D&D 5E In Your Opinion: Should Amnesia Impair Class Abilities?

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

As the title of the thread asks, should amnesia impair a character's class abilities?

Or, in your opinion, if a character can't remember who they are, where they came from or what they're capable of, should they suffer the complete loss of their class abilities?

If yes to either question, under what circumstances could the impairment or loss be lifted? Could the spell Modify Memory be of any help? Or is the character stuck until some retraining takes place?

Side question: for a solo campaign, does the idea of roleplaying to figure out what your amnesiac character is capable of doing (Jason Bourne style, now that I think about it), sound interesting to you, especially if your character starts at higher level?

I'm pondering these questions since they relate to a Background Enhancement (sort of a modifier to a character's regular Background) I am working on for my DM's Guild project.

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[famousringo]

Usually the tired amnesia cliche (oops, editorializing from too many Japanese video games) only involves a loss of identity, not a loss of skill, though the character may not know what skills she possesses.

A character might be ignorant that she was a detective, for example, but take her to a crime scene and she'll act like she's proficient in Investigation. A sudden ambush and the deadly combat skills come rushing back. She may not know what her proficiencies are, but when she rolls the check, she gets a full bonus.

 

[akr71]

Anything that requires muscle memory I think the character would be able to perform such as use weapons, play an instrument, open hand strikes, athletics or acrobatics checks.

Reading and speaking languages and some skill checks that depend on previously learned skills or knowledge (arcana, history, religion, etc) can only be performed when confronted with a situation that requires it. For example if you asked the amnesiac to speak dwarvish, they wouldn't know what to say, but if you spoke to them in dwarvish, they would be able to respond. or "I don't know how I know, but I know that this is an ancient symbol of an elven royal house..."

Spellcasting is a more difficult question... sorcerers & warlocks might instinctively use one of their spells if the situation requires it. A wizard might read his or her spell book and realize they understand it - if given enough time to "memorize" the spells he or she could cast as normal. I don't know how I would handle a bard, cleric, druid paladin or ranger that is an amnesiac.

Modify Memory - "You attempt to reshape another creature's memories." It feels more like altering rather than recovering, but I would likely allow it at my table. I wouldn't likely have the recovered memory last long. Or perhaps it would require multiple castings over several days...

 

[BoldItalic]

Amnesia doesn't necessarily mean a loss of functional knowledge, it can be just a loss of identity-related memories. You don't necessarily forget how to speak, read, type, tie up your shoelaces or drive a car or pilot an aeroplane if you previously knew how to do that. So I would say that you would not lose your class features and drop down to level zero. But, of course, it depends how you envisage the amnesia having been caused.

From a game point of view, it depends what you are trying to achieve with this scenario. If you start without some abilities disabled and then somehow re-enable them, it's no different from starting without ever having had them, and then adding them later.

Can you expand on your idea?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Forget what "makes sense", do what makes it fun - which is to say, if you are using amnesia in a role-playing game, don't have it be a hindrance to the player in how it hinders their character.

For example, I present my take on an amnesiac spell caster:

Handling amnesia well: The character has no idea what they are capable of or who they are, but when it comes to a moment like combat and the player says "I want to try and hurt these things/people trying to hurt me" the DM looks at the list of prepared/known spells for the character and picks one beneficial to cast in this situation towards that stated goal, and the character casts the spell.

Handling amnesia poorly: The character has no idea what they are capable of or who they are, and when it comes to a moment like combat and the player says "I want to try and hurt these things/people trying to hurt me" the DM says "How?" and leaves the player to guess what their character is good at, meaning their character the spellcaster not having any access to their spells because "makes sense, he has amnesia."

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My vote for this would be for the skills remaining present. I think it would be more interesting as a player to uncover my character's history and life than my abilities. After all, that's sort-of just like leveling up, which I'd be doing anyway.

 

[Sunseeker]

Depends on what kind of Amnesia they have?

Short-term or long-term? Selective? Complete?

There's a lot of different ways amnesia can affect a person's mind. They might forget last week, they might forget the last 20 years, but remember last month just fine. They might forget every proper name they've ever known, or how to speak, while retaining the ability to describe every place they've ever been and the ability to read and write. Sometimes losing certain memories can mean they remember other memories thought forgotten.

