Ritual transformation into Elan + Thought Bottle - "legal" by RAW?

[Dagredhel]

The ritual that transforms a character into an Elan wipes out any class levels. Only the character's memories and basic personality survive the process.

But couldn't a potential Elan use a Thought Bottle to circumvent this?

If this were allowed, then would an LA be appropriate to balance the additional racial abilities? What would it be worth?

 

[pawsplay]

I don't see that it would add LA.

 

[Fieari]

This is why the Thought Bottle should not be allowed, in any campaign, under any circumstances, ever. I'm still waiting for the errata that says "Thought Bottle no longer exists". There's no way it could possibly be balanced.

Ever hear of the archtypal CharOp characters, "The Wish" and "The Word"? They're legendary, except that instead of being fondly loved by math geeks as the Hulking Hurler and a number of others, "The Word" is particularly hated because it relies solely on using the thought bottle to obtain crazy levels of power.

There is no other legitimate use for the thought bottle. None. Not one potential useful situation of the thought bottle can be thought of that isn't horribly broken. Numbers can't be adjusted. No real mitigating factors can be added. It's existence is broken, and that's all there is to it.

 

[Dagredhel]

Pawsplay--- I was thinking that the character would have all of his original abilities, including racial abilities, plus the Elan racial abilities. Upon consideration, I suppose the correct abjudication would be to eliminate the original racial traits (the extra feat, skill points, and favored class: all.)

However, even so the Resilience ability would still be pretty sweet for the psionic character types likely to go this route. On the other hand, it's no more unbalancing than the stat increases high level characters pile on from reading tomes.

Fieari--- I've never followed the logic that the creators of the abusive examples using the Thought Bottle somehow seem to employ to add endless levels of different classes. It's never made any sense to me, and always seems to be treated as a given that it's possible.

(Anyone) care to explain the underlying assumptions?

 

[Elemental]

It's not that hard to abuse a Thought Bottle, even without getting into specialised builds. For starters, make dozens of magic items, restore your XP from the Thought Bottle, then make some more. When you get Wish, everyone gets +5 to their stats (no XP cost).

 

[Corsair]

Something about the Thought Bottle just screams "INEVITABLE!"

In my game, it would only make an appears to serve as a plot hook for why strange extra-planar constructs are tromping about the campaign.

 

[Piratecat]

My thought bottles are all 2nd edition -- when they, you know, actually stored thoughts.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

My thought bottles are all 2nd edition -- when they, you know, actually stored thoughts.

And what skeletons lurk within, I wonder?

But on topic, I agree thought bottles are an item to avoid like the plague. I would not allow them in my campaign, or remove the whole memory/xp/etc part of it and have them just store thoughts.

 

[justinsluder]

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to find where the game info for thought bottles are. Could someone post the book and page please.

Thanks,
Justin

 

[Krafen]

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to find where the game info for thought bottles are. Could someone post the book and page please.

Thanks,
Justin

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