Some spells in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons lean heavily into the roleplaying aspect of the game. Others draw from horror film tropes, with effects like raising the dead or summoning tentacles from other realms. And then there’s modify memory: the powerful 5th-level spell that lives at the crossroads of the two.

While the outward visuals of the spell may not be frightening, modify memory deals with the existential dread that comes with realizing that your very mind could be used as a weapon against you. When used in a clutch moment, modify memory can change the course of a campaign- just ask fans of Critical Role. When used for evil, the spell can be devastating for player characters. Let's take a close look at modify memory and how it works:

• What does modify memory do?
• What are the limits of modify memory?
• Using this spell as a Dungeon Master
• Who can cast modify memory?
• Why we love this spell
• Modify memory FAQs

What Does Modify Memory Do?

Modify memory allows the caster to—you guessed it—modify the memory of another creature. This enchantment spell causes a creature to be charmed by you for 1 minute. During this time, the target is incapacitated and unaware of its surroundings, though it can hear you. Think of it like a trance you might see in a movie or when a stage hypnotist has someone "under" during a show. While the target is in this trance, you can alter its memories.

Modify memory has an expansive set of applications for you to choose from:

• You can fully erase or create a memory
• You can alter a memory to be slightly different
• You can make someone recall a memory clearly

However, the spell is not without its limitations.

What Are the Limits of Modify Memory?

The most significant limitation on the spell is the 10 minutes of memory that can be modified. This timeframe remains the same regardless of the level someone casts it at. This means modify memory doesn’t allow someone to wantonly rewrite a creature's life. As a 5th-level spell, the caster can only make changes to events that have occurred in the past 24 hours, but that time frame increases to seven days when cast at 6th level, and all the way up to the target’s entire life at 9th level.

There are also some limitations on the targeting of the spell. The targeted creature can attempt to resist the spell with a Wisdom saving throw, and they even have advantage on the roll if you’re currently fighting them. The creature must also be able to hear you and understand your language, so you might not be able to convince an aboleth that it really enjoyed your company when you gave it chin scritches, unless you also happen to be fluent in Deep Speech.

If you’re in an adventuring party and someone is being targeted by the spell, there are a few ways to prevent it. A silence spell cast around the target would prevent them from being able to hear how its memories are changing. As a concentration spell, breaking the caster’s focus to end the spell before it is completed is also an option.

Modify memory is a spell that explicitly gives limiting power to the DM. The spell doesn’t change a target’s behavior, simply their memory, so if something pushes the envelope too far, or is something that the creature would find utterly unbelievable, the DM can rule that they dismiss the new memory as a passing dream or whimsy of the imagination.

Using This Spell as a Dungeon Master

As a DM, modify memory can be a particularly powerful spell to hand creatures in your game. As such, there’s a great responsibility to not abuse that power. Strategic use of a modify memory as a knife into the player character’s backstory can be very effective.

It's important to remember that a declaration that the spell has been used on a PC during downtime when they didn’t have a chance to roll to resist it might feel a like railroading at best- and violate a player’s agency at worst. Still, in the right moment and in the hands of a particularly clever Big Bad, a modify memory spell could be utterly devastating.

You don't need to target the player characters either. Imagine learning that a beloved NPC has been betraying the party on a regular basis and doesn’t even know it themselves because they’ve had each instance of it erased from their own mind. Perhaps the eyewitness who will swear on a stack of insight checks and zones of truth that they saw a crime has actually had their memory of the event implanted.

Who Can Cast Modify Memory?

In fifth edition D&D, modify memory is largely a spell for the wizard and bard classes, but it’s also available to Trickery Domain clerics and Aberrant Mind sorcerers. One of the nice perks of the spell is that it has no material components, only vocal and somatic, so higher-level characters might find the 5th-level spell slot a pretty reasonable price to pay for a spell this powerful.

Why We Love This Spell

We stan a spell that has such strong roleplaying possibilities. It can open up some pretty great pathways to players who fanagle the best uses. Need to get past a particularly stubborn guard? Modify their memory so that they remember you flashing a pretty important badge. Need to procure some pretty expensive merchandise for the journey? Why, you already paid the shopkeep and they already placed your gold into their fancy safe! There’s also such great potential for absolutely gut-wrenching uses of it. A character whose partner tragically died might be made to remember they survived and be doomed to search for them forever. And imagine how devastating the loss of a single “I love you” could be if done at the right moment in someone’s life.

But what makes modify memory so sublimely wicked is this line from the spell description: “Its mind fills in any gaps in the details of your description.” Imagine the horrifying understanding that not only did someone cast a spell on you that altered your memory, but that your own brain, seeing gaps in what was being created, actually worked to help the spell get there. There are a lot of fun horror tropes in D&D, but that particular line sends a primal chill up the spine.

FAQ: Modify Memory

Can you use modify memory on yourself?

With RAW you cannot use modify memory on yourself. The subject of the spell becomes incapacitated while the spell is in effect, which means you would not be able to maintain the one minute of concentration required to keep focusing on the spell.

Can you use modify memory on unconscious creatures?

Yes, you can. The requirements for the spell are that the creature must be able to hear you and understand your language, it does not specify that they must be awake. While the unconscious condition makes one incapacitated and unaware of their surroundings, this is also an effect of the spell itself.

Is modify memory permanent?

The spell effects of modify memory are permanent without magical intervention.

Can you reverse modify memory?

The only way to remove modify memory from a creature is with the remove curse or greater restoration spells. You could technically cast modify memory on them again but rewriting the memory back to the true events would be more like a magical reenactment than an actual restoration of the original memory.

How can you tell if someone had modify memory cast on them?

The identify spell when cast on a creature will tell the caster that the modify memory spell was used, but it will not give them the details of what memories were changed or what they originally were. Detect magic will not reveal modify memory because the effects take hold and become permanent after the spell ends, so there wouldn’t be a permanent Enchantment effect on the creature.

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.