities, and the spell scrolls will be at least double the cost of the listed book price (Economics 101 'supply and demand')
So you avoid taking combat useful spells (good luck getting those for less than 1 million gold) ok you have both Wish and Simulacrum.
Spend 3000 gold a day making Simulacrum (Once again, the cost of Ruby dust increases each time you buy it, I usually raise the price by 500 gold per purchase.)
Cast wish get a 25,000 GP value item (doesn't matter what) hopefully you are in a city where you can sell it, because most towns wont have anyone who can buy such an item. Bring a crown like that to small village traveling merchant, they'll offer you 100 gold for it if they have 100 gold. So you are in a city, day one you find a merchant willing to buy it, they will offer you 6250 gold. You can try and use Persuasion to get more, on a contested roll note all my vendors are Eloquence Bards with 22 in chr expertise in Persuasion, and a charm protection ring.
Say you get lucky nat 20 and I roll a 1. Grats you got the max possible for it 12500, next day you go to the same guy... "sorry don't have the gold for that kind of purchase, I need to sell what I purchased before I can afford to do that again."
So now you need to investigate merchants able and willing, ... btw, I usually roll a d10 to see how many vendors can do that kind of transaction per city. Also, I will roll a percent chance for rumors to spread around the city that you are off loading high value merchandise. So high level thieves and local law enforcement will be investigating you if I roll high. (Note I will use my lucky dice for this)
So now you have sold three items it took you 2 weeks, you have 5 level 20 thieves, 4 level 19 assassins, and a squad of 10 level 20 paladins looking for you.
So do you risk staying in the city, or trying the next one up the coast.
While traveling an ancient Black Dragon has decided to take the treasure you have. It's army of minions are all level 20.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
I don't understand. Gemstones are money, even in 5th edition. Look at the item Amethyst. It is literally worth 100gp and it costs 100gp to buy it because that's how much it's worth. You would actually have the opposite problem, inflation would shoot through the roof as everyone is suddenly swimming in currency causing the currency its self to lose value. The only person not to suffer from the crumbling economy is the bastard that keeps wishing for gem stones or silver bars or whatever else the economy has switched to this week.
Going back to the amethyst. Say my fighter wants to purchase a suit of Plate armor. So, they go to the local armorer and they will sell my fighter such armor at a fair market price of 1,500gp. So my fighter tells the blacksmith. "would you be ok accepting 15 amethyst gem stones? that are worth 100gp each?" Assuming the blacksmith is able to confirm that the gems my fighter is offering are legitimately worth 100gp each they have no reason not to accept them in exchange for the armor. No actual coins were involved and the blacksmith probably purchases materials in bulk that they can exchange those gems for whatever they need. The character may run out of things to purchase, but they'll never lose the ability to pay for whatever anyone wants to sell to them.
Gemstones are not money; they're a valuable commodity. You can try and barter with them, but really they're of limited value for barter- they're not useful in and of themselves the way food, clothes, or tools are so their only value to someone who doesn't trade in them is to then sell them on to someone who does. If you're just yet another tier one or two adventurer bringing in a handful of low value stones for a specific item a barter model holds up, but if you're dumping thousands upon thousands of gold worth of them into the market then, once again, the market gluts because the supply has completely eclipsed the demand and people aren't going to take them in trade because they won't be able to get rid of them for something they can actually use. Even if you say your hypothetical blacksmith is also a jeweler, they're only going to want so much material at a time, particularly high value material that might not sell quickly. Gems converting 1:1 to gold value is just simplifying the payout bookkeeping for stuff the party is almost always only going to want to sell rather than buy, not an absolute law that anyone and everyone must accept them for their given value in any transaction.
TLDR: Once you're talking 5+ figures of gold, a DM definitely has fiat to pump the economic brakes and say only so much material can be converted into currency within a given window.
from the PHB Wealth Section "Wealth appears in many forms in a D&D world. Coins, gemstones, trade goods, art objects, animals, and property can reflect your character’s financial well-being. Members of the peasantry trade in goods, bartering for what they need and paying taxes in grain and cheese.
Members of the nobility trade either in legal rights, such as the rights to a mine, a port, or farmland, or in gold bars, measuring gold by the pound rather than by the coin. Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins."
....
"Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects. These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first."
