One of my PCs has unknowingly taken a satchel of mind altering potion back to the wizard who delivered it while disguised as an old lady.
Now the session ended with the wizard sending the character away but I am considering at the start of the next session having the wizard call him back and cast modify memory on him. Once cast he will impart the memory of opening the satchel and finding the contents of an old ladies bag with a broken bottle of perfume.
Now my question to you all, how do you go about running modify memory against a player, my usual method is to roll the players saving throw for them, if it passes I describe the attempt to cast the spell, if it fails then I just narrate the memory that is implanted, then, if anyone ever restores that memory I then give the real memory.
Is this how you do this, or do you let your player know something has happened and risk them unintentionally letting it affect behavior?
Personally, I avoid rolling anything for the PCs. If the check passes, I describe a spell being cast with no noticeable effect, maybe allow an Insight v. Deception for the "explanation" that was offered or an Arcana to ID the spell if it passes by more than 5. If they fail, I narrate the memory as modified. Either way, even if they know "something" happened, they may never figure out what that actually was.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I personally dislike using modify memory on PCs, I feel that it rarely has a good outcome gamewise. But you know your players better than I do.
I would never roll for the player, as it takes away the player’s control over his character, and keep in mind that Modify Memory has both verbal and somatic components, which would be, in theory, noticeable to the PC, to the point that he could possibly try to counterspell it.
If you don't consider this and hold your players accountable for noticeably casting enchanting spells out-of-combat, it might create trust issues going further (Why is the world not subjected to the same rules as them?).
We are missing basic information. What was the Wizard's plan? How did the player character become involved? Did the Wizard penetrate the disguise? If not, why would the Wizard call back some random little old lady and modify her memory? What did the Wizard hope to accomplish by doing this? If the Wizard did see through the disguise, then once again, what was the initial plan and what place did the player character have in it?
What levels are involved? What class is the victim? Are there any other members of the party involved? What classes and levels are they?
Lurking behind all this is a problem with you as the DM and your player rather than just their character. Why do you want their character's memory modified, and is the player good enough to roleplay having their character's memory modified without meta-gaming.
I personally wouldn't have an NPC use Modify Memory on a player character. I couldn't honestly expect my players to trust me again. Changing someone's memory changes how they think about something. The real term for that is Mind **** and It's possibly more deeply evil than killing them. Imagine if the Wizard used Modify Memory to change what the player character remembered into having them fall in love with the Wizard.
I agree with some of the above comments. I dislike using modify memory or rolling for the PC's in general, I usually leave it up to the PC's to describe/ roll to see what happens in amongst themselves.
Lurking behind all this is a problem with you as the DM and your player rather than just their character. Why do you want their character's memory modified, and is the player good enough to roleplay having their character's memory modified without meta-gaming.
I personally wouldn't have an NPC use Modify Memory on a player character. I couldn't honestly expect my players to trust me again. Changing someone's memory changes how they think about something. The real term for that is Mind **** and It's possibly more deeply evil than killing them. Imagine if the Wizard used Modify Memory to change what the player character remembered into having them fall in love with the Wizard.
.....what?
Where did this come from? Why are we attacking the OP?
Modify Memory is a legitimate spell and a story telling device. Maybe the Wizard wants them to forget who they got the satchel from? That way it keeps their contact safe. It's not something that attacks the player, and since its magic that exists in the world, and pretty powerful magic, it's gated behind 5th level spell casting. It also really can't be used in the way you described. In fact, it specifically doesn't:
A modified memory doesn’t necessarily affect how a creature behaves, particularly if the memory contradicts the creature’s natural inclinations, alignment, or beliefs. An illogical modified memory, such as implanting a memory of how much the creature enjoyed dousing itself in acid, is dismissed, perhaps as a bad dream.
I think the OP is asking a valid question. I think you're also right, there are other pieces missing but at the end, let's answer the question:
OP, it depends. I'm assuming your character has traveled with spellcasters before, then obviously they know what spellcasting looks like. I'd let the player make the save if the spellcaster obviously makes the verbal/somatic gestures in front of them. Now, if there was say, a Glyph of Warding with Modify Memory in it, I would make the roll in secret unless they saw the spell glyph.
I personally dislike using modify memory on PCs, I feel that it rarely has a good outcome gamewise. But you know your players better than I do.
I would never roll for the player, as it takes away the player’s control over his character, and keep in mind that Modify Memory has both verbal and somatic components, which would be, in theory, noticeable to the PC, to the point that he could possibly try to counterspell it.
If you don't consider this and hold your players accountable for noticeably casting enchanting spells out-of-combat, it might create trust issues going further (Why is the world not subjected to the same rules as them?).
This is a level 4 Minotaur Barbarian with a +0 wisdom on his own with a level 20+ wizard bbeg, the casting part is easy, he is casting to check the package is not magical (insight check by the Minotaur).
