Forums: Advice: An erase memory spell (2024)

Anyone know of a spell that would erase a character's memory?

My resources are Core books, Frog God Games, and Kobold Press Deep Magic. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Modify Memory is a good choice. However, if I want to completely obliterate his/her memory so they have no memory of anything before now, what would I use?

The Hyakume from one of the bestiary books has this tid bit:

Drain Memory:
Once per day as a standard action, a hyakume can make a touch attack with either its hands or one of its eye probes to drain a target of its memories. The target loses the majority of memories relating to life and identity, and the hyakume can control the creature as if it were subject to a charm monster spell until those memories are regained (Will DC 28 negates). The hyakume absorbs the memories and can store and use them. It can store the memories of a number of creatures equal to its Intelligence bonus (typically 4) at one time. This is a mind-affecting effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Depending on when they can pass a DC28 will save, it's ultimately amnesia more than a total mind wipe.

Otherwise my answer would be this: Use Modify Memory to implant a permanent memory of them getting amnesia and losing all their memories.

... That's totally legit, right? :p

Let me share why I am asking this. One of my players that is in my January 2nd Rappan Athuk game has picked a Tiefling Magus as his second PC. I told them to create 3 PC's. His idea was that the party encounters him in RA or in the surrounding area, but he has suffered a complete memory loss of what he knew about RA.

I am wondering if a complete loss would also hamper his class abilities. But I have been looking ahead in RA trying to find where I could have had him to make someone mad enough that they cast this spell on him.

There's the 3.5 closed-content 9th-level sorcerer/wizard spell programmed amnesia. (Originally published in the Book of Vile Darkness as "mindrape.")

This is a hideously powerful and extremely evil spell. It allows the caster to completely re-write the subject's memories, personality, and even alignment. It can also be used much more subtly.

silverhair2008 wrote:

I am wondering if a complete loss would also hamper his class abilities.

Straight from GameMastery Guide's insanity rules:

A character suffering from amnesia cannot remember things; his name, his skills, and his past are all equal mysteries. He can build new memories, but any memories that existed before he became an amnesiac are suppressed.

Worse, the amnesiac loses all class abilities, feats, and skill ranks for as long as his amnesia lasts. He retains his base attack bonus, base saving throw bonuses, combat maneuver bonus, combat maneuver defense, total experience points, and hit dice (and hit points), but everything else is gone until the amnesia is cured. If a character gains a class level while suffering from amnesia, he may use any abilities gained by that class level normally. If the class level he gained was of a class he already possess levels in, he gains the abilities of a 1st-level character of that class, even though he is technically of a higher level in that class. If his amnesia is later cured, he regains all the full abilities of this class, including those gained from any levels taken while he was suffering from amnesia.

So, to answer your question: Yes.

"complete memory loss of what he knew about RA."

Would probably in no ways be a complete amnesia. It would be a really really bad idea to screw over a character because of a back story concept.

Although I don't know of any particular rules for it in the game, it is completely possible in the real world for a traumatic experience to have removed memory of the event and even a period before and after. This would mean that any nasty bad guy could have caused such a thing, and I don't think you need any mechanical game rules to incorporate that into a characters story.

It would be good though to have some non-specific flashes of memory as fore shadowing. "You wake from your nightmare...all you can remember from the dream is a pair of glowing red eyes looking down on you."

Have him experience something so catastrophic or heartbreaking that his god wipes his memories of the event and related events to actually give him a better life?

Lost love perhaps? That's much more of a GM fiat though, all storytelling and no real rules.

You know, you could just get the character drunk. Real drunk. Depending on the npc (or PC) they may be down for a party anyways. Which means no will save to worry about! Also, beer is nice to have anyways to make someone you knock out appear drunk, or to start fires. Or any other booze needs you may have.

Edit: Wait, you want to entirely eliminate someone's whole memory? Well, derp I've got nothing.

Domestichauscat wrote:

You know, you could just get the character drunk. Real drunk. Depending on the npc (or PC) they may be down for a party anyways. Which means no will save to worry about! Also, beer is nice to have anyways to make someone you knock out appear drunk, or to start fires. Or any other booze needs you may have.

Edit: Wait, you want to entirely eliminate someone's whole memory? Well, derp I've got nothing.

Make him drunk the entire game? Or a drug addiction that damages memory? Or perhaps a poison?

Apart from the aforementioned spells such as Modify Memory (which can be used to create the desired effect in a limited sense) and 3.5's Programmed Amnesia/Mindrape (which is less a loss of memories and more having one's mind completely rewritten), I can't think of anything from a purely "mechanical" standpoint...