So, bartering is actually considered the norm in standard D&D setting and gemstones and trade goods can absolutely be exchanged for goods and services directly. This is especially useful when there may not otherwise be sufficient coinage to deal with the transaction in question. In fact, the rules even state that once you are getting into nobility level purchases coinage isn't good enough. You need to use trade goods such as gold bars instead of coins.
It'd be ideal if they'd closed this loophole, but house ruling it out is pretty easy and barely a stretch from the written rules: if someone's simulacrum loses the ability to cast Wish, no amount of re-creating it will give that ability back.
"Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects. These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first."
So, bartering is actually considered the norm in standard D&D setting and gemstones and trade goods can absolutely be exchanged for goods and services directly. This is especially useful when there may not otherwise be sufficient coinage to deal with the transaction in question. In fact, the rules even state that once you are getting into nobility level purchases coinage isn't good enough. You need to use trade goods such as gold bars instead of coins.
Just a FYI
using the 2024 version of this
Being the Dungeon Master
If you want to be the mastermind of the game, consider being the DM. Here’s what DMs do:
Build Adventures. You prepare the adventures that the players experience. In the Dungeon Master’s Guide, you’ll find advice for how to create adventures and even whole worlds.
Guide the Story. You narrate much of the action during play, describing locations and creatures that the adventurers face. The players decide what their characters do as they navigate hazards and choose what to explore. Then you use a combination of imagination and the game’s rules to determine the results of the adventurers’ decisions.
Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun.
As a DM, if you are using Wish to get material components, which is the intended use of the spell, I wont do a thing. In fact I ignore most mundane player specific things, so I can focus on the story and combat. But... if you try and exploit a game system, as a DM I will adjust the rules to for the benefit of the story and game play. You want to cast a bunch of wish spells to try and generate infinite wealth guess what no city has enough wealth to do this, and magically created valuable items are considered counterfeit, and the local government will send paladins of high level after you, plus the criminal networks and evil dragons will want what you have.
If you just trade the magical stuff for material components, or even useful things like spell scrolls 1:1, but for gold and exploits Economics 101 come into play, and I start at 1/4 value and will negotiate to 1/2 value once per vendor. (Plus I make all vendors eloquence bards with charm rings and 22 chr mostly to counter players trying to exploit the game)
As a DM it is up to you to shut down any and all exploits that can ruin the game for everyone at the table, as there is always that one guy who will try and abuse the rules for an advantage that is outside the intended use. Or and this one I hate, they try and use badly understood physics to make an impossible idea possible. (ie the commoner rail gun), or using ice to break a DC15 lock.
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Note: In a 3.5 era game, my party faced down a kaiju, well specifically I was using a Godzilla model andit was facing off against an army from the enemy empire , the story beat was the party had to steal something from a cave that the kaiju slept in, they were suppose to sneak in and out avoiding both the army and kaiju... instead... the party helped the kaiju decimate the army, and then they used a wish spell item given to them by the deity who sent them on the quest to befriend the kaiju and add it to the party. ... Instead of getting a full sized Godzilla, they ended up getting a people sized Godzilla with a catlike personality. ((I had to spend a week making stats for it. It started off with beefed up tarrasque stats and ended up with grizzly meets dragonborn))
Ok you have a ruby or crown worth a bunch of gold, more than one, spend a week or two making a bunch of them.
As a reminder, level 9 spell means you are at least a level 17 wizard, who regularly has to pay out of pocket to cast spells. Simulacrum costs a minimum of * - (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
So let break this down, and how I as a DM run this. You as a Wizard will have to either take Simulacrum when leveling, at the cost of other more useful spells, or find the scroll (No free spells... and it can only be purchased at specialty shops in Wizard focused communities, and the spell scrolls will be at least double the cost of the listed book price (Economics 101 'supply and demand')
So you avoid taking combat useful spells (good luck getting those for less than 1 million gold) ok you have both Wish and Simulacrum.
Spend 3000 gold a day making Simulacrum (Once again, the cost of Ruby dust increases each time you buy it, I usually raise the price by 500 gold per purchase.)