We are missing basic information. What was the Wizard's plan? How did the player character become involved? Did the Wizard penetrate the disguise? If not, why would the Wizard call back some random little old lady and modify her memory? What did the Wizard hope to accomplish by doing this? If the Wizard did see through the disguise, then once again, what was the initial plan and what place did the player character have in it?
What levels are involved? What class is the victim? Are there any other members of the party involved? What classes and levels are they?
Lurking behind all this is a problem with you as the DM and your player rather than just their character. Why do you want their character's memory modified, and is the player good enough to roleplay having their character's memory modified without meta-gaming.
I personally wouldn't have an NPC use Modify Memory on a player character. I couldn't honestly expect my players to trust me again. Changing someone's memory changes how they think about something. The real term for that is Mind **** and It's possibly more deeply evil than killing them. Imagine if the Wizard used Modify Memory to change what the player character remembered into having them fall in love with the Wizard.
Ok the satchel is full of evil potion that wizard is using to help an aboleth extend its enslave over the town,
This whole part of the adventure has been run like invasion of the body snatchers, in fact the players have already noticed one or 2 NPCs behaving differently and have put it down to the stress of the constant threats to the town.
Wizard is running a cult of enslaved poor towns folk (inn they investigated was the hub). 2 characters saw the “old women” actually the wizard having cast disguise self, deliver the satchel. The 2 characters grabbed the satchel, after the funniest bar scrap ever where Barbarian Minotaur rolled 5 nat ones to try and insight check or hit stuff. He then ran away, on his own, isolated from the party. Arrived back at the magic shop where the wizard (who the players themselves are convinced is just a humbly old man), had just returned from delivering satchel of potion.
Session ends with Minotaur handing wizard satchel, explaining what happened and asking him to check it isn’t magical or poison or something, Minotaur has not looked in satchel.
It makes perfect sense for the wizard to cast modify memory, have the Minotaur believe that the satchel was opened then and there and contained nothing nefarious. Wizard is keeping party around because at some point aboleth will cease to be useful and wizard intends on sending party to kill it while he leaves the area to continue whatever his evil plan is (I have no idea yet what it is but it involves knowledge from the aboleth).
This whole tier one adventure is about mind control and enslave etc.
I haven't done this myself but remember a youtube D&D story (which I can't currently find *altered memory maybe!?!?!*) where the DM used altered memory on the player characters... He rolled secretly it succeeded then proceeded to play out the altered memory ie the players killed the villain took the loot... then when the party was in the next town and it came to paying the large successful adventure tavern party tab... that loot turned out to be stones and other junk... not sure how you'd wrangle it in your adventure but I really liked the idea how that DM let the players play out the "altered memory"
duh *modified memory!!! or was that altered memory!?! I don't know anymore...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
We are missing basic information. What was the Wizard's plan? How did the player character become involved? Did the Wizard penetrate the disguise? If not, why would the Wizard call back some random little old lady and modify her memory? What did the Wizard hope to accomplish by doing this? If the Wizard did see through the disguise, then once again, what was the initial plan and what place did the player character have in it?
What levels are involved? What class is the victim? Are there any other members of the party involved? What classes and levels are they?
Lurking behind all this is a problem with you as the DM and your player rather than just their character. Why do you want their character's memory modified, and is the player good enough to roleplay having their character's memory modified without meta-gaming.
I personally wouldn't have an NPC use Modify Memory on a player character. I couldn't honestly expect my players to trust me again. Changing someone's memory changes how they think about something. The real term for that is Mind **** and It's possibly more deeply evil than killing them. Imagine if the Wizard used Modify Memory to change what the player character remembered into having them fall in love with the Wizard.
Ok the satchel is full of evil potion that wizard is using to help an aboleth extend its enslave over the town,
This whole part of the adventure has been run like invasion of the body snatchers, in fact the players have already noticed one or 2 NPCs behaving differently and have put it down to the stress of the constant threats to the town.
Wizard is running a cult of enslaved poor towns folk (inn they investigated was the hub). 2 characters saw the “old women” actually the wizard having cast disguise self, deliver the satchel. The 2 characters grabbed the satchel, after the funniest bar scrap ever where Barbarian Minotaur rolled 5 nat ones to try and insight check or hit stuff. He then ran away, on his own, isolated from the party. Arrived back at the magic shop where the wizard (who the players themselves are convinced is just a humbly old man), had just returned from delivering satchel of potion.
Session ends with Minotaur handing wizard satchel, explaining what happened and asking him to check it isn’t magical or poison or something, Minotaur has not looked in satchel.
It makes perfect sense for the wizard to cast modify memory, have the Minotaur believe that the satchel was opened then and there and contained nothing nefarious. Wizard is keeping party around because at some point aboleth will cease to be useful and wizard intends on sending party to kill it while he leaves the area to continue whatever his evil plan is (I have no idea yet what it is but it involves knowledge from the aboleth).
This whole tier one adventure is about mind control and enslave etc.
