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My character was affected by the dominate person spell (and failed the will save) and was given some orders. Does he have any recollection or memory of the orders after the duration of the effect expired?

KRyan
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Shahal
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3 Answers3

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A creature that's been the victim of a dominate spell usually remembers the events that occurred unless steps are taken to make the creature forget

In Pathfinder, if the creature couldn't otherwise choose to forget, the dominated creature can't be ordered to forget.1

The spell dominate person et al. says that

You can control the actions of any humanoid creature through a telepathic link that you establish with the subject's mind.

Emphasis mine. Among typical creatures, there's no action for forgetting. So while a dominator can totally command the dominated creature to forget something, doing so won't have any more effect than commanding the creature to experience love for the dominator, suffer pain, catch a disease, remember its own birth, see something ethereal, or poop out a squirrel. Having the dominated creature perform such (presumably) impossible actions are beyond the scope of dominate spells. (If the creature does have special abilities that enable it take one or more of these actions, however, all bets are off and the dominator can command away.)

So the creature, in fact, remembers the entire dominated experience, and, actually, the creature can't just forget it. Further, as memory is so closely intertwined with the fundamentals of personality, dominators may know that even commanding a creature to perform such an act is "against its nature [and the creature] receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus," but that's probably a bit extreme.

A very careful dominator could make it difficult for the creature to understand the actions the creature undertook while under the influence of a domainate spell, such as commanding the creature to close its eyes or cover its ears, but those are actions which can be performed.

So while under the influence of the dominate spell, the creature's memory remains as functional as his mental abilities, experiences (personal and perhaps game-mechanical), and abilities allow. Properly speaking, recall isn't governed by any particular ability score (although Intelligence appears the most likely candidate, arguments can be made for Wisdom and even Charisma—My sense of self is so vast that anything I experience matters deeply to me or whatever), so determining the extent of typical memory is up to the GM. However, unless steps are taken to make the dominated creature's memory of its dominated experience fuzzy (e.g. the enchanter commands, "I order you to consume booze until your memories of my commanding you are a blur," and then lets the spell run out), a creature should be able to recount anything it's done as the enchanter's puppet, and such memories should be as accurate as anything else its done in its life, limited only by the GM's judgment of the creature's ability scores, special abilities, and experiences.

This, by the way, may help explain why vampires are frequently depicted as throwing the best parties.

1 Dragonmarked for Pathfinder's antecedent Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 on Mnemonic Training says

Just as Autohypnosis can be used to memorize text or phrases, it can be used to forget them. Each successful DC 15 Autohypnosis check allows a character to expunge a message he has read or heard (up to 800 words) from his memory. Multiple checks allow a character to forget longer conversations or documents. [...] If you do not use the Expanded Psionics Handbook in your game, characters can accomplish this task using the Concentration skill but with +2 to all DCs. (75)

Whether such techniques can be used by anyone or only those of House Sivis in the Eberron campaign setting is the GM's call, as is whether such techniques can be used to forget events as well as conversations, phrases, messages, and text. The skill Autohypnosis is available from 3rd-party publishers in Pathfinder.

