Those who let their base emotions rule them invite madness and destruction. Prolonged feelings of fear, greed, lust, or hatred can weaken the mind's defenses against manipulation. Wielding psionic power, you excite such emotions in your enemies, creating gaps in their defenses and frustrating their attacks, all while filling your allies with encouraging thoughts and guarding them against despair and other negative emotions.
Ardents rarely learn their art through formal training. In many ways, they are incidental leaders, having stumbled onto psionic power at some point earlier in their lives. How you discovered your psionic talent can shape how you wield this power now. You might have awakened to your talent in the heat of battle, experiencing a mental breakthrough that allowed you to augment your attacks by rending your enemies’ minds. Or your friends might reflect your power when your mood bleeds into theirs, altering their emotional states to match your own. Regardless of the revelation, you learned to harness this power to support your fighting prowess and to guide your allies to victory.
Class Traits
| Role: Leader. You fill your allies with the will to fight and the clarity of purpose needed for victory. When you attack, you loose thoughts that intensify emotions and lay bare truths. Depending on your choice of class features, you lean toward either defender or striker as a secondary role. Power Source: Psionic. You are a spiritual warrior whose thoughts swirl about you to infect your enemies with doubt and fill your allies with confidence. Key Abilities: Charisma, Constitution, Wisdom Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail. Hit Points at 1st Level: 12+ Constitution Score. Trained Skills: From the class skills list below, choose 4 trained skills at 1st level. Build Options: Enlightened Ardent, Euphoric Ardent. |
Creating an Ardent
Ardents depend on Charisma more than other abilities. Constitution is important for powers that improve your allies' attacks, and Wisdom is important if you want to foil your enemies’ attacks. You can choose any powers you like, though many ardents favor one of the two builds described here.
Enlightened Ardent
You read your enemies’ weaknesses and reveal them to your allies, and your keen insight helps your allies overcome damaging effects. Make Charisma your highest ability score. You should also consider investing in Wisdom to take advantage of powers that confuse your enemies. Your secondary role is defender, and your leadership helps protect allies from harm.
Class Feature: Mantle of Clarity
Suggested Feat: Bolstering Mantle
Suggested Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Heal, Insight
Suggested At-Will Powers: focusing strike, psionic shield
Suggested Encounter Power: none. (see Psionic Augmentation)
Suggested Daily Power: wormhole plunge
Euphoric Ardent
You can scarcely contain the emotions that strain against your will like a crashing tide. When you make your attacks, they flood out of you, increasing your allies' confidence and washing away your enemies' courage. Charisma should be your highest ability score, followed by a high Constitution score to improve those effects that raise your allies' spirits and diminish your enemies' capabilities. If you want to diversify your powers, a high Wisdom can't hurt, but you should also look to Dexterity for initiative checks and Reflex. Your secondary role is striker, and your powers can augment your allies’ attacks.
Class Feature: Mantle of Elation
Suggested Feat: Heartening Surge
Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate, Streetwise
Suggested At-Will Powers: demoralizing strike, ire strike
Suggested Encounter Power: none. (see Psionic Augmentation)
Suggested Daily Power: battleborn acuity
Ardent Class Features
Ardents have the following class features.
Ardent Mantle
A person's state of mind can be armor against the decay and madness born from base emotions, and thus ardents gird themselves by donning particular mindsets to ward off the perils brought on by fear, despair, and hatred. Various emotional states, called mantles, can safeguard the mind. Ardents most commonly use the mantles of clarity and elation.
Mantle of Clarity
You and each ally within 5 squares of you gain a bonus to all defenses against opportunity attacks. The bonus equals your Wisdom modifier. In addition, each ally within 5 squares of you gains a +2 bonus to Insight checks and Perception checks. (If a character is in the radius of more than one Mantle of Clarity, the bonuses are not cumulative. Only the highest ones apply to him or her.)
You also gain the ardent alacrity power.
| Ardent Alacrity | Ardent Feature |
| As you take a hit, your emotional energy inspires your allies. |
| Encounter ✦ Psionic |
| No Action | Close burst 5 |
| Trigger: You are bloodied by an attack |
| Target: Each ally in burst |
| Effect: Each target can use a free action either to shift 1 square or to move half his or her speed. |
Mantle of Elation
You and each ally within 5 squares of you gain a bonus to damage rolls for opportunity attacks. The bonus equals your Constitution modifier. In addition, each ally within 5 squares of you gains a +2 bonus to Diplomacy checks and Intimidate checks.
