Green Lantern Rings can't even detect Alchemist's abilities. Can't deflect what you don't know is happening. Remember when one of the Lanterns was trying to detect the source of the portal that spat J'onn out? He couldn't detect that it was even happening while it was right there in front of him.
Wish most certainly can do what a thought bottle can; just cast Wish and use it to get yourself a thought bottle.
And the bottle does what it says it does, else you're not following the rules and are houseruling. Any time your XP is less than the amount it was when you used the thought bottle (minus 500) then you can restore your XP total. You got level drained back to level 1? Use the thought bottle. You used lots of XP on crafting items or casting spells? Use the thought bottle. Transmigration resets your XP to 0 after boosting your level cap and converting your perks into ability points. Is 0 less than what it was before transmigration? Yes? Then the thought bottle gives you those XP back. And since raising your XP above 0 doesn't negate having transmigrated (else Alchemist wouldn't be able to further gain levels), using the thought bottle doesn't either.
Alchemist has found all sorts of hacks for his system, such as using FF7 items for 100% free casting (which breaks the fundamental rules of the universe, in that energy can't be made ex nihilo) or using P1's Instant Dungeon and Meteor to gain thousands of levels in an instant.
Al's job is to find exploits and to cut corners, and this is one of them. You don't like it? Tough noogies. That's how the item works, so he should be able to use it that way.
That's an author's interpretation of what GL Ring can and cannot do. GL Rings can certainly detect magic and the use of magical abilities. Will can definitely restrict and restrain magic, there are many, many examples of GL fighting magic users. Will is the power that made the Starheart and confined so much magic to Earth in the first place. So, you're creating a double standard and citing the story as DC Canon while doing so?
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You are literally ignoring the wording of Thought Bottle and giving it stuff
it does not say it can do.
Experience: A
thought bottle can be used to offset level loss as a
restoration spell can, but is effective against level loss that even a
restoration can't undo (Including levels lost due to death, but not the negative levels bestowed by magic items such as a holy weapon). When a user's experience has been stored within the bottle, he can subsequently access the bottle to restore his XP total to exactly what it was when it was last stored, negating any level loss in the interim. Storing experience in the bottle is difficult, and the user must pay 500 XP (Deducted before storing) to do so. Only the creature that stored the experience can retrieve it, but if the bottle is destroyed or lost, the user suffers no ill effects.
====From COmplete Arcane, p 150.
It says
level loss. It does not say 'xp sacrificed'. It does not say 'xp expended'. It does not say 'xp transformed into another form'.
It says it negates
level loss, which is a very specific effect that happens to people in the game.
Giving up a Level and
Level Loss are not the same thing, and
you are attempting to say that they are.
Also kindly note that you can't spend xp to lose a level from crafting items or casting spells, among other things.
So it will negate Level Loss, specifically, NOT the other kinds of losing xp. It's RIGHT THERE in the item description, the limit of what it can do!
A Wish spell COULD duplicate the above effect. It's simply a version of
Greater Restoration. it could NOT create 19 levels of xp out of nowhere repeatedly that you had invested into magical items, it is beyond the power of the spell.
The 'similar item/effect' is the #1 rule of Raw for D&D, and you are totally ignoring it in your search for a Hack. As soon as that Rule is acknowledged, the Thought Bottle also cannot do what you say it does. Alchemist is not immune to Rule #1 when working with items conceived under that Rule!
So, it's not how I don't like it. It's how you are interpreting it and ignoring the Rules to do so!
I will also say that the xp preservation effect is at least a 7th level spell, and even paying 500 xp to use it each time, the minimum cost of the thing should be 91k gp, to go by the pricing rules (maybe -30% because of the XP Cost), so they are violating their own guidelines on pricing/similar items, not that such is a surprise. It's correctly priced only if you restrict it to storying memories, and maybe spells (if regaining such spells is also subject to expended spell slot rules requiring a rest/sleep, so you can't refill slots you just expended).
All in all, it's poorly worded and even worse priced, but Rule #1 takes care of the broken parts, as does actually acknowledging the language it uses.
Most Video Game systems don't have Rule #1 in D&D, and also, Terra-Chan is the active DM. Since it is so broken if misinterpreted, she'd simply rule that all the extra inclusions people are trying to work into the item are beyond the scope of the item as defined, and the problem is moot.
It comes down to being a
Greater Restoration you can use on yourself for 500 xp at a time, which, while powerful and underpriced, is not broken.
I would note that if this was in a Video Game, you'd have an absolute answer, because it would not do what you want it to do as far as unlimited XP, no Game Designer would allow it, and so your expanded definition would run right into the rules and you'd have no choice but to acknowledge them.
If the GM really wants to be snarky, he could have it work like you want, but all the xp sacrificed/converted is instantly removed from what it was used on. So all that crafting or investing you did is just spontaneously undone, meaning you spent days making a magic item that is now inert and non-functional because its xp was restored back to you, and it cost you 500 xp to do so! Likewise, Alchemist would be rewound back to level 100 and his transmigration reversed, exactly as he was.
Really, adding all these impossible xp preservations without identically reversing their effects is also facetious. Restoring your xp and reversing your level loss is exactly the same as reversing your XP sacrifice and undoing the magic items you made, but for some reason nobody wants to do that, and doubtless they'll point to the one side of the spell saying it will reverse level loss and ignore the fact that it will not negate xp sacrificed at the same time.
In the end, it's the difference between a Tabletop and a Video Game. I note that your counter examples were all video games, where the effects are absolute. An RPG is a different beast.
===As a very interesting aside, there is also an existing rule that XP put into magic items is to be included in the xp of the creating character when judging his actual level for WBL and campaign play. So, someone who is 20k xp behind the rest of the party because he made magic items for them is to be treated as if he had not spent that xp for all comparison purposes. He's not suddenly 10th level while the party is 12th, he's treated as 12th level for all purposes.
As this is a working rule, it should also apply to this item, so the xp sacrificed is not covered under level loss, and he hasn't actually lost anything, so the Thought Bottle would not work.
=+RED