Yeah, that's within the bounds of Modify Memory. Barbarian walks in, delivers the satchel, wizard casts modify memory, barbarian fails the save with a 95% chance since I'm going to assume the level 20 Wizard has 20 INT.
Xanathars has rules for identifying spells, and I'd totally let the Barbarian have the roll, even if they weren't arcana trained because the DC would be 16, 15 + 1st level spell, and unless the Barbarian has negative INT modifiers they have a SHOT at making it. So even though the Wizard modified their memory, he would know based on his travels with his adventuring party that hey, those gestures the Wizard was making weren't detect magic/detect poison and disease, but since he's level four wouldn't know what ACTUAL spell it was. So as he is recalling the event that was modified, you could interject and then be like "The one thing you did notice, even though you aren't trained in magic was that the motions for the spells weren't the same as your Wizard/Cleric/Druid/Magical ally for those spells".
"This whole tier one adventure is about mind control and enslave etc." The scenario makes perfect sense. I personally would hate a game remotely resembling that but if the players are having fun, that's all that matters. All I can really say is good luck.
This sounds like it would be really unfun for the player. Essentially for them you are changing what happened in the game, and will also be giving them player information that the character now cannot use. I would shy away from Modify Memory on PCs at all times. You need to be super careful about anything that involves stripping a player of their decision making power. The whole point of D&D is to be able to control your PC's actions (it is the only thing the players get to do), and spells like Modify Memory take those choices away from the player.
If an enemy creature starts casting a hostile (unwanted) spell at a PC, you should roll initiative for everyone present and enter into combat. You'd do this for a Dominate Person or Fireball spell, and Modify Memory should be the same unless the PC is fine with a spell being cast.
For me I think that there are more issues with what you describe purely in terms of having a character capable of casting that kind of magic directly at odds with the PCs. You have included a "level 20+ wizard" as the BBEG and the PCs are meddling in his plans, and potentially could have uncovered them. Who have they told? Can he trust that they came straight to him?
Why bother casting Modify Memory at all? Why not just do away with them? They trust him and think he's a friend so he could easily lure them somewhere, pop a high level Fireball and pow, dead party. If he's happy to enslave/mind control the players then he should have no qualms about killing them.
The PCs are thereby surviving on plot armour alone, or through the BBEG's benevolence. This means none of their actions really matter, since the BBEG can step in and destroy them at any time they choose to. There needs to be a really convincing reason for why this isn't the case (Curse of Strahd does this, and it makes sense in the module) and you may well have one and I'd be interested to hear why he doesn't just get rid of those that are clearly enemies. Let's say that the PCs reach level 5 and have foiled one of his schemes:
Scry on the PCs
Cast Greater Invsibility
Teleport near to them while anyone who can Counterspell is asleep.
Fireball
PCs are now dead. They have very few ways of avoiding this
A 20th level wizard is a murder machine. This stops being a factor at higher levels (13+), since even a 9th level fireball will deal an average of 98 damage and surviving PCs may put up a fight.
You need to be really careful about having 20th level spellcasters that the PCs cannot possibly take on doing small town mischief. Why is he bothering with all this? What does he really get out of it? I am sure that there are reasons for him doing it (under the control of a demon prince etc.) but are these small town mind control potions worth all this effort? Would he not get a better result by just going to the town, helping them massively with everything they want until they make him their ruler?
At some point, one of your PCs may just figure that something is up and attack the BBEG unless they somehow uncovered his level, and at that point, they get Disintegrated, Immolated, or Finger of Death'd and it's lights out.
I'd suggest dropping him to a level whereby the PCs could fight him reasonably before tier 3. The PCs may get to the point where they can handle a 9th level spell caster one day, but is this guy going to be the BBEG for an entire campaign? It might make more sense to reduce his power a bit so that he is a lieutenant for some other more powerful creature.
Sorry, this has turned into an off-topic wall of text. There's nothing wrong with how you are running your game and I think the "accidental delivery" is quite hilarious and sounds like you have a great and organic campaign going on, so please don't take this as criticism of your campaign, only as food for thought about some potential issues that you might encounter putting level 4 characters in a room with a level 20+ BBEG.
This sounds like it would be really unfun for the player. Essentially for them you are changing what happened in the game, and will also be giving them player information that the character now cannot use. I would shy away from Modify Memory on PCs at all times. You need to be super careful about anything that involves stripping a player of their decision making power. The whole point of D&D is to be able to control your PC's actions (it is the only thing the players get to do), and spells like Modify Memory take those choices away from the player.
If an enemy creature starts casting a hostile (unwanted) spell at a PC, you should roll initiative for everyone present and enter into combat. You'd do this for a Dominate Person or Fireball spell, and Modify Memory should be the same unless the PC is fine with a spell being cast.
For me I think that there are more issues with what you describe purely in terms of having a character capable of casting that kind of magic directly at odds with the PCs. You have included a "level 20+ wizard" as the BBEG and the PCs are meddling in his plans, and potentially could have uncovered them. Who have they told? Can he trust that they came straight to him?