How would you fix it? I don't know. I'd think greater restoration would probably do the trick. It seems to fix everything.

If you do rule that they've forgotten everything, I would say that you should give them some sort of brief "relearning" period to recover their skills. I wouldn't actually lower their level.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Depends on what kind of Amnesia they have? Short-term or long-term? Selective? Complete?

I am glad you asked. I hadn't thought about there being different kinds of Amnesia.

I'd say a character that took the Background Enhancement I'm writing would have Amnesia that is complete--they have no memory of their lives before being abducted (see below) and can only make new memories post abduction.

Can you expand on your idea?

Sure.

Along with a temporary loss of health (read: hit points) and vitality (although the abduction takes a few moments, the character is aged by at least a year) the amnesia is the result of the character being magically abducted from their home plane somewhere in the multiverse and deposited in a region of the King's Forest, in Cormyr (Forgotten Realms).

The abduction magic is based on (or piggybacks--I haven't decided yet) a trait of the Nine Hells; specifically the Whorl spells that abduct lesser creatures from other realities and drop them into the Hells, to feed the denizens of the Pit.

I'd been thinking about finding interesting ways players could insert characters from other worlds into the Realms, as well as bring characters starting at higher levels into a Realms campaign, and after browsing the section on Background in the SRD, I figured this idea of mine might be a way to do it.

EDIT: The stolen life force, health and memories do go somewhere.

 

[BoldItalic]

...
I'd been thinking about finding interesting ways players could insert characters from other worlds into the Realms, as well as bring characters starting at higher levels into a Realms campaign, and after browsing the section on Background in the SRD, I figured this idea of mine might be a way to do it.

EDIT: The stolen life force, health and memories do go somewhere.

Yes, a bit like the Far Traveler background from SCAG but different. I like it.

I'm still not sure about the leveling down, though. If the whole character can be recovered by restoring the lost memories with a single Greater Restoration spell (albeit at a cost of a few hundred gp), it's a bit short-lived as a background feature. On the other hand, if it takes a trip back to the home plane and many trials and tribulations to get the memories back, the player may decide not to bother and just level up normally from the bottom, possibly taking a quite different path.

How about: a magical time warp has resulted in a clone of your 15-level character being snatched from a node in your past time line at a point when you were a mere 4th level, and flung into another plane of the multiverse. Reconstruct a character sheet and play the clone as it tries to become re-united with its future self.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Yes, a bit like the Far Traveler background from SCAG but different. I like it.

Glad to hear it!

If the whole character can be recovered by restoring the lost memories with a single Greater Restoration spell (albeit at a cost of a few hundred gp), it's a bit short-lived as a background feature.

Thanking your for mentioning Greater Restoration. I hadn't considered restorative spells, either.

Looking at the spell, I'm not sure if it could return lost memories. However, I see your point: magic of one kind or another could probably undo the memory loss from being flung between worlds.

I'll have to think about that.

On the other hand, if it takes a trip back to the home plane and many trials and tribulations to get the memories back, the player may decide not to bother and just level up normally from the bottom, possibly taking a quite different path.

That's another thing I'll have to think about. In the description for the Background Enhancement, I want to sell the idea that there's a gain and loss for being able to bring a character from another world to the Realms.

I think I'll have to settle on informing player and DM that the memory loss is permanent short of major magical intervention (Wish scale magic or divine intervention), while leaving the door open for the character to find ways to learn about who they were, to seek powerful magic to undo the effect (if it's relevant to the character and the campaign), and to learn clues about where the missing memories could be recovered (somewhere in the Upperdark, below the King's Forest, I'm thinking).

The back story I am working on that explains why the magical abductions take will place need to give players and DMs options to explore the mystery of it all in a campaign.

This is all very good. Thank you.

How about: a magical time warp has resulted in a clone of your 15-level character being snatched from a node in your past time line at a point when you were a mere 4th level, and flung into another plane of the multiverse. Reconstruct a character sheet and play the clone as it tries to become re-united with its future self.

That's pretty cool. Stepping through a magical gate or portal might do something like what happened to the character of Commander Riker (Stark Trek: Next Generation) when he was being beamed up from a planet: he arrived aboard ship, but the signal was reflected back to the planet, leaving an exact duplicate of Riker to fend for himself before being discovered years later.