Second (Ability) Excellency—Essence Triumphant

Cost: 2m per success; Mins: (Ability) 1, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive (Step 1 for attacker, Step 2 for defender)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

Solar Exalted with this Charm are known for their unwavering perfection. The Exalt's player can invoke this Charm when making a roll based on the relevant Ability. The Exalt then spends up to (Attribute + Ability) in motes. This Charm adds one success to a roll for every two motes spent. Each success purchased with Essence Triumphant is the equivalent of purchasing two dice with the First Excellency or some other dice adder. Therefore, if a Solar had a (Dexterity + Melee) total of 8, he could purchase up to four successes with the Second Excellency. Any magical effects that hinge on the character buying dice will then react as if the character had just bought eight (Dexterity + Melee) dice. The character could not add dice from the effects of other Charms because he has reached his maximum of eight by purchasing the four successes.

The Exalt can also use this Charm to enhance unrolled uses of the relevant Ability. Each two motes spent increases his effective (Attribute + Ability) rating for one task by two. This means that every two motes spent on this Excellency increase a static value like a DV by one. The First Excellency is thus considerably more efficient for increasing static values than the Second Excellency, but not reliably so.

This Charm can be Comboed or used together with the First Excellency, but it is incompatible with the Third Excellency, and it can never be used on the same roll as the Third Excellency.

Abyssal Exalted

The three basic Excellencies, Infinite (Ability) Mastery and (Ability) Essence Flow function exactly for Abyssals as they do for Solars and are Mirrors to each other.

Sidereal Exalted

The three basic Excellencies function for Sidereals much as they do for Solars. Essence Overwhelming and Essence Triumphant add dice or bonus successes (respectively). A Sidereal, however, cannot add more dice or bonus successes than her permanent Essence score. If a Sidereal character suffers a dice-pool penalty, however, she may still spend motes with Essence Overwhelming to bring her dice pool back up to zero dice before spending an additional number equal to her Essence to add extra dice.

Latest Errata: Their Second Excellency counts each success as only one die added by a Charm, instead of two as for most other Exalts.

Terrestrial Exalted

This is a reflexive Charm that can be used freely without the need for a Combo. The Dragon-Blood, however, is limited in using the Charm as follows: The Charm can be used to purchases automatic success on any action made on the tick in which the Dragon-Blood takes a normal action. On the ticks between actions, this Charm can only be used to enhance unrolled uses of the Ability to increase an applicable DV or to add dice to an Ability used in a Counterattack Charm. This Charm can not, for example, be used to purchase automatic successes between actions to be used for extra attacks.

Spirits

Spirits can use the First, Second and Third (Ability) Excellencies for each Ability, as well as Infinite (Ability) Mastery, as long as they meet the prerequisites for each Charm. These count as spirit Charms, and most are related to a specific Virtue, just as their other Charms are. A spirit cannot use Charms to add more dice to any dice pool than the spirit’s Essence. A spirit cannot increase its static values by more than half that amount.

Virtue	Associated Excellencies and Ability-Based Charms
Compassion	First, Second and Third: Awareness, Craft, Investigation, Linguistics, Lore, Medicine, Survival, War
Conviction	First, Second and Third: Bureaucracy, Integrity, Larceny, Performance, Presence, Ride, Socialize, Stealth
Temperance	Infinite (Ability) Mastery and Divine (Ability) Subordination for all Abilities
Valor	First, Second and Third: Archery, Athletics, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee, Resistance, Thrown
Universal	First, Second and Third: Occult

Spirits have one additional Ability-based Charm, Divine (Ability) Subordination. This is a Temperance Charm.