Why bother casting Modify Memory at all? Why not just do away with them? They trust him and think he's a friend so he could easily lure them somewhere, pop a high level Fireball and pow, dead party. If he's happy to enslave/mind control the players then he should have no qualms about killing them.
The PCs are thereby surviving on plot armour alone, or through the BBEG's benevolence. This means none of their actions really matter, since the BBEG can step in and destroy them at any time they choose to. There needs to be a really convincing reason for why this isn't the case (Curse of Strahd does this, and it makes sense in the module) and you may well have one and I'd be interested to hear why he doesn't just get rid of those that are clearly enemies. Let's say that the PCs reach level 5 and have foiled one of his schemes:
Scry on the PCs
Cast Greater Invsibility
Teleport near to them while anyone who can Counterspell is asleep.
Fireball
PCs are now dead. They have very few ways of avoiding this
A 20th level wizard is a murder machine. This stops being a factor at higher levels (13+), since even a 9th level fireball will deal an average of 98 damage and surviving PCs may put up a fight.
You need to be really careful about having 20th level spellcasters that the PCs cannot possibly take on doing small town mischief. Why is he bothering with all this? What does he really get out of it? I am sure that there are reasons for him doing it (under the control of a demon prince etc.) but are these small town mind control potions worth all this effort? Would he not get a better result by just going to the town, helping them massively with everything they want until they make him their ruler?
At some point, one of your PCs may just figure that something is up and attack the BBEG unless they somehow uncovered his level, and at that point, they get Disintegrated, Immolated, or Finger of Death'd and it's lights out.
I'd suggest dropping him to a level whereby the PCs could fight him reasonably before tier 3. The PCs may get to the point where they can handle a 9th level spell caster one day, but is this guy going to be the BBEG for an entire campaign? It might make more sense to reduce his power a bit so that he is a lieutenant for some other more powerful creature.
Sorry, this has turned into an off-topic wall of text. There's nothing wrong with how you are running your game and I think the "accidental delivery" is quite hilarious and sounds like you have a great and organic campaign going on, so please don't take this as criticism of your campaign, only as food for thought about some potential issues that you might encounter putting level 4 characters in a room with a level 20+ BBEG.
Ok if I cast modify memory then the player won’t know, the details I will tell the player are what the wizard wants him to know. I will roleplay out the bag being opened and nothing suspicious being in it, the smashed glass and liquid will be a perfume bottle. In the grand scheme of things that is potentially another clue for the party.
As to the bbeg, as I stated he is working with an aboleth, and is immune to its enslave abilities, his whole aim is to eventually point the players at the aboleth so they dispose of it for him as it has amassed various layers of protection around it and he won’t be risking himself. He runs a magic shop and has sold them various items and weapons already aiming to get them ready to kill the aboleth as it has almost given him all the information he wanted. He also intends to hopefully have the party help him place himself in charge of the town as one of the people who helped “save it” so he can carry on with bad guy plan. If the party do work out who he is he will teleport away and leave behind “evidence” of the aboleth so they have to decide to chase him or go and deal with the immediate threat of an aboleth in a mine complex. Or he might try and claim he was enslaved himself.
The plan is that he will arise again as a threat depending on where the party go next. I don’t know what the tier 2 bbeg will be, aboleth is the tier 1 with the wizard as a supporting bbeg they are not intended to fight one on one, what they will fight is his far weaker simulacrum who has used up a ton of spell slots.
An Aboleth, outside of it's lair, is at the very top edge of Tier 2 and inside it's lair, it's Legendary actions combined with all it's other powers and abilities makes it easily Tier 3. This assumes it has no enslaved minions, and it's unlikely that would be the case. They are telepathic monsters with an 18 intelligence and an average of 135 hit points. They have Superior Darkvision, and a passive perception of 20. About the only thing attackers have going for them is that their natural armor class is only a 17, and on land they move only 10 feet per round. As if you could get them to come on land since in the water they have a 40 foot per round swim speed and can breathe just fine while inside a cloud of mucus that enslaves people.
Just fighting a single Aboleth would be pretty near impossible for Tier 1 player characters. Having a Tier 4 Wizard around, even if he's sitting pretty at home and sending weak copies of himself still means the players are just spectators in a story that is supposed to be about their characters.
I am in the camp that modify memory is in the game to be used by players, not to be used on them. It's just not fun and sends the message that the players aren't actually heroes at all, but just playthings of the DM who win, lose, or even have access to their own experiences solely because the DM allows it. Even if that is true, it's bad form to shove it in their faces.
On top of all that, it doesn't even do much in this scenario. Everyone already trusts the wizard. He can just straight up lie to them about what was in the package and that would be that. If they figure out he's lying, they still don't know why, and it actually progresses your plot. So I feel like it's doing something potentially very objectionable for minimal gain.