Cast wish get a 25,000 GP value item (doesn't matter what) hopefully you are in a city where you can sell it, because most towns wont have anyone who can buy such an item. Bring a crown like that to small village traveling merchant, they'll offer you 100 gold for it if they have 100 gold. So you are in a city, day one you find a merchant willing to buy it, they will offer you 6250 gold. You can try and use Persuasion to get more, on a contested roll note all my vendors are Eloquence Bards with 22 in chr expertise in Persuasion, and a charm protection ring.
Say you get lucky nat 20 and I roll a 1. Grats you got the max possible for it 12500, next day you go to the same guy... "sorry don't have the gold for that kind of purchase, I need to sell what I purchased before I can afford to do that again."
So now you need to investigate merchants able and willing, ... btw, I usually roll a d10 to see how many vendors can do that kind of transaction per city. Also, I will roll a percent chance for rumors to spread around the city that you are off loading high value merchandise. So high level thieves and local law enforcement will be investigating you if I roll high. (Note I will use my lucky dice for this)
So now you have sold three items it took you 2 weeks, you have 5 level 20 thieves, 4 level 19 assassins, and a squad of 10 level 20 paladins looking for you.
So do you risk staying in the city, or trying the next one up the coast.
While traveling an ancient Black Dragon has decided to take the treasure you have. It's army of minions are all level 20.
What do you do next?
I don't follow your costs.
Simulacrum costs 1,500 gp worth of ruby dust to cast.
So I go to the store and buy 1,500 gp worth of ruby dust, which costs me.... 1,500gp.
I use that dust to cast the spell and get my 1st free wish.
I cast the spell and get a ruby worth 25,000gp.
Now, I grind this into dust, using either conventional methods or perhaps the fabricate spell
Either way I now have 25,000 gp worth of ruby dust
I divide this into 16 portions and have some leftover (1,00gp worth), which I throw away or spend or whatever.
I now have 16 bags that each contain 1,500gp.
If I want to over the next 16 days i could cast simulacrum each day using said gem dust
I now have 16 simulacrum that are capable of casting wish.
I could have half of them make me new gems which I then convert to dust
I now have 8 wish spells and 200,000 gp worth of ruby dust for additional castings of Simulacrum.
All for the low low cost of visiting a merchant exactly once and buying the dust from them for the initial casting.
Now to start buying things. I think I'll start by commissioning the construction of 10 airships. A single airship costs 40,000 gold and will obviously take some time to construct. Lets say I get ripped off and the person building my air ships for me is charging me 500,000 gold for the 10 airships (a markup of 100k gold, when realistically buying in bulk should get me a discount). Also, they will not accept gems. They insist on being paid in gold bars as per the wealth section in the PHB, since IMO this is getting into the realm of purchases that a noble might make.
So, I go back to my tower and spend the next 20 days creating simulacrum and having them cast wish. But this time I have each of them create a block of gold worth 25,000gp. A gold coin which is worth 1 gold weighs 0.02 lbs. So, my block of gold that's worth 25,000 gold should weigh approximately 500 pounds. A gold coin has a volume of about 0.47 cubic centimeters. Multiplying this by 25,000 gives us volume of just under 0.5 cubic feet. This is well below the size limitation of the wish spell in that the object created can't be more than 300 feet in any one dimension. I then use the fabricate spell to convert this into gold bars. This gives me 500,000 gp worth of gold bars that I can now hand over to have my fleet of airships built. With extra wish spells in my back pocket to deal with any issues I may encounter.
I have visited 1 merchant to purchase 1,500gp worth of dust and then delivered a bunch of gold bars to a shipwright (37 days after the initial dust purchase) whom I've commissioned to make me a bunch of airships. At this point I may draw attention to myself but I have not even begun to flood the market with gold or gems and can still easily have a castle constructed and/or raise an army using the same method that i used to get the fleet of airships. if I feel that I am in danger of being attacked by high level creatures then I could spend one of my wishes to have knowledge of them and then a few more to find out what kind of defenses I would need to adequately protect myself from them. I then use money and/or more wishes to enact those countermeasures.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
I don't understand. Gemstones are money, even in 5th edition. Look at the item Amethyst. It is literally worth 100gp and it costs 100gp to buy it because that's how much it's worth. You would actually have the opposite problem, inflation would shoot through the roof as everyone is suddenly swimming in currency causing the currency its self to lose value. The only person not to suffer from the crumbling economy is the bastard that keeps wishing for gem stones or silver bars or whatever else the economy has switched to this week.