Hey I Can Chan
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  • It is a "mind-affecting" spell... – mxyzplk Nov 29 '13 at 17:39
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    That impacts targeting and doesn't grant effects beyond what's stated: "A mind-affecting spell works only against creatures with an Intelligence score of 1 or higher" (PH 174). – Hey I Can Chan Nov 29 '13 at 17:48
  • Eh. A valid opinion; that way I see a lengthy debate over which exact parts of the brain must be affected and the difference between actions and mental actions and is forgetting a physical act or not... Seems unnecessarily complex. – mxyzplk Nov 29 '13 at 17:55
  • Well, you made your point :). However I'm talking about the events that occur during the mind control phase. How does the controlled one operate, mindwise. For instance the one who is controlled might enter a state of mind like when you get really drunk - you might not remember anything once you sober up. Not sure of the state of consciousness of the subject while being controlled. – Shahal Nov 29 '13 at 18:04
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    @Shahal It’s worth noting that dominate is the unwieldy bludgeon of enchantments. It’s obvious to others that the target is dominated, you have to give very particular commands, etc. For subtlety, you have to be cleverer, and use a less heavy-handed effect: charm is better, but suggestion is better still. These don’t make the target forget, but may make it less obvious that they were enchanted in the first place. – KRyan Nov 29 '13 at 19:42
  • @HeyICanChan You should probably note that you can totally command the target to forget if they have that ability; the reason you cannot make that command normally is because most creatures are simply unable to comply. But some spells and abilities can do it, and for targets who have them (assuming they fail another save, since for most creatures it is against one’s nature to forget important information), the command would work fine. – KRyan Nov 29 '13 at 19:44
  • @KRyan I thought I made it clear in paragraph 4 that if a creature has the ability to edit its own memory it could be commanded to do so, but if that needs to be clearer I can edit. Also, what creatures--besides high-level casters--have this ability? I can see weird loops with a dominated wizard commanded to mindrape himself then asked by the enchanter, "Did you do it?" Short of that and maybe aboleths, what else is even fluff-capable of editing their own memories? – Hey I Can Chan Nov 29 '13 at 20:02
  • @HeyICanChan Mostly I just think it’s unclear why the answer is no; the initial paragraphs seem to indicate it’s not a command you can give or something, while it’s really just that most targets are incapable of complying. – KRyan Nov 30 '13 at 02:52
  • It should also be noted that if you command a creature to close it's eyes it won't be very good at completing further tasks that require vision (like... walking across a room). Dominate doesn't allow a creature to forgo its senses. If it attacks something with it's eyes closed it is very much considered blind and would, mechanically, attack a random threatened square instead. On the same note: if you told it to plug it's ears it wouldn't be very good at hearing commands now, would it? – Jason_c_o Mar 04 '14 at 10:58
  • @Jason_c_o The dominate spells' orders are delivered via telepathic link but an otherwise valid point. – Hey I Can Chan Mar 04 '14 at 11:09
  • My misunderstanding. Because it requires a common language I believed it was more sound-based. After re-reading I now see that this is only because the minds must be able to understand each other. – Jason_c_o Mar 04 '14 at 11:23
  • Keep in mind that pathfinder has specific spells to Modify Memories: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/modify-memory – ShadowKras Jul 27 '15 at 11:54
  • @ShadowKras That doesn't change whether the subject remembers but changes whether the dominator can make the creature forget, but point taken. :-) Also, dominate lasts days, and modify memory changes only 5 minutes, but, I guess, if you very carefully pick the right 5 minutes... – Hey I Can Chan Jul 27 '15 at 12:01
  • There is also Sequester Thoughts, that can take memories for a while longer (1min/lv), but yes, it seems the core rules don't care much about subtle mind controlling. But if you are careful enough with your commands on a charmed target, you could convince him that you were buffing him ("Controlling your moves? No man, that was a Haste spell to make you fight better!"). http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sequester-thoughts – ShadowKras Jul 27 '15 at 12:12
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By RAW the target remembers, unless something else happens to make the target forget. But I would argue that the caster can safely order the subject to submit to modify memory spells or similar effects, as this isn't obviously self-destructive.

The Spooniest
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  • That's not the only thing that modify memory can do, though. You can actually use it to enhance true memories, not just to erase or fabricate them, so as long as the caster doesn't tell you what the spell is for (or lies about what it's for) it's not obvious that the caster intends to do something so destructive. – The Spooniest Nov 29 '13 at 20:21
  • I think the PC would see it as destructive, as they are aware they are being dominated. I would rule that being ordered to alter your own memories (by any means) would definitely allow another will save against the Dominate effect before it occurred. And, if the order succeeded, I would allow the PC a will save against the effect of Modify Memory as well (since the PC would be fully aware of what is happening and perceive it as harmful, even though it originates from them-self.) – Jason_c_o Mar 04 '14 at 11:29
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RAW, nothing about Dominate Person says that the subject forgets about their dominated activities by default.

Mind-affecting spells are often a place where effects are subtle and ill-defined however, if the dominator explicitly orders the victim to forget everything they've done, I'd probably allow it to persist past the duration. If for no other reason than you want a vampire's dominated victims to be pleasingly unclear on what happened...

mxyzplk
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    No matter how willing I may be to follow your orders, I cannot forget things on command. Being dominated doesn’t suddenly give me that ability, either. – KRyan Nov 29 '13 at 19:46
  • No. I would rule that the vampire would have to utilize some other effect to alter memory if he truly wanted his dominated victims to forget. – Jason_c_o Mar 04 '14 at 11:31