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Sidereal Exalted, in 2nd edition Exalted, don't appear to have a clear cap on the number of dice they can add to their pools with charms.

The section on Excellencies is only moderately clear -- they can add their Essence in dice, their Essence in successes, and spend motes to reduce dice pool penalties seemingly without limit.

However, there is no explicit cap on dice pool adders anywhere in the 2nd ed Sidereals text. 1st ed Sidereals is explicit about the cap being the Sidereal Exalt's Essence score, except for Martial Arts.

I'm inclined to use the 1st ed rules here, but I'm worried that I'm missing some subtlety of the 2nd edition rules.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ You're not missing some subtle reason. The 2nd Ed Sidereals were done somewhat sloppily. I think it's in the errata queue but that queue is rather large for 2nd ed. \$\endgroup\$
    – mirv120
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 12:57

2 Answers 2

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Major Rewrite Following:

It's supposed to be Essence.

Every other Exalt has their Dice cap rules outlined before the actual charms begin (I checked Solars, Dragon Blooded, and Lunars, but I'm sure the others have them too), but this is missing from the Sidereal book, which leads to the unfortunate:

Excellencies are the only things RAW that are explicitly capped, which I'm pretty sure is an omission.

Secrets of Future Strife does indeed double your unmodifier Join Battle roll, which makes the cap for that roll a 20, which bypasses the cap (like several of the charms seem to do). Additionally Blade of the Battle Maiden lifts the ban for just that charm, on just martial arts (but it was errata'd so to be less awesome).

If you're interested in a review which mentions the frustration you're having: http://www.diepointyhat.com/?p=151

That said, there's no reason you can't house rule it.

Double Edit

Did some more digging through my books and have come up with the conclusions above.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Well that isn't entirely true; right off the bat there's a Martial Arts charm in Violet Bier of Sorrows style that doubles the character's Join Battle roll. That's a dice adder and isn't an Excellency. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jim Kiley
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 3:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, it doubles the unmodified pool, but that's not capped by anything. Which makes the effective dice cap for that roll 20. Plus it's not Combo-Ok, so you can't use another charm to up the pool. \$\endgroup\$
    – Cthos
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 3:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm pretty sure you're right on this. Of course this brings up another point, which is: Having it be Essence is a real hose to Sidereals. And since my wife is running the Sid in our group I may be a touch more generous... :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – Jim Kiley
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 12:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Jim Kiley - Only until she gets the charm that reduces attack successes to 0. :D \$\endgroup\$
    – Cthos
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 14:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JimKiley Yes and no. There first excellency is crap with this, since it's identical to the spirit first excellency; however, since their second can add essence success, it's twice as good as the spirit one. In fact, the second excellency compares reasonably well to solar excellencies once you remember that it can add success regardless of how large the base pool is. Further, their fateful excellency is amazing for larger pools, like those used attacking. \$\endgroup\$
    – sebsmith
    Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 21:23
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The Exalted 2.5 errata has been released, which clarifies this.

With the First Excellency, a Sidereal may add (Essence) dice, plus the ability to buy off internal penalties.

With the Second Excellency, a Sidereal may add (Essence) successes.

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