Going back to the amethyst. Say my fighter wants to purchase a suit of Plate armor. So, they go to the local armorer and they will sell my fighter such armor at a fair market price of 1,500gp. So my fighter tells the blacksmith. "would you be ok accepting 15 amethyst gem stones? that are worth 100gp each?" Assuming the blacksmith is able to confirm that the gems my fighter is offering are legitimately worth 100gp each they have no reason not to accept them in exchange for the armor. No actual coins were involved and the blacksmith probably purchases materials in bulk that they can exchange those gems for whatever they need. The character may run out of things to purchase, but they'll never lose the ability to pay for whatever anyone wants to sell to them.
Gemstones are not money; they're a valuable commodity. You can try and barter with them, but really they're of limited value for barter- they're not useful in and of themselves the way food, clothes, or tools are so their only value to someone who doesn't trade in them is to then sell them on to someone who does. If you're just yet another tier one or two adventurer bringing in a handful of low value stones for a specific item a barter model holds up, but if you're dumping thousands upon thousands of gold worth of them into the market then, once again, the market gluts because the supply has completely eclipsed the demand and people aren't going to take them in trade because they won't be able to get rid of them for something they can actually use. Even if you say your hypothetical blacksmith is also a jeweler, they're only going to want so much material at a time, particularly high value material that might not sell quickly. Gems converting 1:1 to gold value is just simplifying the payout bookkeeping for stuff the party is almost always only going to want to sell rather than buy, not an absolute law that anyone and everyone must accept them for their given value in any transaction.
TLDR: Once you're talking 5+ figures of gold, a DM definitely has fiat to pump the economic brakes and say only so much material can be converted into currency within a given window.
from the PHB Wealth Section "Wealth appears in many forms in a D&D world. Coins, gemstones, trade goods, art objects, animals, and property can reflect your character’s financial well-being. Members of the peasantry trade in goods, bartering for what they need and paying taxes in grain and cheese.
Members of the nobility trade either in legal rights, such as the rights to a mine, a port, or farmland, or in gold bars, measuring gold by the pound rather than by the coin. Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins."
....
"Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects. These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first."
So, bartering is actually considered the norm in standard D&D setting and gemstones and trade goods can absolutely be exchanged for goods and services directly. This is especially useful when there may not otherwise be sufficient coinage to deal with the transaction in question. In fact, the rules even state that once you are getting into nobility level purchases coinage isn't good enough. You need to use trade goods such as gold bars instead of coins.
From the section you just quoted: "For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first." I'd say a cache of gems clocking in at 5 figures qualifies as "exceptionally valuable", at which point it's DM's discretion if you can find someone to liquidate it into spendable currency. I very specifically acknowledged that for typical transactions bartering gems is fine, but you've literally shown that- in addition to common sense providing guidance on throttling players attempting cash exploits- the DMG expressly says a DM can throttle large scale cash conversions.
Ok you have a ruby or crown worth a bunch of gold, more than one, spend a week or two making a bunch of them.
As a reminder, level 9 spell means you are at least a level 17 wizard, who regularly has to pay out of pocket to cast spells. Simulacrum costs a minimum of * - (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
So let break this down, and how I as a DM run this. You as a Wizard will have to either take Simulacrum when leveling, at the cost of other more useful spells, or find the scroll (No free spells... and it can only be purchased at specialty shops in Wizard focused communities, and the spell scrolls will be at least double the cost of the listed book price (Economics 101 'supply and demand')
So you avoid taking combat useful spells (good luck getting those for less than 1 million gold) ok you have both Wish and Simulacrum.
Spend 3000 gold a day making Simulacrum (Once again, the cost of Ruby dust increases each time you buy it, I usually raise the price by 500 gold per purchase.)
Cast wish get a 25,000 GP value item (doesn't matter what) hopefully you are in a city where you can sell it, because most towns wont have anyone who can buy such an item. Bring a crown like that to small village traveling merchant, they'll offer you 100 gold for it if they have 100 gold. So you are in a city, day one you find a merchant willing to buy it, they will offer you 6250 gold. You can try and use Persuasion to get more, on a contested roll note all my vendors are Eloquence Bards with 22 in chr expertise in Persuasion, and a charm protection ring.
