After the break even point in skills, the character with fast learner is, effectively, getting more out of his XP utilized for skills than the character without. Another way of looking at it: not taking Fast Learner is assigning a character a 10% experience penalty on all skills purchased past the break even point.
Yes. And the practical consequences of that are far less damaging than you keep indicating.
In terms of effectiveness, any character should be taking Fast Learner if they plan on ever having more than the break even point of XP spent on skills, or have a good deal of downtime to get free XP or train.
I hope that completely theoretical advantage they have UNTIL they hit the ""easy to reach"" break-even point keeps them warm at night.
About the only way character without fast learner avoids this is if, at the end of the campaign, the non fast learner has kept the total XP of the character used on skills below the break even point, and spends the XP earned beyond that point on anything else but skills.
Which isn't as weird and rare as you seem to indicate.
(That and simplifying points based buying, with no differing costs for skills).
A legitimate problem of those Traits, I agree.
Here's some examples that illustrate my opinion.
1. Skill sparse build:
3500 in Attributes. (Exact ones not very interesting)
1000 in Traits (including Fast Learner)
500 in skills.
In this example, that Trait does absolutely nothing of benefit to the player until 100 sessions are played. Longest campaign I've ever played (if I count carry-over between MW3 and ATOW), I *might* be at 50 sessions. 100 sessions at 1 per month means an 8 year sentence before any advantage is even noticed.
Yes, likely less due to Training, a bone thrown given how crap the Fast Learner Trait actually is.
2. More typical build
4000 on attributes & Traits in some proportion. Includes Fast Learner.
1000 on skills. (Most sample characters are built along these lines)
Break-even happens after 50 sessions. Still *years*. Let's call it 3.
3. Skill-heavy build
3500 on Att+Trait
1500 on skills. Break even achieved during the first session.
Can we agree that both #1 and #2 represent builds where Fast Learner isn't just not powerful, but actually a really bad buy? That player could've had some more interesting Traits, higher attributes or higher skills right out of the gate, getting immediate benefit, vs the theoretical payback 'at some point' in the future, years removed. Even if they game weekly with #2, that's a whole calendar year. 50 get-togethers where everybody else at the table is literally better than you.
Seems like you've earned a little advantage at that point, if you ever get to cash it in.
Now let's look at #3, the ideal. There is no way to make that build without really cutting in to attributes, or without making a savant who's only good at 1 thing. He'll be objectively better in whatever skills were focused on, and objectively garbage at everything else, likely taking penalties at all skill checks, except the ATTs he got to 4 (possibly only 2 or 3 of those, presuming DEX/RFL for our MW wunderkind)
Not only doesn't that seem broken to me, it seems like you need to make some pretty hefty sacrifices just to get your 1500 out of the box.
But I'm getting the feeling I'll not convince you. I think by now I've made my case as best as I can, so if that still doesn't change anything, that's just how it is, then.
Paul