Wasn't the original idea that led to the potential system being adjusted to have it so that herbs (and corpses?) could train the stats all the way up to the potential, i.e. no more "25" limit, and make the potential a hard cap for everything but potions? That is, the potential would replace the 25 limit as a hard limit for herbs. Why not just do it like that? Aren't there a lot of combos whose starting potential (i.e. before any potions are found and used in-game) is lower than 25? Doing it like this would also make it easier to recover from stat drains.
http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=1117
(underlining mine)From a balance point of view, I think it would be much more interesting to make the potential maximums hard caps (save for using the appropriate potion), and eliminate most of the artificial caps on conventional stat increases. In other words, if your potential maximum for toughness is 15, you can only raise your toughness to 15 using morgia root, and need potions of potential stat to continue raising. If you're a troll and your toughness potential is 36, allow morgia to raise it to 36 rather than arbitrarily capping at 25.
People complained it would be imbalanced for trolls, orcs and dwarves to be able to stat boost up to 30+ St and To in that system. I think most/all of the relevant points were covered in the discussion section of that thread, so I'll not rehash it.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.