Say you get lucky nat 20 and I roll a 1. Grats you got the max possible for it 12500, next day you go to the same guy... "sorry don't have the gold for that kind of purchase, I need to sell what I purchased before I can afford to do that again."
So now you need to investigate merchants able and willing, ... btw, I usually roll a d10 to see how many vendors can do that kind of transaction per city. Also, I will roll a percent chance for rumors to spread around the city that you are off loading high value merchandise. So high level thieves and local law enforcement will be investigating you if I roll high. (Note I will use my lucky dice for this)
So now you have sold three items it took you 2 weeks, you have 5 level 20 thieves, 4 level 19 assassins, and a squad of 10 level 20 paladins looking for you.
So do you risk staying in the city, or trying the next one up the coast.
While traveling an ancient Black Dragon has decided to take the treasure you have. It's army of minions are all level 20.
What do you do next?
I don't follow your costs.
Simulacrum costs 1,500 gp worth of ruby dust to cast.
So I go to the store and buy 1,500 gp worth of ruby dust, which costs me.... 1,500gp.
I use that dust to cast the spell and get my 1st free wish.
I cast the spell and get a ruby worth 25,000gp.
Now, I grind this into dust, using either conventional methods or perhaps the fabricate spell
Either way I now have 25,000 gp worth of ruby dust
I divide this into 16 portions and have some leftover (1,00gp worth), which I throw away or spend or whatever.
I now have 16 bags that each contain 1,500gp.
If I want to over the next 16 days i could cast simulacrum each day using said gem dust
I now have 16 simulacrum that are capable of casting wish.
I could have half of them make me new gems which I then convert to dust
I now have 8 wish spells and 200,000 gp worth of ruby dust for additional castings of Simulacrum.
All for the low low cost of visiting a merchant exactly once and buying the dust from them for the initial casting.
Now to start buying things. I think I'll start by commissioning the construction of 10 airships. A single airship costs 40,000 gold and will obviously take some time to construct. Lets say I get ripped off and the person building my air ships for me is charging me 500,000 gold for the 10 airships (a markup of 100k gold, when realistically buying in bulk should get me a discount). Also, they will not accept gems. They insist on being paid in gold bars as per the wealth section in the PHB, since IMO this is getting into the realm of purchases that a noble might make.
So, I go back to my tower and spend the next 20 days creating simulacrum and having them cast wish. But this time I have each of them create a block of gold worth 25,000gp. A gold coin which is worth 1 gold weighs 0.02 lbs. So, my block of gold that's worth 25,000 gold should weigh approximately 500 pounds. A gold coin has a volume of about 0.47 cubic centimeters. Multiplying this by 25,000 gives us volume of just under 0.5 cubic feet. This is well below the size limitation of the wish spell in that the object created can't be more than 300 feet in any one dimension. I then use the fabricate spell to convert this into gold bars. This gives me 500,000 gp worth of gold bars that I can now hand over to have my fleet of airships built. With extra wish spells in my back pocket to deal with any issues I may encounter.
I have visited 1 merchant to purchase 1,500gp worth of dust and then delivered a bunch of gold bars to a shipwright (37 days after the initial dust purchase) whom I've commissioned to make me a bunch of airships. At this point I may draw attention to myself but I have not even begun to flood the market with gold or gems and can still easily have a castle constructed and/or raise an army using the same method that i used to get the fleet of airships. if I feel that I am in danger of being attacked by high level creatures then I could spend one of my wishes to have knowledge of them and then a few more to find out what kind of defenses I would need to adequately protect myself from them. I then use money and/or more wishes to enact those countermeasures.
For starters, finding a place where you can commission a single Airship is going to be rather troublesome, as those are setting specific, and can take more than a year to make, so making a fleet of them outside a setting with them, is not possible, and if you are in a setting with them and try and do this the government will check up on you.
Also 12th level detect magic inside cities will always ping when a 7th or higher level spell is cast, so your tower needs to be outside of the city.
A way to skirt max level 9 magic is to do them ritually with lots of high level wizards, most cities have defensive magic to protect from Dragons, Liches, and other high level magic users. This is in most cities in the Forgotten Realms, Waterdeep had to make an exception for a couple of silver dragons and Dragonborn to enter city limits.
