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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6080003" data-attributes="member: 42582">That's a pity.If you look in the PHB (pp 259, , you'll see the following hints:Noncombat encounters focus on skills, utility powers, and your own wits (not your character’s), although sometimes attack powers can come in handy as well. . . In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Powers you use might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. . . Chapter 5 describes the sorts of things you can attempt with your skills in a skill challenge. You can use a wide variety of skills . . . You might also use combat powers and ability checks.Page 42, plus other advice in the DMGs 1 & 2, give GMing advice that deals with this sort of stuff.Adjudication of this sort of thing I think is always going to vary from table to table. It depends a bit on how everyone sees the ardent as working - eg do the emotional "lines of communication" only open up in moments of great stress? Can you use your Insight skill to leverage your Ardent abilities (and therefore, for instance, make Insight checks even when behind someone by reading his/her mind rather than his/her face)?In one episode in my game, the PCs needed a password. While the other PCs staged a distraction, the wizard hit one of the guards with Charm of the Dark Dream (a 15th level domination daily from Heroes of the Feywiled). As well as domination, the spell removes the caster from play. We therefore reasoned that this was a bodily domination spell, in which the wizard literally enters the target and takes control of him/her - so I ruled that he could use the ability to try and read the guard's mind. He made an Arcana check but didn't get high enough, and so he got some other interesting info but couldn't dig out the password he was looking for. (From memory they got in anyway without violence because the distracting PCs kept up the bluffing until the PCs were all the way through the doorway.)As a GM, this is an instance where the skill challenge rules and improvisation dovetail nicely - by using the spell the PC is able to use Arcana to advantage in an otherwise social challenge, and the skill challenge framework tells me how much success/failure to narrate in response to that one check.</blockquote>

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