Heroics are feats of desperate heroism, strokes of good fortune, or incredible displays of mortal skill. Think of Heroics as supercharged stunts. They are similar to Exalted Charrms in that they enhance mundane skills until they are capable of impossible-seeming stunts, but Heroics are not as predictable as Charms. They are the favors of Fortune granted to the heroic, but Fortune can be cruel, at times, turning against champions on a whim.
Heroics Are Universal: Any hero can use a Heroic provided she meets its Ability and Heroism requirements.
Heroics Cost the Same: In order to activate a Heroic, the hero must spend a feat of Heroics. The cost is the same whether the Heroic requires an Ability of 3 and a Heroism of 2 or an Ability of 5 and a Heroism of 3. The more skilled and heroic the mortal, the more likely fortune is to favor her.
Heroics Require a Check: After the hero has spent the point of Heroism, she must succeed a reflexive Attribute + Ability check against a specific difficulty in order to successfully perform the feat of Heroism. This check is not affected by other Heroics, bonuses granted by items, and so forth. The number of dice is always equal to the character's normal (unadjusted) Attribute + Ability pool, though specialties might be included if they are clearly relevant to the Heroic. The hero may also use Willpower to add a success or dice equal to the relevant Virtue to the roll. If this roll fails, the feat of Heroic returns to the character's Heroic pool, but the Heroic does not work. If the roll botches, the Heroic is still spent, but the Heroic does not work. If the roll succeeds, the Heroic works as described. In many cases, if the hero scores more than the necessary number of successes on this check, each success beyond those required to activate the Heroic provides an additional bonus.
Identical Heroics Are Not Cumulative: A hero may spend an additional feat of Heroic to make another roll for a Heroic whose duration (which must be greater than 1 turn) has not yet elapsed, but the effects are not cumulative, and the hero only benefits from the better of the two Heroics rolls. For example, a hero who activated Walk Away from Death (Endurance) last turn and achieved 2 successes could activate it again this turn. The hero benefits from the greater of the two activations, but never from both.
Heroics Are Abstract: Unlike Essence, Heroism is not a measureable energy but, rather, the manifestation of the hero's fortune or skill. Feats of Heroism are purely a game mechanic for all those favorable coincidences one sees in fiction and film. Indiana Jones fires a gun, and the bullet kills four mooks who are lined up to attack him. The villain's trusted henchman sympathizes with the hero and rescues him from certain death. Facing two opponents, the hero ducks one attack, which hits the other opponent, instead. Paul Atreides flies into a massive sandstorm and survives the resulting crash.
Feats of Heroism Are Rooted in Virtue: Once feats are spent on Heroics, the hero does not automatically regain the used feats over time. When the hero succeeds at a stunt related to his Primary Virtue, he may choose to regain a number of feats equal to the bonus dice provided by the dice instead of gaining temporary Willpower. Whenever the hero succeeds at a significant action related to a Virtue (winning a battle for Valor, seeing through an illusion for Temperance, rescuing an innocent from certain death for Compassion, etc...), she regains a number of feats equal to the successes rolled on a number of dice equal to her rating in the related Virtue. The hero may choose to channel a point of Willpower through his Primary Virtue to instead regain a number of feats equal to the rating of the Virtue. At the end of a story, the hero's Heroism pool is completely restored.
Heroics Can Imitate Edges: As long as the hero meets the Ability and Heroism requirements for a given Edge, she may spend 1 feat to imitate that Edge's effects until the end of the scene by succeeding an (Ability) check at a difficulty equal to the Minimum Heroism of the Edge. If the Edge can normally be purchased more than once, extra successes provide 1 additional activation each, though the hero cannot activate more applications of a Heroic Edge than she has Heroism or the related Ability, whichever is lower. This counts as a Simple action and so uses up the hero's dice action for that turn.
Heroics are presented in a format very similar to that of Exalted Charms.
Roll: The Attribute + Ability roll used to determine whether the Heroic is successfully activated. The difficulty of this roll is given in parentheses, but is nearly always equal to the Minimum (Ability) requirement of the Heroic.
Duration, Type, Minimum (Ability): These are identical to the definitions given in Exalted (p. 153-4).
Minimum Heroism: This is the minimum Heroism score the character must possess to attempt the Heroic.
Description: This section details the results of the successful activation of the Heroic, including the effects of rolling more successes than required, if any.
A Note on Combos: Heroes may activate more than one Heroic in a turn without spending XP or Willpower for the combo as long as no more than one is a Simple or Extra Ation Heroic and none have a duration longer than Instant. Reflexive and Supplemental Heroics can be activated more than once to deal with different situations but may not be used multiple times to produce a cumulative or best-of-two effect or to make an additional attempt to activate a Heroic after the first attempt failed. For example, a potent Reflexive Dodge Heroic could be used three times in a turn to dodge three separate attacks, but it could not be used to provide the dodge bonus three times against the same attack or attempt to activate the Dodge Heroic a second time against the same attack in an effort to avoid the consequences of failing to achieve enough successes on the Attribute + Ability roll to activate the Heroic.