Nierite wrote:
Akira is correct in that it is meant to be used primarily for things like Larceny, Athletics, Battle, etc.
That said, with "rules as written" if you were to make a CTN roll to cast a spell, you could apply Excellence in Action (sp) to that CTN roll. In this case, technically you are not 'combining' the spells to make an advance spell, but you are casting Excellence in Action (sp) and THEN making your Arcanum Action Skill Roll. In terms of Ticks, the speeds are combined as per the spell rather than taking a 2 tick action, than another action. In terms of Strain, because of how the spell is written ("In combination with") the Strain of Excellence in Action (sp) would stack with that of the spell you would be casting as if it were a single spell.
Thank you, this is what I would have assumed it would have come out like, but I wanted to make sure. It does seem clear to me that it was intended for non-combat skill rolls, but since it has been made clear in the past that weapon attacks and spellcasting checks are skill checks, I knew that technically this could be applied to it, and I wanted clarification on how. I would not have been terribly surprised to have seen combat related checks (to hit and spell casting) ruled as outside the scope of the spell, since it is a massive bonus that can be acquired.
The question that I mentioned earlier that ties into this was about precasting. I know that this obviously does not apply to the passive value of a caster, which "out-of-scene" casting defaults to. I agree with having out-of-scene casting default to that, so that you don't have players rolling and rolling and rolling "morning" or prebattle caster checks. But on the flip side, if you have a spell (or other effect) that can dependably bump a caster's roll by +8 or so, it seems silly to not let them use that on their precasts, since it makes a huge difference.