Can werewolves spend Essence over multiple turns for more expensive Gifts?

Since this question was kind of hidden in the Immortals thread, I figure it'd be best to ask it here, and hopefully get an answer from a developer.  BinAly has seen such an answer in the old forums, but there are a couple of questions that arise.  Is powering up in such a manner reflexive or automatic?  Does it also apply to vampires?  I know mages can't, but they have extended spells for that.  Changelings explicitly can do so, but the Forsaken core says nothing concrete about the matter. 

The closest to that it says is that higher Primal Urge allows them to spend more Essence in a turn, enabling them to use more effective Gifts.  This would suggest to me that they'd need the Essence up front. 

I don't remember seeing anything like that either way in the book... but I allow it in the games I run...

In the end it comes down to the Storyteller, and your personal opinion.  There are rules in the game and in the book, but they're there to make playing fun and enjoyable and balanced, not restricted.  If a rule wok for what you want to do, nothing should stop you from changing or dropping it. :)

As an example I recently STed a game, part of which had the pack entering a mine cawling with Beshilu, now, if I had every small Beshilu to roll forr, combat would have been an awful mess, and had taken far longer then would be any fun, so I grouped the small rats into swarms of 5, to make them easier to manage, and the combat far smoother.

I've read that rule in one of the vampire books... where I don't remember...
but I so far any storyteller I've worked with has house ruled it for werewolves too

Some of the Devs, like Matt, Digital or Machineiv could know an official answer for this. Ethan used to post around here in the past, but he hasn't been active in months.

From what I remember:

Werewolves should be able to spend several points of Essence through multiple turns to activate expensive Gifts. They would do that by concentrating the whole turns, counting as an instant action. In the last turn, the Gift would be activated.
They would only be able to walk or apply they standard Defense during those activation turns.

Well, I posted this at RPGnet.  Who wants to take bets on where we receive an official answer first? 

Bruce Leenomorph:

Well, I posted this at RPGnet.  Who wants to take bets on where we receive an official answer first? 

I want to be more active there, but I can't really understand the place, too messy... ¬¬

BinAly's statement was the way multiple Essence expenditure was handled in a post by Matt or Ethan in the first Forsaken forum.  Your best bet for a quick response would be to pm one or both of them with the question, Matt seems able to respond a little quicker.

Darksider:

BinAly's statement was the way multiple Essence expenditure was handled in a post by Matt or Ethan in the first Forsaken forum.  Your best bet for a quick response would be to pm one or both of them with the question, Matt seems able to respond a little quicker.

I'd PM anyone if I could figure out how to do it on this new forum.  As far as I can tell, there is no such option.  This sucks, though; it used to be that the developers were around lots more, and could clarify things like this, but now they seem to not bother so much with their own games, forums and questions posted in the latter about the former.  They might be busy or whatnot, that's not slamming them or saying anyone's deliberately snubbing us, but I just find it (sometimes) disappointing that one stands a better chance of finding their comments on RPGnet than White Wolf's forums. 

Bruce Leenomorph:

I just find it (sometimes) disappointing that one stands a better chance of finding their comments on RPGnet than White Wolf's forums. 

That's true. I loved when Ethan came down here to enlighten us. Machineiv is very active around here, though, he even helped us develop some Gift Lists.

He's actually been a very big help in developing the Sudulu, as well.  It's just that he's very busy and this kind of thing is probably pretty low on the priority list, compared to something like getting paid.  But this place just seems dead as far as developers go, or at least the WoD part is.  I don't know 'bout Exalted and its forum. 

To make sure I understand your question correctly let me rephrase it.  A Uratha who is only able to spend 1 Essence per turn wants to use a Gift that has an Essence cost of 3.

-On turn 1 the Uratha uses a Reflexive Action to spend one point of Essence (because spending Essence is always Reflexive) and can move and take an Instant Action as normal, so long as they don't take any other actions which require spending Essence.
-On turn 2 the Uratha uses another Reflexive Action to spend one point of Essence and can move and take an Instant Action as normal.
-On turn 3 the Uratha Reflexively spends the last point of Essence and can activate the Gift.  If the Gift is an Instant Action then that will be their Instant Action for that turn.

The key thing to remember is that spending Essence is always Reflexive, so a character can spend the Essence without losing their Instant Action during the first and second turn.  However, this process only works for Gifts that have a minimum Essence cost that the Werewolf can not meet in a single turn.  Some Gifts (such as Strength 5) provide a benefit proportional to the amount of Essence spent to activate them.  With a Gift like Strength 5 the most Essence a Werewolf can funnel into such a Gift is the amount of Essence that they can spend in one turn.

Kindred function the same way, but I don't know if Mages do.  I'll see if I can find the page number from the book.

Bruce Leenomorph:

I'd PM anyone if I could figure out how to do it on this new forum.

you could email Eddy... I think he gave out his email somewhere in the White Wolf Blogcast... or give him a shout on Twitter... he should be able to forward your query to the right person...

Machiavelli:

To make sure I understand your question correctly let me rephrase it.  A Uratha who is only able to spend 1 Essence per turn wants to use a Gift that has an Essence cost of 3.

And that's a perfectly fine house rule, but the question on the table is about the RAW and what the developers intended. Only Changeling, to my knowledge, has such a rule explicitly spelled out.

Sammi:

Machiavelli:

To make sure I understand your question correctly let me rephrase it.  A Uratha who is only able to spend 1 Essence per turn wants to use a Gift that has an Essence cost of 3.

And that's a perfectly fine house rule, but the question on the table is about the RAW and what the developers intended. Only Changeling, to my knowledge, has such a rule explicitly spelled out.

Exactly.  We're trying to find out if werewolves can do this by the RAW.  Changelings can, mages definitely can't-- but they can spend the requisite Mana over the course of a ritual, which is explicitly stated as an option for lower-Gnosis mages trying to cast high-cost spells.  I don't know about Prometheans, but I thought they couldn't, either.

But yes, you do understand the question correctly, and if the answer turns out to be "Yes," then your interpretation would indeed be correct, because Essence expenditure is always reflexive (as I believe I just read). 

If you would be so kind, could you point me to a reference that vampires can do this?  I thought I read that they couldn't, but I don't remember since it's been a while since I've read it.  I'll go check on my PDF (alas, only have Vampire in PDF form right now) for my own edification.