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 Post subject: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:39 pm 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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Location: Michigan
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Excellence in Action
Tradition: Heritage (val’Assanté) [Tier II]
Category: Advanced
CTN: 20
Speed (Strain): +2 (+4)
Range: Self
Effect: You perform this spell in conjunction with a single Action Skill Roll. When performing your Action Skill Roll, your Attribute Die now explodes the fist time you roll it, whether you roll that die’s maximum value or 1.

Adaptation: Increase the CTN by 6 and Strain by 1 to add your casting Attribute’s Passive Value to your Action Skill Roll


So spellcasting is an arcanum skill roll, right? So this can be cast at the same time you are casting another spell to blow up your die, and add your passive primary to the casting roll (With adaptation), right? Seems like with a stat of 8 (passive 4, d10 die) you're looking at adding on average 9 to any important casting, right? Is this intended to work with spells and/or melee attacks? If it does work with spells, how does that work with daily precasts or spells cast outside a scene, like bindings?

I guess I'm a little confused by the "in conjunction with" part of it too, since that would seem to be more of a push action.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 10:27 pm 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:08 am
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Hello,

It seems pretty clear to me.

When you make an Action Skill Roll (so Passive would not work) your Attribute Die explodes regardless of what was rolled on that die.

Where's the confusion?

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 11:04 pm 
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Location: Portland OR
Generally you cannot use push actions on your "regular" action...so push is not a good fit to describe the speed. +2 Spd seems pretty clear. Whatever the action costs you increase the speed by 2. I would note that some actions become interruptible if they go too long.

RAW suggests to me that you could combine this spell with an attack...But because it is an advanced spell itself (and combines by adding +2 to Spd) I do not think it can be combined with other spell casting.

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. . . and Sir Szymon val'Holryn, Order of the Phoenix
Formerly Sir Jaeger val'Holryn. Weilder of the Holy Avenger: Thonanos. Gave his soul to help free King Noen


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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:59 am 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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Location: Michigan
val Holryn wrote:
Generally you cannot use push actions on your "regular" action...so push is not a good fit to describe the speed. +2 Spd seems pretty clear. Whatever the action costs you increase the speed by 2. I would note that some actions become interruptible if they go too long.

RAW suggests to me that you could combine this spell with an attack...But because it is an advanced spell itself (and combines by adding +2 to Spd) I do not think it can be combined with other spell casting.


Well, that's the thing. It doesn't say it has to be combined into an advanced spell. It is cast "in conjunction." So I would think you could cast it at the same time as another spell, but it wouldn't be combined into a total speed. But does it go off before or after the other spells? Is there damage from strain if you cast this while casting another spell, because the other spell's strain hasn't passed? Or is the strain from this spell and the other spell all lumped together because it is simultaneous?

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 10:35 am 
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It says in conjunction with an Action Skill roll. It is meant to be used with an Athletics/Stealth/Knowledge check, or perhaps an attack roll. Not at the same time as another spell.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 10:56 am 
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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.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:57 pm 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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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.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:33 pm 
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And because of how powerful that bonus is, I will NEVER allow it on a precast spell at my table. Active "in the present" casting, sure, but not on precast ones. I don't even like letting people to roll for long-term spells like Inertial Shield or Benediction of the God's out of the content of the scene and typically insist they only go off their passive value. I have had far too many people abuse the system power gaming that I just won't allow it.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:36 am 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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Nierite wrote:
And because of how powerful that bonus is, I will NEVER allow it on a precast spell at my table. Active "in the present" casting, sure, but not on precast ones. I don't even like letting people to roll for long-term spells like Inertial Shield or Benediction of the God's out of the content of the scene and typically insist they only go off their passive value. I have had far too many people abuse the system power gaming that I just won't allow it.


Whereas my thought would be it is either broken and should not be allowed to be combined with spells across the board, or it is not and it should be allowed to precasts for logical consistency reasons. I'm not sure how applying an ability to precasts can be broken, but it isn't in combat, unless the factor supposed to limit the abuse of the power is a huge casting time or strain (neither of which matter outside of combat). But that is not the case with this spell.

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 Post subject: Re: Excellence in Action
PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 9:49 am 
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I have had no fewer than 4 distinct players argue with me that they (between T1.1 and 2.5) can "autocast" CTN in the 30's out of scenes because "they can just keep trying" and I've had to limit my own personal tables due to these experiences. When in combat and you are suffering an economy of actions and have an active threat, I am more open because there is sacrifice to using this spell since that is ticks and strain to worry about
Similarly, on at least some out of combat rolls there are sacrifices to be made. Not so in "well, I'm walking through the trees with a +3 Inertial Shield active because what is the stress."

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