Ah, but part of my point is that there is *no* asymptotic limit. If you start with one mastery, and after a year you have 6, then after two years you have 11 and after three years you have 16...
Yes, I know, the character is supposed to be forced into "retirement" as an NPC, but the requisite corollary that only the PCs ever grow in power (or do anything with the power they have) seriously strains my suspension of disbelief -- surely NPCs had to spend HP to advance their stats, and had to go out and do stuff to get them, so why would they stop just on the brink of becoming all-powerful? Some people think the "specialness" of the PCs ought to result in their being treated differently by the rules, but my personal opinion is that everyone is the star of their own story, and ought to be treated as such when trying to develop a picture of the way the (game)world as a whole fits together.
To put it only slightly facetiously, on the planet that will eventually become the homeworld of the Klingon empire, there is a wildly popular syndicated television show describing the heroically violent adventures of a Klingon starship captain and his loyal but squabbling crew, on which the folks from the Enterprise show up occasionally as the recurring villains everyone loves to hate.
IMO, the "N" in NPC is solely a matter of POV, and I don't personally feel that POV ought to have that great an effect on game mechanics.
Ryan Caveney
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