Next issue as a DM, most campaigns end before this point. But say we get there, and you a wizard want a Wizards tower... be prepared to spend too much gold to start with. So by the time you can do this you have already spent millions in gold just getting a place to try and exploit the system. Then you have to ignore the actual story for gods knows how long... just to try and finagle a way to exploit an economy that wont have the resources to justify what you are trying to do, and for what end? By the time you did this the evil god you were suppose to kill to save the world from destruction has completed its machinations and the world is on fire and all the civilians are dead. But hey you have an army of simulacrum which need to be feed.
--
edit: side note, at the end of my campaigns I usually reward each character with about a million gold, so the player can retire the character write an 'off to the sunset happily ever after', and then we start a new campaign, and if lucky those characters can have a cameo appearance.
My current party of players are level 11, and we have 4 sessions at most left. I'll level them to 12 for the final event, and then they get the happily ever after. (Although I suspect the Bard will be rolling on the permeant madness table)
I mean, you can't use it the way people proposed with the exponential wizard loop. But you could absolutely combine this spell with wish to generate infinite money.
You just do the following:
It doesn't matter if the copy loses the ability to cast wish, strictly speaking, your character is never actually casting the spell themself. This basically lets you stockpile a bunch of wish spells for whatever you end up needing them for with no stress placed upon the original wizard.
Again, though, the easy DM counter to anyone trying to really hack instant money is just to bring in some real-life economics; there's only so much liquid currency in the market at any given time, so if someone keeps trying to sell high ticket stuff they'll glut the market and no one will be buying.
I don't understand. Gemstones are money, even in 5th edition. Look at the item Amethyst. It is literally worth 100gp and it costs 100gp to buy it because that's how much it's worth. You would actually have the opposite problem, inflation would shoot through the roof as everyone is suddenly swimming in currency causing the currency its self to lose value. The only person not to suffer from the crumbling economy is the bastard that keeps wishing for gem stones or silver bars or whatever else the economy has switched to this week.
Going back to the amethyst. Say my fighter wants to purchase a suit of Plate armor. So, they go to the local armorer and they will sell my fighter such armor at a fair market price of 1,500gp. So my fighter tells the blacksmith. "would you be ok accepting 15 amethyst gem stones? that are worth 100gp each?" Assuming the blacksmith is able to confirm that the gems my fighter is offering are legitimately worth 100gp each they have no reason not to accept them in exchange for the armor. No actual coins were involved and the blacksmith probably purchases materials in bulk that they can exchange those gems for whatever they need. The character may run out of things to purchase, but they'll never lose the ability to pay for whatever anyone wants to sell to them.
Gemstones are not money; they're a valuable commodity. You can try and barter with them, but really they're of limited value for barter- they're not useful in and of themselves the way food, clothes, or tools are so their only value to someone who doesn't trade in them is to then sell them on to someone who does. If you're just yet another tier one or two adventurer bringing in a handful of low value stones for a specific item a barter model holds up, but if you're dumping thousands upon thousands of gold worth of them into the market then, once again, the market gluts because the supply has completely eclipsed the demand and people aren't going to take them in trade because they won't be able to get rid of them for something they can actually use. Even if you say your hypothetical blacksmith is also a jeweler, they're only going to want so much material at a time, particularly high value material that might not sell quickly. Gems converting 1:1 to gold value is just simplifying the payout bookkeeping for stuff the party is almost always only going to want to sell rather than buy, not an absolute law that anyone and everyone must accept them for their given value in any transaction.
TLDR: Once you're talking 5+ figures of gold, a DM definitely has fiat to pump the economic brakes and say only so much material can be converted into currency within a given window.
Ok you have a ruby or crown worth a bunch of gold, more than one, spend a week or two making a bunch of them.
As a reminder, level 9 spell means you are at least a level 17 wizard, who regularly has to pay out of pocket to cast spells. Simulacrum costs a minimum of * - (powdered ruby worth 1,500+ GP, which the spell consumes)
So let break this down, and how I as a DM run this. You as a Wizard will have to either take Simulacrum when leveling, at the cost of other more useful spells, or find the scroll (No free spells... and it can only be purchased at specialty shops in Wizard focused communities, and the spell scrolls will be at least double the cost of the listed book price (Economics 101 'supply and demand')
So you avoid taking combat useful spells (good luck getting those for less than 1 million gold) ok you have both Wish and Simulacrum.
