4th Solar Excellency.... example confuses me

[Mr.E]

Alright, I'll preface by saying, I'm not sure if any other group has the 4th Excellency / how it works, I only have the core book, so, my question is aimed at that.


I've read the 4th Excellency, and it always seems like an amazing charm, being able to dump a stash of motes in the beginning of a scene, to let the Exalt use the 1st / 2nd Excellency at their will, to get free dice when they want to activate their charms. Well, free, or steeply reduced in price. Roger, check, read it, understood.  


Then out of the blue, the example listed, tells me that it works differently. It seems that, when I calculate the cost for an action using the wording from the charm, it is very cheap, (especially for say, melee excellency in a combat then, if I calculate it according to the example, it ends up costing me more very time I want to use it. IE- it says, that it lowers the end cost of what it should.


The example reads as (I don't have the book, paraphrasing here,)


...Hever many motes you put into the 4th excellency, it only takes down the end activation of the other excellency. So, rather than dedicate oh say... 2 motes for the first excellency, which would make it seem that, that lowers the activation cost of the 1st excellency by 1m / die, so, now it's 0m/die, free. The example says that, "yeah, that works for 1 die, but..." according to example, if I activate 1st excellency twice, I'd be spending 2 motes / 2 die, and the 4th excellency now, only negates 1 mote of that, so I'm still paying 1 more per die after the first, plus the 2m for the 4th excellency, so, now I'm paying 3 motes and getting 2 dice. :shock:


This seems very very counter-productive. Can someone clear this up for me? Which part am I reading wrong? How does it actually work? I'm sure someone addressed this before, but, I couldn't find it in the forums, sorry!  :wink:

 

[Hanat-Osul]

It's actually quite simple. You put up an amount of motes when you activate Infinite Mastery; let's say four for the sake of simplicity.. Thereafter, when you activate the 1st or 2nd Excellency, you reduce the final cost of that activation by half of the motes spent on Infinite Mastery, so if you spent four, you reduce the final cost by two. So if you want to use 1st Melee Excellency to add eight dice, but you've already spent four on Infinite Mastery, the cost of adding eight dice is six motes instead of eight (8-2=6). Dig? If you only wanted to add two dice in the above example, you could do so for free, 'cause you subtract from the final cost.


You're overthinking it, I belive. Like the man says: K.I.S.S.

 

[Mr.E]

OK, I think I got it now. It does not reduce each die, but, the final cost for every activation.


So, basically, just dumb a HUGE chunk of essence into it if you plan on using it =p Or at least figure out what your common / max usage will be per round, and spend that (doubled) so... that, you're getting the free dice.


Ok, I'm tracking now, thanks!

 

[Charon]

So' date=' basically, just dumb a HUGE chunk of essence into it if you plan on using it =p Or at least figure out what your common / max usage will be per round, and spend that (doubled) so... that, you're getting the free dice.[/quote']
Don't forget that the maximum you can spend is 6 when your essence is 3.


When your essence becomes 4, that restriction lift.

 

[Mr.E]

Actually yeah, I almost did forget that part!


Thanks for smacking me in the head with it.... everyone needs a good trout smack every once in a while.  :wink:  Someday... I'll make a good elementary school teacher!  :twisted:

 

[Sherwood]

Dont forget the bullet proof vest and lots of firearms.  Schools nowdays are getting crazy.  


Damn.  That makes me feel really freaking old, and I'm only 35.  Shit.  When I was a kid, my big concern was getting cornered by the class bully and getting my ass kicked.  My nine year old daughter makes a comment at school that someone doesn't like and she could get shot at.

 

[Mr.E]

It's not the school's fault, it's bad parenting.  :evil:


Obviously, you're a good parent, your 9 year old doesn't carry a gun.


I'd be that creepy ex-military teacher, that tells those weird stories of pain, and cold nights, and things that border on homosexual. "Back when I was in 'Nam, I had 3 of my arms shot off, my buddy lost two toes in a firefight with charlie... we limped back to base for days, spewing blood trails along the way, fighting off those bastards in hand to hand combat by day.... by night we had to huddle together for warmth. We were almost hit by friendly fire with napalm once during the trek too, buzzing a canal we were hiding one night.... check out this scar"


:roll: *ponders endlessly in thought*

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Lost three arms? Well, that sounds like it would make an homosexual experiences difficult. What with the equipment gone.

 

[Mr.E]

I was using '3 arms' as an exaggeration. As obviously, the vast majority of humanity only has 2 arms.  

 

[StarHawk]

Again, this is why my dawn cast told the fourth excellency to shove it and just went for the fifth excellency... I prefer my first three excellencies in melee to be free actions... that's fine by me