Sometimes just trying to accomplish a feat isn’t enough for your character. It’s do or die. He has to make a leap or catch a falling child or make his last bullet hit the mark. That’s when he puts his all into it. You can have your character make this extraordinary effort by announcing that he “goes for broke” before the activity is performed. You then spend a Willpower point in a reflexive action to gain three dice on your roll.
Willpower should be spent and three dice are added to your dice pool before all penalties for your roll have been applied. So, form your pool, add all bonuses — including your three dice from Willpower — and then subtract all penalties. Yes, that means if penalties are sufficiently extreme, you could be reduced to a chance roll even if you have spent Willpower for three extra dice. Circumstances are stacked so heavily against your character that not even sheer determination can improve his odds of success.
Example: Your character tries to deactivate a bomb, but he has no tools whatsoever, and he’s literally in the dark. His Intelligence + Science total is 3. A spent Willpower point adds three more, for a subtotal of six. The Storyteller decides that darkness imposes a -3 penalty, for a final total of three dice.
Now, if your character had no Science dots at all and he still tried to deactivate the bomb, your roll would be based on Intelligence alone and would suffer a -3 penalty since Science is a Mental Skill (see. p. 63). You therefore decide to spend a Willpower point. If your character has 2 Intelligence, your dice pool starts out at five (2 + 3 for Willpower), but the -3 untrained penalty and -3 darkness penalty reduce your pool to zero dice. You must make a chance roll for your character to succeed, even though you spent Willpower on the task.
If you spend Willpower for extra dice and your pool is still reduced to no dice by penalties, the Storyteller may allow you to reclaim the Willpower point. After all, without those three extra dice you were still going to be reduced to a chance roll. Before making the attempt, your character realizes that the effort is nigh hopeless, with or without all his determination. Alternatively, the Storyteller may insist that your Willpower is spent, even though its benefits are lost due to penalties. He may say that your character must go through with his focused effort once the point has been spent. It’s the Storyteller’s prerogative to go either way.
It’s too late to spend Willpower if you’ve already rolled for an action. That is, if you compose your pool, remove dice for penalties, roll and get no successes, you can’t announce that you spend a Willpower point to roll three more dice. It’s too late.
Only one Willpower point can be spent per turn no matter how it’s used.
Willpower can be spent on only one roll at a time in an extended action. If your character goes for broke at each stage (for each roll), you have to spend a Willpower point at each stage.
If for some reason your character’s Resolve and/or Composure temporarily increases during play, perhaps as a result of a mystical spell, he gains one Willpower point per dot increase. Essentially, he has access to one or more free Willpower points for the duration of the effect. When his Attribute returns to normal dots, your character loses any extra Willpower points. If they were never spent, he no longer has access to them.