I haven't done this myself but remember a youtube D&D story (which I can't currently find *altered memory maybe!?!?!*) where the DM used altered memory on the player characters... He rolled secretly it succeeded then proceeded to play out the altered memory ie the players killed the villain took the loot... then when the party was in the next town and it came to paying the large successful adventure tavern party tab... that loot turned out to be stones and other junk... not sure how you'd wrangle it in your adventure but I really liked the idea how that DM let the players play out the "altered memory"
duh *modified memory!!! or was that altered memory!?! I don't know anymore...
The problem with that is that the characters are guaranteed to act the way they would normally, greatly increasing the success chance of the fake memory.
I'm not a fan of any kind of mind control on PCs. If you're going to tell a story by yourself, you don't need me to play a character.
Lunali sorry I don't quite understand your point I was recalling a use of modified memory on players that I found very clever and the players ended up enjoying...
finally found the youtube story I was referring to by the way....
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
An Aboleth, outside of it's lair, is at the very top edge of Tier 2 and inside it's lair, it's Legendary actions combined with all it's other powers and abilities makes it easily Tier 3. This assumes it has no enslaved minions, and it's unlikely that would be the case. They are telepathic monsters with an 18 intelligence and an average of 135 hit points. They have Superior Darkvision, and a passive perception of 20. About the only thing attackers have going for them is that their natural armor class is only a 17, and on land they move only 10 feet per round. As if you could get them to come on land since in the water they have a 40 foot per round swim speed and can breathe just fine while inside a cloud of mucus that enslaves people.
Just fighting a single Aboleth would be pretty near impossible for Tier 1 player characters. Having a Tier 4 Wizard around, even if he's sitting pretty at home and sending weak copies of himself still means the players are just spectators in a story that is supposed to be about their characters.
The aboleth will absolutely be ok for them at level 5-6 this is a party of 8 PCs and I have thrown Aboleths at far smaller parties in the past. To give you a sense of their strength they recently dealt with 5 Chuul fairly easily after dealing with a series of smaller combats that day at level 3.
As for the wizard 20 years of running TRRPGs I know how to pitch a story, when the characters are fighting the aboleth wizard will be sitting at hime feet up hoping that either the party succeed or aiming to go in and finish up what they started and finish off the aboleth himself. He wants it dead, it has served its usefulness and now needs to be gone.
The question was about modify memory, I have decided to give the Minotaur a chance to see that a spell is being cast on him, he will need a nat 20 because he is -2 int but there will be a chance to spot something is off. I will then make the wisdom saving throw for him, again will require a nat 20 due to wizard level, and then recount what he sees based on that roll.
The story I am telling is not a generic characters slay bad guy move on to the next thing, there are many layers to the adventure currently with lost if different factions taking advantage of the chaos currently being caused by the wizard and aboleth. These factions can be rallied by the party to support them once they figure out exactly what is going on. Although the longer it goes on the more people will be enslaved. The aboleth has some enslaved by him, but the majority are elsewhere doing its bidding thanks to the potion the wizard has produced (aboleth enslaved range is extended to 50 miles and wisdom saving throw DC is increased and at disadvantage, but, if person does not take the potion then the DC is reduced and is at advantage as the potion wearing off weakens the grip).
Aboleth thinks he is invulnerable where he is, he has control of the dwarven mine, having spent 2 years working on those, and has stockpiled a tremendous amount of gold and other rare materials to help it raise the armies necessary for its goals. It is guarded by Chuul and other creatures but will have some enslaved with it. When they get to fighting it I will pitch the combat at the right level to make it challenging and yet give them a chance at success and my players always know they can run away.
I am in the camp that modify memory is in the game to be used by players, not to be used on them. It's just not fun and sends the message that the players aren't actually heroes at all, but just playthings of the DM who win, lose, or even have access to their own experiences solely because the DM allows it. Even if that is true, it's bad form to shove it in their faces.
On top of all that, it doesn't even do much in this scenario. Everyone already trusts the wizard. He can just straight up lie to them about what was in the package and that would be that. If they figure out he's lying, they still don't know why, and it actually progresses your plot. So I feel like it's doing something potentially very objectionable for minimal gain.
If the players can use it so can the monsters and NPCs that has to be a primary rule of DnD. Mind control is not removing player agency, over the years I have had various types of mind control happen to players in various systems and they have always loved role playing that for that period of time knowing that in the story there is a way for them to be released.
Heroes get taken over and controlled all the time in stories.
Now yes the wizard is trusted but he is also panicked, very panicked, so will react this way.
Scarloc_Stormcall would be cool if you could do a follow up on how it went, now that you've decided how to run it, particularly as so many seem so critical of the idea of using modify memory on a player character.
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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as per the below thread
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/119203-that-moment-you-wish-you-could-tell-someone-about
One of my PCs has unknowingly taken a satchel of mind altering potion back to the wizard who delivered it while disguised as an old lady.
