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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pukunui" data-source="post: 6661134" data-attributes="member: 54629">Hi all,As you may know, the PCs in my Scourge of the Sword Coast campaign have been taken captive by duergar. While I've spent the past fortnight pondering my options, the recent UA psionics article inspired me to whip up a psionic monk-type character to help showcase the duergars' connection with psionics. There's a shrine to Deep Duerra (the Queen of the Invisible Art) in the dungeon where the PCs are being kept, after all.The NPC I've whipped up is a mix of things: I've given him a few bits and pieces from the psionics article (namely, mind thrust and telepathy and such), along with some monk abilities. Rather than faff about with psi points and disciplines and the like, though, I've just given him the doppelganger's Read Thoughts and the nothic's Weird Insight.Anyway, here's my thinking:1) The duergar leader - who is a half-fiend warlock - will have the PCs assembled in one place, where he will proceed to cast mass suggestion on them in an attempt to coerce them into being cooperative and honest when asked questions (because duergar value honesty highly ~ because you never know who might be listening!).2) The leader will then have each PC taken before the duergar mystic individually. The mystic will stare at them, reading their surface thoughts and maybe probing a bit deeper if needed. He might ask them some questions telepathically. He'll then relay any info he learns telepathically to the duergar leader. So the entire interrogation will take place without any of the duergar speaking out loud.Creepy, right? Forget the whole "We have ways of making you talk" thing. Talking is wholly unnecessary!The question is: How does one determine what precisely a PC's surface thoughts are? Do I leave that up to each player? The doppelganger's fluff states that it "can read a creature's surface thoughts, allowing it to glean that creature's name, desires, and fears, along with a few scattered memories." Does that mean that reading surface thoughts automatically gets you a creature's real name and so on?While Weird Insight requires an ability contest, Read Thoughts is automatic. Should I give the players a chance to disguise their thoughts, or would they need a special ability for that (the mind blank spell, for instance)? If I don't, the duergar will basically be able to learn everything they need to (the PCs' names, abilities, and why they came) without the PCs being able to do anything about it.A penny for your thoughts? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Thanks!  p.s. Next session is tomorrow night.</blockquote>

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