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I was reading through this question and basically any answer can be undone by most if not all of these things:

  • the Wish spell
  • the Fates card from the Deck of Many Things
  • a cleric's Divine Intervention

So I was wondering, is there any effect in official D&D 5e material that can actually not be undone by any of the methods listed above or in any other way? Unearthed Arcana and such included; no homebrew.

The effect doesn't have to be death. It can be an effect with a non-permanent duration, like an Antimagic Field - though Antimagic Field could be undone by any of the above, so it's not exactly an example of what I'm looking for.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm a bit confused, how can an effect not be able to be undone, but not be permanent? Can you elaborate on this? \$\endgroup\$
    – Rubiksmoose
    Jun 14, 2019 at 20:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Rubiksmoose it can have a timelimit. Like mage armor. But mage armor can be undone by any of the mentioned effects, before the timelimit is over. \$\endgroup\$
    – findusl
    Jun 17, 2019 at 8:04

4 Answers 4

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Tomb of Annihilation has one

In the Tomb of Annihilation adventure, you can

get your soul trapped in the Soulmonger, where it is eventually consumed by an Atropal. Once consumed, the soul is gone forever. This is described in the "Soul Devouring" section of the introduction (p. 7).

This process is completely irreversible; not even divine intervention will be able to restore it according to the description.

Time travel and the like to try and prevent said effect seems completely outside the scope of normal D&D, and while it would be an awesome plot hook, it's not something that the official rules have an answer for. As far as the book is concerned, the effect is permanent.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Jun 14, 2019 at 22:16
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I have been reading more through the answers of the related question, and found this option from Quadratic Wizard's answer that seems quite undoable.

Free Tharizdun

Tharizdun is an elder god, an entity of pure annihilation, trapped only by the concerted effort of all deities. His mad servants (typically warlocks, in this edition) attempt to free him. Should you help them succeed, Tharizdun will destroy the entire multiverse.

Once everything and everyone is gone, there is nobody who could undo something.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1, though that Tharizdun once was captured implies to me that the annihilation is not immediate, and therefore the freeing might be reversible, even if the possible consequence of ending everything, ever, is not. \$\endgroup\$
    – bukwyrm
    Jun 14, 2019 at 11:22
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No*

*Depending on your definition of "undone"

There is certainly an argument to Disintegrate turning your body to dust, and having a new body created by True Resurrection isn't "undoing" the effect, but negating it.

However, nitpicking aside:

A Wish spell can alter reality and even, as per the given examples, twist time to before an event occurred.

Similarly, a Sphinx has the lair action:

The flow of time within the lair is altered such that everything within moves up to 10 years forward or backward

Meaning any effect within the past 10 years can be practically undone.

Divine Intervention and its ilk are also theoretically unlimited, depending on the power of deities in your campaign, usually I have found it ruled that anything which may offend rivaling gods is "vetoed" to prevent consequence shattering exploits however.

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Damnatio memoriae

Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", i.e., that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. There are and have been many routes to damnatio, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history.

It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate on traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State. The term can be applied to other instances of official scrubbing; the practice is seen as long ago as the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut in the fourteenth century BC.

I mean, strictly speaking, this could be undone. But the idea here is how/why can you undo something you don't know ever happened/existed? And this could feasibly be done with just LOTS of charisma/influence (no magic/Wish).

It is easily debatable if this counts, but I think it is at least interesting. (In theory, if you use Wish to achieve this, it could never believably be undone)

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    \$\begingroup\$ @Abigail That is just one example. People forget things over time, and with magic, you can MAKE them forget. The point here is that if you make it so that there is no record of something (physical or remembered), than no one can undo it, because they don't know what was done. Even if some people remember, someone with the power+will to undo must be one of those people. I never said this was easy or had to be perfect. (Though Wish could do a flawless job, depending on the scale) \$\endgroup\$
    – Tezra
    Jun 14, 2019 at 20:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ I get it, and I appreciate the kind of non mechanical thinking that it took to offer this example. I like how you demonstrate just how powerful Wish is/can be. (Still, even with the power reduction in 5e). \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Jun 15, 2019 at 0:16

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