Aspect And Talent

A question came up recently about the bonus MP gained the associated stat modifier for spells from Aspects and Talents. Simply put, do they stack?

Ex: Say I have a Strength of 14, Fire Aspect I and Fire Talent. Would one only get +2 bonus Fire MP or +4?

I say no for obvious reason, but I want it from the source to avoid future problems.

Also, do spells still cost (Lvlx2) - 1?

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Zelda_RPG/inde...?showtopic=1391

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Zelda_RPG/inde...?showtopic=1402
http://z12.invisionfree.com/Zelda_RPG/inde...?showtopic=1403

My interpretation is that based on the feat descriptions, the MP from Aspect and Talent feats does stack. This seems especially plausible given that the whole point of the Psionic Talent feat in regular D&D is more Power Points.

Also:

Let me summarize this. "Spend MP to make a damaging attack. If you deal significantly more damage than the target has life, it dies."

Wouldn't the target die anyways? This ability needs to be rewritten in my opinion. Maybe a touch attack that deals 2d6 per caster level, but has the target's current latent MP subtracted from the damage. Or something. As written, this ability is significantly worse than many direct-damage spells that cost 2 or more MP less.

First off - the bonus MP to your aspect pools do not stack with Aspect and Talent feats: this bonus comes from having access to the aspect pool, not the feat itself. If you wish to increase your bonus MP, then you need to take the relevent Meditation feat.

Secondly, the reason death touch is written as it is is because latent MP represents the natural spiritual force of a character, and many necromantic effects take the target's latent MP into account. Necrotic damage, in particular, drains latent MP first and then does hit point damage as normal. Also, one must not forget that death from damage occurs when a character's hit points reach -10. This extra buffer before death is NOT taken into account with effects like death touch. Since this is not a natural death, no save is allowed either. Ultimately, death touch is a weaker inflict light wounds spell, with the added effect that it can kill characters who take enough damage even if it doesn't reduce them to -10 hp or less.

And yes - spells still cost (2x level)-1 MP. Special abilites, including SLAs, however have their own cost progression based on how often they are useable - all #/day abilites are converted to MP costs. 1 or 2 MP abilites are typically 'at will', where as 3 or 5 MP abilites are '1/turn', 8 MP abilites are typically '3/day', and 15 MP abilites are '1/day'. While characters typically have more MP than this per day, they also typically have more ways to use MP, so this system just gives characters more flexibility with their abilities than in D&D.