You also gain the ardent outrage power.
| Ardent Outrage | Ardent Feature |
| As you take a hit, your anger unbalances your foes. |
| Encounter ✦ Psionic |
| No Action | Close burst 5 |
| Trigger: You are bloodied by an attack |
| Target: Each enemy in burst |
| Effect: Each target grants combat advantage until the start of your next turn. |
Ardent Surge
You gain the ardent surge power. Your advanced emotional state is inspirational, motivating your allies and helping them to recover from injuries.
| Ardent Surge | Ardent Feature |
| You send a surge of powerful emotion that revives a faltering ally. |
| Encounter (Special) ✦ Healing, Psionic |
| Minor Action | Close burst 5 (10 at 16th level) |
| Target: You or one ally |
| Effect: The target can spend a healing surge and regain 1d6 additional hit points. |
| Level 6: 2d6 additional hit points. |
| Level 11: 3d6 additional hit points. |
| Level 16: 4d6 additional hit points. |
| Level 21: 5d6 additional hit points. |
| Level 26: 6d6 additional hit points. |
| Mantle of Clarity: The target gains a +1 bonus to all defenses until the end of your next turn. |
| Mantle of Elation: The target gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn. |
| Special: You can use this power twice per encounter, but only once per round. At 16th level, you can use this power three times per encounter, but only once per round. |
Psionic Augmentation
Through discipline and careful study, you have mastered a form of psionic magic that offers greater versatility than other characters command. You know a broad array of at-will powers, each of which is a conduit through which you can pour as much or as little psionic energy as you choose. You channel psionic energy into a reservoir of personal power—represented in the game as power points—that you can use to augment your at-will attack powers, replacing the encounter attack powers that other characters use.
Because of this class feature, you acquire and use powers in a slightly different manner from how most other classes do.
At-Will Attack Powers: At 1st level, you choose two at-will attack powers and one daily attack power from your class, but you don’t start with any encounter attack powers from your class. You can instead augment your class at-will attack powers using power points. These powers have the augmentable keyword.
You gain new at-will attack powers from this class, instead of new encounter attack powers, as you increase in level. At 3rd level, you choose a new at-will attack power from this class. At 7th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th level, you can replace one of your at-will attack powers with another one of your level or lower. Both powers must be augmentable and from this class.
Power Points: You start with 2 power points. You gain 2 additional power points at 3rd and 7th level, 1 additional power point at 13th level, and 2 additional power points at 17th, 21st, 23rd, and 27th level. If you gain power points from another source (such as your paragon path), add them to your power point total. You can use your power points to augment any augmentable power you have, regardless of how you gained the power.
You regain all your power points when you take a short or an extended rest.
| Level | At-Will Attack Powers | Power Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choose two | Gain 2 |
| 3 | Choose one | Gain 2 (4 total) |
| 7 | Replace one | Gain 2 (6 total) |
| 13 | Replace one | Gain 1 (7 total) |
| 17 | Replace one | Gain 2 (9 total) |
| 21 | — | Gain 2 (11 total) |
| 23 | Replace one | Gain 2 (13 total) |
| 27 | Replace one | Gain 2 (15 total) |
The Augmentable Keyword
A power that has the augmentable keyword has optional augmentations, which you can use at the cost of power points. An augmentable power follows these rules, unless the power’s description says otherwise.
- Decide First: You must decide whether and how to augment an augmentable power when you choose to use the power, before you make any attack rolls or apply any of the power’s effects.
- Power Point Cost: An augmentation specifies its cost in power points. For example, “Augment 1” means you must spend 1 power point to use an augmentation. You must spend the required power points when you decide to use the augmentation.
- One at a Time: You can use only one of a power’s augmentations at a time, so you can’t, for example, spend 3 power points to gain both the 1-point and the 2-point augmentation for a single power.
- Replace Base Effects: When you augment a power, any change to the power is noted in the augmentation and replaces specific entries in the base power. An augmented version of a power is otherwise identical to the base power.
- At-Will Attack Powers: When a power or some other effect lets you use an at-will attack power, you can choose to use one of your augmentable at-will attack powers, but you must use it unaugmented.
When a racial trait grants you an at-will attack power of your choice and you choose an augmentable at-will attack power, the power loses its augmentations. However, the power does not lose the augmentable keyword. This means the power is unaugmented when you use it, unless you augment it by some other means.
| Character Classes |
| Player's Handbook | Cleric ✦ Fighter ✦ Paladin ✦ Ranger ✦ Rogue ✦ Warlock ✦ Warlord ✦ Wizard |
| Player's Handbook 2 | Avenger ✦ Barbarian ✦ Bard ✦ Druid ✦ Invoker ✦ Shaman ✦ Sorcerer ✦ Warden |
| Player's Handbook 3 | Ardent ✦ Battlemind ✦ Monk ✦ Psion ✦ Runepriest ✦ Seeker |
| Setting-Specific | Artificer (Eberron Player's Guide) ✦ Swordmage (Forgotten Realms Player's Guide) |
| Character Classes |