Spend 3000 gold a day making Simulacrum (Once again, the cost of Ruby dust increases each time you buy it, I usually raise the price by 500 gold per purchase.)
Cast wish get a 25,000 GP value item (doesn't matter what) hopefully you are in a city where you can sell it, because most towns wont have anyone who can buy such an item. Bring a crown like that to small village traveling merchant, they'll offer you 100 gold for it if they have 100 gold. So you are in a city, day one you find a merchant willing to buy it, they will offer you 6250 gold. You can try and use Persuasion to get more, on a contested roll note all my vendors are Eloquence Bards with 22 in chr expertise in Persuasion, and a charm protection ring.
Say you get lucky nat 20 and I roll a 1. Grats you got the max possible for it 12500, next day you go to the same guy... "sorry don't have the gold for that kind of purchase, I need to sell what I purchased before I can afford to do that again."
So now you need to investigate merchants able and willing, ... btw, I usually roll a d10 to see how many vendors can do that kind of transaction per city. Also, I will roll a percent chance for rumors to spread around the city that you are off loading high value merchandise. So high level thieves and local law enforcement will be investigating you if I roll high. (Note I will use my lucky dice for this)
So now you have sold three items it took you 2 weeks, you have 5 level 20 thieves, 4 level 19 assassins, and a squad of 10 level 20 paladins looking for you.
So do you risk staying in the city, or trying the next one up the coast.
While traveling an ancient Black Dragon has decided to take the treasure you have. It's army of minions are all level 20.
What do you do next?
from the PHB Wealth Section
"Wealth appears in many forms in a D&D world. Coins, gemstones, trade goods, art objects, animals, and property can reflect your character’s financial well-being. Members of the peasantry trade in goods, bartering for what they need and paying taxes in grain and cheese.
Members of the nobility trade either in legal rights, such as the rights to a mine, a port, or farmland, or in gold bars, measuring gold by the pound rather than by the coin. Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins."
....
"Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects. These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first."
So, bartering is actually considered the norm in standard D&D setting and gemstones and trade goods can absolutely be exchanged for goods and services directly. This is especially useful when there may not otherwise be sufficient coinage to deal with the transaction in question. In fact, the rules even state that once you are getting into nobility level purchases coinage isn't good enough. You need to use trade goods such as gold bars instead of coins.
It'd be ideal if they'd closed this loophole, but house ruling it out is pretty easy and barely a stretch from the written rules: if someone's simulacrum loses the ability to cast Wish, no amount of re-creating it will give that ability back.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Just a FYI
using the 2024 version of this
As a DM, if you are using Wish to get material components, which is the intended use of the spell, I wont do a thing. In fact I ignore most mundane player specific things, so I can focus on the story and combat. But... if you try and exploit a game system, as a DM I will adjust the rules to for the benefit of the story and game play. You want to cast a bunch of wish spells to try and generate infinite wealth guess what no city has enough wealth to do this, and magically created valuable items are considered counterfeit, and the local government will send paladins of high level after you, plus the criminal networks and evil dragons will want what you have.
If you just trade the magical stuff for material components, or even useful things like spell scrolls 1:1, but for gold and exploits Economics 101 come into play, and I start at 1/4 value and will negotiate to 1/2 value once per vendor. (Plus I make all vendors eloquence bards with charm rings and 22 chr mostly to counter players trying to exploit the game)
As a DM it is up to you to shut down any and all exploits that can ruin the game for everyone at the table, as there is always that one guy who will try and abuse the rules for an advantage that is outside the intended use. Or and this one I hate, they try and use badly understood physics to make an impossible idea possible. (ie the commoner rail gun), or using ice to break a DC15 lock.
---
Note: In a 3.5 era game, my party faced down a kaiju, well specifically I was using a Godzilla model andit was facing off against an army from the enemy empire , the story beat was the party had to steal something from a cave that the kaiju slept in, they were suppose to sneak in and out avoiding both the army and kaiju... instead... the party helped the kaiju decimate the army, and then they used a wish spell item given to them by the deity who sent them on the quest to befriend the kaiju and add it to the party. ... Instead of getting a full sized Godzilla, they ended up getting a people sized Godzilla with a catlike personality. ((I had to spend a week making stats for it. It started off with beefed up tarrasque stats and ended up with grizzly meets dragonborn))
I don't follow your costs.
