Sidereal combos and the 4th Excellency

[Jimborg]

I had recently gotten Sidereals 2nd ed. (Sidereals being my favorite of all the Exalted; something about being the scheming ambitious adviser appealed to me I suppose) and I was playing around with the Charm sections for a bit and I thought 'Is this really broken, or is it just me?' So I decided to find out.


My Combo looked something like this:


1st Archery Excellency + 4th Archery Excellency + Any Direction Arrow + Every Direction Arrow + Meditation on War + Absence (To recover the defensive penalty from Every Direction Arrow) + (maybe Five Seasons Response?)


If I wanted to make use the 4th Archery Excellency's 'auspicious successes' ability, how many dice could it affect? Only the core (Archery + Dex) dice pool? That plus the 1st Archery Excellency? The channeling of Temperance via Meditation of War?

 

[Chaka]

The Auspicious Excellency is not combo-OK. So none of that for you! However, it does effect a dice pool of any size, if they're from a different source, or from scene-long charms, etc.


Also, welcome. We're lovely really.

 

[Jimborg]

WHAT? *Checks book*


Well... don't I feel silly? (Replaces the two excellencies above with 2nd excellency) ops:


I'm still able to use the 4th excellency to snipe while under Walking Outside of Fate and/or Many Missiles Bow Technique, right?

 

[Chaka]

The second excellency adds extra successes to your dice pool, to a maximum of (Essence) successes. So that's ok.


And yes, the 4th excellency works with persistently enhanced dice pools.

 

[Djalan Pride]

if a eclipse learned the fourth (ability x) excellency of a siddie and had (ability x) essence flow, would he be able to use it with other charms?

 

[Chaka]

I don't know. But the possibility frightens me.

 

[magnificentmomo]

That raises the argument of "Are Excellencies a viable option for the Eclipse Cast anima?".


Some say yes, some say no.


It ties tightly in with the Ox-Body argument.

 

[Persell]

Personally, I think that if there's a Solar or Abyssal version of a charm, than an Eclipse or Moonshadow must learn that charm, and not another version of it (ie: He must learn the Solar version of 1st Excellency, and not the Dragon-Blooded version).


However, where this falls apart is in Lunar Excellencies. Since they aren't charms a Solar could potentially learn, then they should be available for learning (not to mention that the lion's share of Lunar charms wouldn't be knowable if one doesn't have access to their kind of Excellency), but this seems unfair to the Lunars, for some reason.

 

[Chaka]

That argument is moot anyway, because Sidereals are the only Exalted with a fourth excellency, and thus Eclipse/Moonshadow can learn it, as they have no analogue.

 

[magnificentmomo]

It isn't called the Fourth Excellency. It's called Fateful Excellency, their other excellency that is special to them is Propitious alignment. Solars have Infinite Mastery and Essence Flow, Sidereals don't. Then the other Exalted have their special excellencies beyond the three.


Looking at that, I think the extra excellencies may be viable in my opinion, just because they have no analogue.

 

[Chaka]

I read somewhere, but I can't remember where, that the Flow, Alignment, etc. charms were not technically excellencies, and only Sidereals had four, with the fateful excellency being the fourth one.


I couldn't source that though, so I may be wrong.

 

[Jimborg]

if a eclipse learned the fourth (ability x) excellency of a siddie and had (ability x) essence flow' date=' would he be able to use it with other charms?[/quote']
Looking at Essence Flow in the book (Pg.187) that it only mentions the first three excellencies, so I don't think essence auspicious can work with essence flow.