[RPM] Power Talents Adding to Paths?

[Engurrand]

I respectfully disagree with the advise so far, and foresee serious balance issues.

In my experience with RPM, which is now going on five years of consistent play both as GM and as player, the power curve for very-high skill levels in RPM is not at all balanced against the curve for Powers.

As with all skills, it is possible with RPM skills to get over the bell curve and end up in the land of gravy and honey, except with RPM the extra energy afforded by a higher skill increases with increasing skill, so there is no leveling off of additional utility per skill increase above skill 20 like there is with normal skills. This isn't a bad thing if all your players are equally using skills-based magic, but if you are combining Powers with skills-based magic then the difference in value between 4 more points in a path skill above skill 19 and those same four points on powers, is VAST and gets vaster as your RPM users progress up the skill ladder. This is especially true in the Path of Matter IME, but it is true across the board. The only check on this is that there are no talents for RPM skills, so they must be bought individually which greatly increases the cost of reaching that level. If you allow talents, then a few cheap ranks will you pop your RPM skills straight up out of the curve.

I would advise against allowing power talents to apply to magic skills.

Compare with the +1 to a specific related bandwidth of rituals afforded by the [5/lvl] Higher Purpose, capped at three levels. If your power talent costs the same, then it is doing vastly more. Even at ten points a level, I don't think it's balanced.