Now the session ended with the wizard sending the character away but I am considering at the start of the next session having the wizard call him back and cast modify memory on him. Once cast he will impart the memory of opening the satchel and finding the contents of an old ladies bag with a broken bottle of perfume.
Now my question to you all, how do you go about running modify memory against a player, my usual method is to roll the players saving throw for them, if it passes I describe the attempt to cast the spell, if it fails then I just narrate the memory that is implanted, then, if anyone ever restores that memory I then give the real memory.
Is this how you do this, or do you let your player know something has happened and risk them unintentionally letting it affect behavior?
Personally, I avoid rolling anything for the PCs. If the check passes, I describe a spell being cast with no noticeable effect, maybe allow an Insight v. Deception for the "explanation" that was offered or an Arcana to ID the spell if it passes by more than 5. If they fail, I narrate the memory as modified. Either way, even if they know "something" happened, they may never figure out what that actually was.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I personally dislike using modify memory on PCs, I feel that it rarely has a good outcome gamewise. But you know your players better than I do.
I would never roll for the player, as it takes away the player’s control over his character, and keep in mind that Modify Memory has both verbal and somatic components, which would be, in theory, noticeable to the PC, to the point that he could possibly try to counterspell it.
If you don't consider this and hold your players accountable for noticeably casting enchanting spells out-of-combat, it might create trust issues going further (Why is the world not subjected to the same rules as them?).
We are missing basic information. What was the Wizard's plan? How did the player character become involved? Did the Wizard penetrate the disguise? If not, why would the Wizard call back some random little old lady and modify her memory? What did the Wizard hope to accomplish by doing this? If the Wizard did see through the disguise, then once again, what was the initial plan and what place did the player character have in it?
What levels are involved? What class is the victim? Are there any other members of the party involved? What classes and levels are they?
Lurking behind all this is a problem with you as the DM and your player rather than just their character. Why do you want their character's memory modified, and is the player good enough to roleplay having their character's memory modified without meta-gaming.
I personally wouldn't have an NPC use Modify Memory on a player character. I couldn't honestly expect my players to trust me again. Changing someone's memory changes how they think about something. The real term for that is Mind **** and It's possibly more deeply evil than killing them. Imagine if the Wizard used Modify Memory to change what the player character remembered into having them fall in love with the Wizard.
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I agree with some of the above comments. I dislike using modify memory or rolling for the PC's in general, I usually leave it up to the PC's to describe/ roll to see what happens in amongst themselves.
.....what?
Where did this come from? Why are we attacking the OP?
Modify Memory is a legitimate spell and a story telling device. Maybe the Wizard wants them to forget who they got the satchel from? That way it keeps their contact safe. It's not something that attacks the player, and since its magic that exists in the world, and pretty powerful magic, it's gated behind 5th level spell casting. It also really can't be used in the way you described. In fact, it specifically doesn't:
I think the OP is asking a valid question. I think you're also right, there are other pieces missing but at the end, let's answer the question:
OP, it depends. I'm assuming your character has traveled with spellcasters before, then obviously they know what spellcasting looks like. I'd let the player make the save if the spellcaster obviously makes the verbal/somatic gestures in front of them. Now, if there was say, a Glyph of Warding with Modify Memory in it, I would make the roll in secret unless they saw the spell glyph.
This is a level 4 Minotaur Barbarian with a +0 wisdom on his own with a level 20+ wizard bbeg, the casting part is easy, he is casting to check the package is not magical (insight check by the Minotaur).
Ok the satchel is full of evil potion that wizard is using to help an aboleth extend its enslave over the town,
This whole part of the adventure has been run like invasion of the body snatchers, in fact the players have already noticed one or 2 NPCs behaving differently and have put it down to the stress of the constant threats to the town.
Wizard is running a cult of enslaved poor towns folk (inn they investigated was the hub). 2 characters saw the “old women” actually the wizard having cast disguise self, deliver the satchel. The 2 characters grabbed the satchel, after the funniest bar scrap ever where Barbarian Minotaur rolled 5 nat ones to try and insight check or hit stuff. He then ran away, on his own, isolated from the party. Arrived back at the magic shop where the wizard (who the players themselves are convinced is just a humbly old man), had just returned from delivering satchel of potion.
Session ends with Minotaur handing wizard satchel, explaining what happened and asking him to check it isn’t magical or poison or something, Minotaur has not looked in satchel.
It makes perfect sense for the wizard to cast modify memory, have the Minotaur believe that the satchel was opened then and there and contained nothing nefarious. Wizard is keeping party around because at some point aboleth will cease to be useful and wizard intends on sending party to kill it while he leaves the area to continue whatever his evil plan is (I have no idea yet what it is but it involves knowledge from the aboleth).
This whole tier one adventure is about mind control and enslave etc.
