ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

How do you spend category points? when ever i click on the techniques nothing happens and there is a red "Talent category known" and what does the 1.3x for example means in the ()

You click on the category name, not the talent.

The 1.3 means that your effective talent level for talents in that category is 1.3 times the number of talent points you spend in it.

Ok then what exactly is effective talent level

Effective is number of talent points put into talent X talent mastery. Raw talent mastery is just flat out how many points put into talent.

Effective level is what is used for that talent's damage calculations/stuff.

I didn't "get" raw talent level vs. effective talent level until my first few times playing Archmage. Flame says it becomes a beam at talent level 5, but I got the beam after putting only 4 points into it. "Is this a bug or typo?" I wondered. But no. Archmages get the Spell/Fire tree at 1.3 mastery, which means for every raw talent point you put into a Fire spell, you get 1.3 talent levels of fireness. Putting 4 talent points in Flame gets you (4 * 1.3) 5.2 effective talent points, which is enough to get the beam effect.

if you put 3 points into a tallent, then your "base talent lvl" is 3.
if you have talent matery of lets say 1.3, then the "effective" talent lvl of that talent will be 3.9, because 3*1.3=3.9

some effects are "from base talent lvl of x"
like at talent lvl of 5 of the second race talent of ogres, you can use your offhand, while wielding a 2h weapon.
or the "extract gems" of an alchemist gives you a new material to work with per generic point put into the talent, regardless of category mastery.

on the other hand, you have
litch form, from talent 6, you can recieve a new talent category upon becoming a litch.
as you can only spend 5 points into any talent, it is clearly visible that you cannot obtain that at a "base" talent lvl. you need also a mastery of at least 1.2
another example is a phase door spell, which at lvl 5, is lets you chose the person to be teleported, however, you only need to spend 4 points. that is because 4*1.3=5.2

Okay guys, I think we beat the horse enough. Hopefully, he gets it.