[Taneli]

Talents were originally written in a way that (to me) read like they're supposed to increase your attributes for the talents skills, but they've been used since the basic set example characters like they increase the relative level instead.

That is, with an attribute of 12, an easy skill with 1 point and a relevant talent at level 1 the interpretations are as follows:

1) My reading from the original basic set:

Skill-13 [1] Att+0

2) Usage since the start in character examples:

Skill-13 [1] Att+1


I think that in the end the second way is easier in many ways, for instance, you can just drop all the talents and then check defaults, and then just drop the talents back in for the relevant skills. Also, for skills that have relative level bonuses, I think that if the talent is supposed to represent some innate greater ability for that specific thing, then it kind of makes sense that someone with Attribute + Talent at level X gets those relative level bonii faster than someone with just raw Attribute at the same level X. And even if that was not the goal, it also creates a bit of a push away from builds that are bent on getting the highest possible IQ and/or DX for the available point budget, and instead getting a more moderate IQ and/or DX plus Talents related to that character's main focus (which might not always work out, as combat talents seem to be something of an almost-anathema).