However, if your looking for a story-based solution, I might recommend a dip in the River Styx - in both the old D&D "Planescape" cosmology and the core Pathfinder cosmology, merely touching the water of the Styx drains some of your memories, while full immersion and/or drinking from it will wipe them out completely.

The spell you want is Sequester Thoughts.

Probably multiple castings, but with the return of the gems, the thoughts can be restored. Makes for a great quest.

/cevah

Cevah wrote:

The spell you want is Sequester Thoughts.

Probably multiple castings, but with the return of the gems, the thoughts can be restored. Makes for a great quest.

/cevah

That's a cool spell, but the memories of an entire campaign as a single event might be a bit of a stretch? Entirely GM fiat but it's definitely the best suggestion yet. You could always just house rule that larger more valuable gems hold longer/larger memories. :)

I did say multiple castings. :-)

With more than one cast, you can get a partial reveal by acquiring a single gem. Recover your memory a piece at a time.

I still think the premise of "Demon with a Glass Hand" would make a great quest.

/cevah

In an act of necromancy beyond compare, five years in the making, I present the solution to your problem: gate.

How? Conjure celestial pixies. (Technically, they shouldn’t have to be celestial, as you should be able to summon any pixie native to a different plane.)

You’re not high enough level?

Candle of invocation.

This is the conclusion I’ve come to after thinking about it for quite a bit. The point of doubt remains concerning template application, but it shooooouuuuuuuuld work even without that, or with a different template.

The other, possibly even better, way is simulacrum of the same.

Basically, the pixie arrows are nearly perfect, forcing the character to lose memory without impacting skills.

While summon monster 9 can also get you pixies, it can’t get them with memory loss arrows.

I post, knowing it’s necromancy, because I’ve been looking for a way to get the same. This is the only reliable method I’ve found outside of entirely rebuilding a creature’s personality via the two spells mentioned above (which gives a little too much power over the results for my purposes). The River Styx erases memories, but from what I can tell it does so by negative levels. Modify memory is great, but slooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww. I honestly haven’t found any other nonlethal method of memory erasure. I’m posting this hoping it helps future players and GMs, maybe!

(For the record, I was specifically looking at 3.5 sources, but this should also work in Pathfinder 1e.)

I was kind of peeved that psychic surgery could only restore memories, not remove them. Amputations are surgeries, too!

Also, Damnation of Memory doesn't spare the targeted creature, which may leave it remembering its own life as a bystander, attributing all of its own actions to others. However, it doesn't actually make it forget anything that happened, just how it happened.

For completeness, the spell Amnesia from the Villain Codex, published in 2016, will also erase memories.

IIRC, the Caulborn variety of monster eats people's memories, so if you could arrange for a caulborn to feed on the creature in question, then that could work to some extent.

Lesser Planar Binding is an option these days, as well.

Coidzor wrote:

For completeness, the spell Amnesia from the Villain Codex, published in 2016, will also erase memories.

Yeesh. A 4th-level save-or-suck-a-lemon with no cure below 6th-level spells*? That's pretty hardcore. It's actually easier to recover from amnesia when it's imposed via the optional madness system, which is usually more punishing than the default rules.

*Yeah, mesmerist gets psychic surgery at 5th, but that's comparable to a 7th-level wizard spell

Forgetful slumber works on mooks at least for the previous 5 minutes. The mnemostiller alchemist archetype covers more than that by the fluff, but lacks the mechanics to meet that fluff.

BTW Tacticslion I've seen more extreme thread necromancy here at paizo.com. Seven years and change is the most I can remember so far. Elsewhere more than a decade can happen.

blahpers wrote:

Coidzor wrote:

For completeness, the spell Amnesia from the Villain Codex, published in 2016, will also erase memories.

Yeesh. A 4th-level save-or-suck-a-lemon with no cure below 6th-level spells*? That's pretty hardcore. It's actually easier to recover from amnesia when it's imposed via the optional madness system, which is usually more punishing than the default rules.

*Yeah, mesmerist gets psychic surgery at 5th, but that's comparable to a 7th-level wizard spell

I think the idea was that it significantly reduces the utility you can get out of people that you have to make into amnesiacs in order to get them to serve you.

Of course, given where it appeared, the most likely thing that comes to mind is that it was meant to give villains a way to erase the memories of NPC friends and allies of the party so that they can be convinced to fight the party, but with reduced capabilities.

Granted, I have no idea offhand how much of a debuff losing all class features and skill ranks would be to a creature's CR, though the Pod-Spawned template suggests something like a -2 for spellcasters due to them losing their spellcasting, so I suppose that could be used as a benchmark for adjudicating the situation as a GM.

I think that the debilitating effects of the Amnesia spell are a bit more severe, though.