Simulacrum costs 1,500 gp worth of ruby dust to cast.
All for the low low cost of visiting a merchant exactly once and buying the dust from them for the initial casting.
Now to start buying things. I think I'll start by commissioning the construction of 10 airships. A single airship costs 40,000 gold and will obviously take some time to construct. Lets say I get ripped off and the person building my air ships for me is charging me 500,000 gold for the 10 airships (a markup of 100k gold, when realistically buying in bulk should get me a discount). Also, they will not accept gems. They insist on being paid in gold bars as per the wealth section in the PHB, since IMO this is getting into the realm of purchases that a noble might make.
So, I go back to my tower and spend the next 20 days creating simulacrum and having them cast wish. But this time I have each of them create a block of gold worth 25,000gp. A gold coin which is worth 1 gold weighs 0.02 lbs. So, my block of gold that's worth 25,000 gold should weigh approximately 500 pounds. A gold coin has a volume of about 0.47 cubic centimeters. Multiplying this by 25,000 gives us volume of just under 0.5 cubic feet. This is well below the size limitation of the wish spell in that the object created can't be more than 300 feet in any one dimension. I then use the fabricate spell to convert this into gold bars. This gives me 500,000 gp worth of gold bars that I can now hand over to have my fleet of airships built. With extra wish spells in my back pocket to deal with any issues I may encounter.
I have visited 1 merchant to purchase 1,500gp worth of dust and then delivered a bunch of gold bars to a shipwright (37 days after the initial dust purchase) whom I've commissioned to make me a bunch of airships. At this point I may draw attention to myself but I have not even begun to flood the market with gold or gems and can still easily have a castle constructed and/or raise an army using the same method that i used to get the fleet of airships. if I feel that I am in danger of being attacked by high level creatures then I could spend one of my wishes to have knowledge of them and then a few more to find out what kind of defenses I would need to adequately protect myself from them. I then use money and/or more wishes to enact those countermeasures.
From the section you just quoted: "For exceptionally valuable treasures, the DM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first." I'd say a cache of gems clocking in at 5 figures qualifies as "exceptionally valuable", at which point it's DM's discretion if you can find someone to liquidate it into spendable currency. I very specifically acknowledged that for typical transactions bartering gems is fine, but you've literally shown that- in addition to common sense providing guidance on throttling players attempting cash exploits- the DMG expressly says a DM can throttle large scale cash conversions.
For starters, finding a place where you can commission a single Airship is going to be rather troublesome, as those are setting specific, and can take more than a year to make, so making a fleet of them outside a setting with them, is not possible, and if you are in a setting with them and try and do this the government will check up on you.
Also 12th level detect magic inside cities will always ping when a 7th or higher level spell is cast, so your tower needs to be outside of the city.
A way to skirt max level 9 magic is to do them ritually with lots of high level wizards, most cities have defensive magic to protect from Dragons, Liches, and other high level magic users. This is in most cities in the Forgotten Realms, Waterdeep had to make an exception for a couple of silver dragons and Dragonborn to enter city limits.
Next issue as a DM, most campaigns end before this point. But say we get there, and you a wizard want a Wizards tower... be prepared to spend too much gold to start with. So by the time you can do this you have already spent millions in gold just getting a place to try and exploit the system. Then you have to ignore the actual story for gods knows how long... just to try and finagle a way to exploit an economy that wont have the resources to justify what you are trying to do, and for what end? By the time you did this the evil god you were suppose to kill to save the world from destruction has completed its machinations and the world is on fire and all the civilians are dead. But hey you have an army of simulacrum which need to be feed.
--
edit: side note, at the end of my campaigns I usually reward each character with about a million gold, so the player can retire the character write an 'off to the sunset happily ever after', and then we start a new campaign, and if lucky those characters can have a cameo appearance.
My current party of players are level 11, and we have 4 sessions at most left. I'll level them to 12 for the final event, and then they get the happily ever after. (Although I suspect the Bard will be rolling on the permeant madness table)