My group is currently very confused about the Shaman hex Brain Drain: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/shaman/spirits/lore/
The relevant part of the hex is this:
On the round following her successful use of this ability, the shaman can take a full-round action to sort through the jumble of stolen thoughts and memories to attempt a single Knowledge check using the victim’s bonus with that skill. The random stolen thoughts remain in the shaman’s mind for a number of rounds equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1), and she can treat the knowledge gained as if she used detect thoughts.
So, it mentions making a knowledge check, but it also mentions that the knowledge can be treated as if the shaman used Detect Thoughts.
So, the part about the knowledge roll is pretty clear. The part about Detect Thoughts is not.
As far as I can tell, in Pathfinder Detect Thoughts only gets you surface thoughts? But this specifically says you get memories. Or is the bit about Detect Thoughts relevant to something else (for example, which creatures you can use the hex on to begin with).
If you can use it to read surface thoughts, how does that work? Do you need to spend three rounds to be able to read surface thoughts, as you do in actual Detect Thoughts? Or can you do that immediately once you've stolen the thoughts and memories?
Thanks for any answers or advice you can give me.
Treat the knowledge gained as if it were a surface thought, a poor skill check gets them only that information, it doesn’t matter how many skill checks they make with the subjects knowledge (irrelevant since they can only make the one check anyways), they only know what the first check told them unless they use brain drain again. If the subject is incapable of intelligent thought, then they can only get instinctual thoughts, no detailed information of any kind.
Basically, despite absorbing complete memories you only have access to what little information the one knowledge check unveiled and only up to as much as the subject is capable of. You cant learn things they had no way of knowing, you cant learn things they forgot, and you cant learn things beyond their comprehension.