D&D 5E Help me pick a single spell for an NPC

[Ancalagon]

double post

 

[Leatherhead]

Sanctuary or Illusory Script. Sanctuary causes people to "forget" how to attack you, and illusory script is something only a few people can read before the thing poofs out of existence.

Identify or Comprehend Languages could work, if you are willing to give the beetle divine providence over finding forgotten information as well as forgetting it.

 

[Ancalagon]

Sanctuary and Identify are both logical choices... but the cleric of Memory already has identify so it doesn't help much. Sanctuary doesn't help the party much :/

 

[aco175]

If this god is trying to break out from being forgotten and die, I would make a new spell or maybe modify another. You could also give him an encounter power, or 1/rest power (correction). I gave the PCs a item that allowed him to use a free action to give a +1 bonus to a roll w/in 30ft. It changes fate or 'misplaced memories' on a small enough scale that it is not too powerful, but makes the NPC useful and the players will go out of their way to protect him- thus helping the god.

 

[pdzoch]

How about Sanctuary? When an opponent attacks, a failed save is akin to suddenly "forgotten" in the fight and another target is selected. While the god claims this is divine protection, the actual nature is more akin to its forgotten status and the protected target is more forgotten than protected.

Edit -- I accidentally repeated an idea suggested earlier because I missed the post. Instead of deleting the embarrassment, I'll just leave it here as an endorsement of the original idea.

 

[Satyrn]

Maybe a modified sleep spell is the way to go. A creature that is completely confused and looking around baffled is almost the same as a creature sleeping... you can sneak by it and it's too busy trying to remember its name to do anything. Harm it and it snaps out of it.

Go with that.

 

[Satyrn]

Or the reflavoured sanctuary. Both are cool.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The player (who's PC is, ironically, Udit's master) - and some of you - is assuming that the Beetle of Mislaid memories would be about retrieving those mislaid memories... but that doesn't really work does it? Once a memory has been retrieved, it's no longer mislaid...

I see mislaid as meaning "is somewhere other than where it ought to be". If the memory no longer exists, it's annihilated, destroyed or lost. To be mislaid it has to be somewhere.

 

[Ancalagon]

I see mislaid as meaning "is somewhere other than where it ought to be". If the memory no longer exists, it's annihilated, destroyed or lost. To be mislaid it has to be somewhere.

I completely agree with you. But would the God of Mislaid Memories want those memories to be "retrieved"? Once you remember again, the memory is no longer mislaid.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who had occasions where there is a fact you know you *knew* but you can't remember it anymore... sometimes that memory will return at a later date, sometimes it will not. If that memory returns, it wasn't destroyed, just inaccessible

 

[Saeviomagy]

I completely agree with you. But would the God of Mislaid Memories want those memories to be "retrieved"? Once you remember again, the memory is no longer mislaid.

Only if you're the person who lost it in the first place. If I put down a pen and someone else picks it up, then my pen is mislaid until they tell me they found it and give it back.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who had occasions where there is a fact you know you *knew* but you can't remember it anymore... sometimes that memory will return at a later date, sometimes it will not. If that memory returns, it wasn't destroyed, just inaccessible

Yeah, but only if it returns to YOU. Someone else can still have that information and yet the information is still mislaid for you.