I haven't done this myself but remember a youtube D&D story (which I can't currently find *altered memory maybe!?!?!*) where the DM used altered memory on the player characters... He rolled secretly it succeeded then proceeded to play out the altered memory ie the players killed the villain took the loot... then when the party was in the next town and it came to paying the large successful adventure tavern party tab... that loot turned out to be stones and other junk... not sure how you'd wrangle it in your adventure but I really liked the idea how that DM let the players play out the "altered memory"
duh *modified memory!!! or was that altered memory!?! I don't know anymore...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Yeah, that's within the bounds of Modify Memory. Barbarian walks in, delivers the satchel, wizard casts modify memory, barbarian fails the save with a 95% chance since I'm going to assume the level 20 Wizard has 20 INT.
Xanathars has rules for identifying spells, and I'd totally let the Barbarian have the roll, even if they weren't arcana trained because the DC would be 16, 15 + 1st level spell, and unless the Barbarian has negative INT modifiers they have a SHOT at making it. So even though the Wizard modified their memory, he would know based on his travels with his adventuring party that hey, those gestures the Wizard was making weren't detect magic/detect poison and disease, but since he's level four wouldn't know what ACTUAL spell it was. So as he is recalling the event that was modified, you could interject and then be like "The one thing you did notice, even though you aren't trained in magic was that the motions for the spells weren't the same as your Wizard/Cleric/Druid/Magical ally for those spells".
"This whole tier one adventure is about mind control and enslave etc." The scenario makes perfect sense. I personally would hate a game remotely resembling that but if the players are having fun, that's all that matters. All I can really say is good luck.
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This sounds like it would be really unfun for the player. Essentially for them you are changing what happened in the game, and will also be giving them player information that the character now cannot use. I would shy away from Modify Memory on PCs at all times. You need to be super careful about anything that involves stripping a player of their decision making power. The whole point of D&D is to be able to control your PC's actions (it is the only thing the players get to do), and spells like Modify Memory take those choices away from the player.
If an enemy creature starts casting a hostile (unwanted) spell at a PC, you should roll initiative for everyone present and enter into combat. You'd do this for a Dominate Person or Fireball spell, and Modify Memory should be the same unless the PC is fine with a spell being cast.
For me I think that there are more issues with what you describe purely in terms of having a character capable of casting that kind of magic directly at odds with the PCs. You have included a "level 20+ wizard" as the BBEG and the PCs are meddling in his plans, and potentially could have uncovered them. Who have they told? Can he trust that they came straight to him?
Why bother casting Modify Memory at all? Why not just do away with them? They trust him and think he's a friend so he could easily lure them somewhere, pop a high level Fireball and pow, dead party. If he's happy to enslave/mind control the players then he should have no qualms about killing them.
The PCs are thereby surviving on plot armour alone, or through the BBEG's benevolence. This means none of their actions really matter, since the BBEG can step in and destroy them at any time they choose to. There needs to be a really convincing reason for why this isn't the case (Curse of Strahd does this, and it makes sense in the module) and you may well have one and I'd be interested to hear why he doesn't just get rid of those that are clearly enemies. Let's say that the PCs reach level 5 and have foiled one of his schemes:
A 20th level wizard is a murder machine. This stops being a factor at higher levels (13+), since even a 9th level fireball will deal an average of 98 damage and surviving PCs may put up a fight.
You need to be really careful about having 20th level spellcasters that the PCs cannot possibly take on doing small town mischief. Why is he bothering with all this? What does he really get out of it? I am sure that there are reasons for him doing it (under the control of a demon prince etc.) but are these small town mind control potions worth all this effort? Would he not get a better result by just going to the town, helping them massively with everything they want until they make him their ruler?
At some point, one of your PCs may just figure that something is up and attack the BBEG unless they somehow uncovered his level, and at that point, they get Disintegrated, Immolated, or Finger of Death'd and it's lights out.
I'd suggest dropping him to a level whereby the PCs could fight him reasonably before tier 3. The PCs may get to the point where they can handle a 9th level spell caster one day, but is this guy going to be the BBEG for an entire campaign? It might make more sense to reduce his power a bit so that he is a lieutenant for some other more powerful creature.
Sorry, this has turned into an off-topic wall of text. There's nothing wrong with how you are running your game and I think the "accidental delivery" is quite hilarious and sounds like you have a great and organic campaign going on, so please don't take this as criticism of your campaign, only as food for thought about some potential issues that you might encounter putting level 4 characters in a room with a level 20+ BBEG.
Ok if I cast modify memory then the player won’t know, the details I will tell the player are what the wizard wants him to know. I will roleplay out the bag being opened and nothing suspicious being in it, the smashed glass and liquid will be a perfume bottle. In the grand scheme of things that is potentially another clue for the party.
