Jeff Kyer, quoting Benedict:
> > Agreed.
> > And given the choice between 'I attack him with my Close Combat
> 18W2'
> > and 'I attack him with my Sever Spirit 12', what would you do?
>
> This is reduction to absurdity. Everyone must learn how to walk before
> they can run. Even secrets have to be learned.
It's something of an absurdity, but one doesn't exactly have to reduce too hard. <g> (And BTW, a reductio ad absurdum argument doesn't mean the argument is wrong, it means the proposition was...) This is the situation one is _almost certain_ to be in, when one first gains the secret. So either one, somewhat anticlimactically doesn't use it for the next 12 sessions while one piles HPs into it, or one finds oneself trying to find situations where one might find some rationale for (and not to say, means of) using it...
One possible fairly simple variant is simply to make increase in the secret "free", after it's initially been "bought" (and qualified for, obviously). Make it "automatically" equal to the lower affinity of the three. I don't think one would want to do that for all secrets, mind you -- many of them seem fine as is.
> Look to the old stories of heroes who get a magic power. They often
> have to learn how to use it, don't they?
According to Robin, the whole idea of progressive increase in abilities is something of an _RPG_ genre conceit, and I think he has a point. The problem here is they get a "new" power, but as part of their "old" magic keyword, and necessarily totally out of whack with it (if one has to use its actual TN, which isn't always the case).
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