First (Ability) Excellency—Essence Overwhelming

Cost: 1m per 2 dice or 1m per die; Mins: (Ability) 1, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

Lawgivers with this Charm are known for their moments of brilliance. The Exalt's player can invoke this Charm when making a roll based on the relevant Ability. This Charm then adds one die to that roll for each mote spent. This Charm is the paradigmatic dice adder. The rule that Solars are prohibited from increasing a dice pool by more than their (Attribute + Ability) almost always refers to the purchase of dice through the use of this Charm.

Characters can also use this Charm to enhance unrolled uses of the relevant Ability, usually to increase a Defense Value, for example, by increasing (Dexterity + Dodge) to protect against a physical attack. When enhancing static values, her player rolls one die for each mote spent on the First Excellency. Each success increases her effective (Attribute + Ability) rating for the task by two. Therefore, each success on the First Excellency roll increases an applicable static value by one.

Characters cannot use this or other Excellencies or dice-adding Charms to "create" actions. For example, if a character attacks on tick 3 and will attack again on tick 8, she cannot buy dice for an attack on tick 4 that only exists because she used the Excellency to conjure dice for it. A character who uses this or other reflexive Charms to add to an attack can also use it to enhance her defense until the next tick when she acts, but she must spend Essence for each separate roll she wishes to modify.

This Charm can be part of a Combo or used together with the Second Excellency, but it is incompatible with the Third Excellency. 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.

Terrestrial Exalted

Cost: 1m per 2 dice

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 add dice to any Ability on the tick in which the Dragon-Blood acts. 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 Melee dice 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.