Excellence in Action

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

I would not allow the “I can keep trying” argument, because with that argument you can cast anything as long as you try until your stat die blows up four times. It gets silly. But I would allow that they have a known ability that reliably allows a certain bonus. Like if someone with “fortune favor’s the bold” wanted to use their extra daily fate point to boost a daily cast every day. Not very heroic sounding use of a fate point, but it seems to me like it should work.

I’ve restricted myself (on one character) to treating all ‘out of combat’ casting as Binding (ie. 1 attempt per scene).

However, as its out of combat, I can also use a Focused Action roll to boost my chances (3d10, keep 2).

Prevents bogging down the table with die rolls.

I agree (or at least mostly agree). That’s pretty much how I’ve been handling prebuffs for myself and for tables I run (one die roll attempt if desired – after that, autocast only (so not quite like binding)).