As to the bbeg, as I stated he is working with an aboleth, and is immune to its enslave abilities, his whole aim is to eventually point the players at the aboleth so they dispose of it for him as it has amassed various layers of protection around it and he won’t be risking himself. He runs a magic shop and has sold them various items and weapons already aiming to get them ready to kill the aboleth as it has almost given him all the information he wanted. He also intends to hopefully have the party help him place himself in charge of the town as one of the people who helped “save it” so he can carry on with bad guy plan. If the party do work out who he is he will teleport away and leave behind “evidence” of the aboleth so they have to decide to chase him or go and deal with the immediate threat of an aboleth in a mine complex. Or he might try and claim he was enslaved himself.
The plan is that he will arise again as a threat depending on where the party go next. I don’t know what the tier 2 bbeg will be, aboleth is the tier 1 with the wizard as a supporting bbeg they are not intended to fight one on one, what they will fight is his far weaker simulacrum who has used up a ton of spell slots.
An Aboleth, outside of it's lair, is at the very top edge of Tier 2 and inside it's lair, it's Legendary actions combined with all it's other powers and abilities makes it easily Tier 3. This assumes it has no enslaved minions, and it's unlikely that would be the case. They are telepathic monsters with an 18 intelligence and an average of 135 hit points. They have Superior Darkvision, and a passive perception of 20. About the only thing attackers have going for them is that their natural armor class is only a 17, and on land they move only 10 feet per round. As if you could get them to come on land since in the water they have a 40 foot per round swim speed and can breathe just fine while inside a cloud of mucus that enslaves people.
Just fighting a single Aboleth would be pretty near impossible for Tier 1 player characters. Having a Tier 4 Wizard around, even if he's sitting pretty at home and sending weak copies of himself still means the players are just spectators in a story that is supposed to be about their characters.
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I am in the camp that modify memory is in the game to be used by players, not to be used on them. It's just not fun and sends the message that the players aren't actually heroes at all, but just playthings of the DM who win, lose, or even have access to their own experiences solely because the DM allows it. Even if that is true, it's bad form to shove it in their faces.
On top of all that, it doesn't even do much in this scenario. Everyone already trusts the wizard. He can just straight up lie to them about what was in the package and that would be that. If they figure out he's lying, they still don't know why, and it actually progresses your plot. So I feel like it's doing something potentially very objectionable for minimal gain.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The problem with that is that the characters are guaranteed to act the way they would normally, greatly increasing the success chance of the fake memory.
I'm not a fan of any kind of mind control on PCs. If you're going to tell a story by yourself, you don't need me to play a character.
Lunali sorry I don't quite understand your point
I was recalling a use of modified memory on players that I found very clever and the players ended up enjoying...
finally found the youtube story I was referring to by the way....
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
The aboleth will absolutely be ok for them at level 5-6 this is a party of 8 PCs and I have thrown Aboleths at far smaller parties in the past. To give you a sense of their strength they recently dealt with 5 Chuul fairly easily after dealing with a series of smaller combats that day at level 3.
As for the wizard 20 years of running TRRPGs I know how to pitch a story, when the characters are fighting the aboleth wizard will be sitting at hime feet up hoping that either the party succeed or aiming to go in and finish up what they started and finish off the aboleth himself. He wants it dead, it has served its usefulness and now needs to be gone.
The question was about modify memory, I have decided to give the Minotaur a chance to see that a spell is being cast on him, he will need a nat 20 because he is -2 int but there will be a chance to spot something is off. I will then make the wisdom saving throw for him, again will require a nat 20 due to wizard level, and then recount what he sees based on that roll.
The story I am telling is not a generic characters slay bad guy move on to the next thing, there are many layers to the adventure currently with lost if different factions taking advantage of the chaos currently being caused by the wizard and aboleth. These factions can be rallied by the party to support them once they figure out exactly what is going on. Although the longer it goes on the more people will be enslaved. The aboleth has some enslaved by him, but the majority are elsewhere doing its bidding thanks to the potion the wizard has produced (aboleth enslaved range is extended to 50 miles and wisdom saving throw DC is increased and at disadvantage, but, if person does not take the potion then the DC is reduced and is at advantage as the potion wearing off weakens the grip).
Aboleth thinks he is invulnerable where he is, he has control of the dwarven mine, having spent 2 years working on those, and has stockpiled a tremendous amount of gold and other rare materials to help it raise the armies necessary for its goals. It is guarded by Chuul and other creatures but will have some enslaved with it. When they get to fighting it I will pitch the combat at the right level to make it challenging and yet give them a chance at success and my players always know they can run away.
If the players can use it so can the monsters and NPCs that has to be a primary rule of DnD. Mind control is not removing player agency, over the years I have had various types of mind control happen to players in various systems and they have always loved role playing that for that period of time knowing that in the story there is a way for them to be released.
Heroes get taken over and controlled all the time in stories.
Now yes the wizard is trusted but he is also panicked, very panicked, so will react this way.
Scarloc_Stormcall would be cool if you could do a follow up on how it went, now that you've decided how to run it, particularly as so many seem so critical of the idea of using modify memory on a player character.
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again