Lore oracle question

[Sin the lore oracle]

Hi, I was wondering about something.

How does the revelation 'Brain Drain' work? What I mean is that in the description there is a reference to the 'detect thoughts'-spell that completely puzzles me. Imho those two have nothing to do with each other.

With Brain Drain you can break into someone's mind, then use that person's knowledge skill to interpret the information you find in his mind (if you take a full round action the round after breaking into his mind). Furthermore, the information is transferred to your own brain for CHA rounds. I don't see what that has to do with detect thoughts, unless you can only steal surface thoughts (but it is said to work like detect thoughts, not to have the same effect as detect thoughts, and the game mechanics of detect thoughts are completely different).

Another question regarding 'Brain Drain' is what happens if you combine it with the revelation 'focused trance'? This revelation let's you ponder (amongst others) a memory for D6 rounds, then make a single knowledge check with a +20 circumstance bonus using your own knowledge check. What if you do this with the stolen memory (presuming your D6 roll is lower than your CHA score, or your CHA-score is so high it doesn't even matter)?

[Sin the lore oracle]

bump

[Gruuuu]

Yeeeaaahh... These are all good questions.

The only link I could think of for detect thoughts is that, maybe the nature of the thoughts you gather is only as good as the correlative rounds of knowledge gained.
Clear as mud? Yay!

What I mean:

d20pfsrd.com: Brain Drain wrote:

The randomly stolen thoughts remain in your mind for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.

d20pfsrd: Detect Thoughts wrote:

You detect surface thoughts. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.

1st Round: Presence or absence of thoughts (from conscious creatures with Intelligence scores of 1 or higher).

2nd Round: Number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score of each. If the highest Intelligence is 26 or higher (and at least 10 points higher than your own Intelligence score), you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends. This spell does not let you determine the location of the thinking minds if you can't see the creatures whose thoughts you are detecting.

3rd Round: Surface thoughts of any mind in the area. A target's Will save prevents you from reading its thoughts, and you must cast detect thoughts again to have another chance. Creatures of animal intelligence (Int 1 or 2) have simple, instinctual thoughts.

So you get a knowledge benefit equal to Detect Thought's Round MAX(CHA Bonus,3)

Your second scenario should fly though. But to be honest, I don't see the benefit. Dropping 1 or 2 points into each knowledge skill + Focused Trance pretty much guarantees you access to all but the most obtuse and arcane information. The only drawback is the limited uses per day which is really only a bother for combat identification. You get around this by maintaining a higher level of Kn:Local, since humanoids are the majority of the creatures with int scores high enough to put ranks in Kn:Anything

You might also ask your GM if (s)he'll allow Think on It with Focused Trance (try a Knowledge check, fail, Focused Trance + Think on It = +20 circumstance, +10 competence)

[Sin the lore oracle]

Gruuuu wrote:

Yeeeaaahh... These are all good questions.

The only link I could think of for detect thoughts is that, maybe the nature of the thoughts you gather is only as good as the correlative rounds of knowledge gained.
Clear as mud? Yay!

What I mean:

d20pfsrd.com: Brain Drain wrote:

The randomly stolen thoughts remain in your mind for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.

d20pfsrd: Detect Thoughts wrote:

You detect surface thoughts. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.

1st Round: Presence or absence of thoughts (from conscious creatures with Intelligence scores of 1 or higher).

2nd Round: Number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score of each. If the highest Intelligence is 26 or higher (and at least 10 points higher than your own Intelligence score), you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends. This spell does not let you determine the location of the thinking minds if you can't see the creatures whose thoughts you are detecting.

3rd Round: Surface thoughts of any mind in the area. A target's Will save prevents you from reading its thoughts, and you must cast detect thoughts again to have another chance. Creatures of animal intelligence (Int 1 or 2) have simple, instinctual thoughts.

So you get a knowledge benefit equal to Detect Thought's Round MAX(CHA Bonus,3)

First of all, thx Gruuuu for answering.

About the answer, don't you think it odd that the ability states that you get to make a Kn.check the round after, and then after the thoughts have been transferred to your brain it works like detect thoughts?

I mean, I don't see a point in step 1 (either the thoughts were there and transferred, or there were no thoughts to be transferred. Step 2 is also rather pointless, since you're only targetting 1 person, the only thing that could be relevant is the penalty. Step 3 has potential relevant info (in that it limits the thoughts that can be stolen to surface thoughts, which is contrary to what Brain Drain itself states.

d20pfsrd.com: Brain Drain wrote:

After successfully attacking with this ability, you may use a fullround action to sort through the jumble of stolen thoughts and memories to make a single Knowledge check using the victim’s skill bonus. The randomly stolen thoughts remain in your mind for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. Treat the knowledge gained as if you used detect thoughts.

So my problem is that it states that you can steal even memories, but that the knwoledge you gain must be treated as if you used detect thoughts, limiting it to surface thoughts., which excludes memories.

Gruuuu wrote:

Your second scenario should fly though. But to be honest, I don't see the benefit. Dropping 1 or 2 points into each knowledge skill + Focused Trance pretty much guarantees you access to all but the most obtuse and arcane information. The only drawback is the limited uses per day which is really only a bother for combat identification. You get around this by maintaining a higher level of Kn:Local, since humanoids are the majority of the creatures with int scores high enough to put ranks in Kn:Anything

You might also ask your GM if (s)he'll allow Think on It with Focused Trance (try a Knowledge check, fail, Focused Trance + Think on It = +20 circumstance, +10 competence)

The gain I see that you can use your knowledge skill on the gained information, which is most likely higher than the use of the knowlegde skill of the owner of the information.