Known Programming (Improved)

Known Programming: Once per session, the character may choose a single model of droid that they have encountered before and make a Hard Vigilance check. If the check is successful, minion and rival droids of that type upgrade the difficulty of their checks targeting the character, plus one ally per success after the first, once for the rest of the encounter.

Improved: Allies affected by Known Programming also upgrade the ability of their checks targeting the chosen droid model once.

I read the second talent to exclude the acting character. What are your interpretations? Since the first specifies “character+allies” and the second simply says “allies,” I believe that it means to exclude the acting PC from upgrading his checks.

The only reason I’m asking is because that seems a little odd. I’d have expected that the upgrade would apply to all affected characters. The catch to writing “affected characters” is that it could be construed as giving droids of that model upgrades to attacks against their same model.

So—is “allies” as restrictive as I read it, or is it simply a case of unintentionally loaded word choice?

They could have written “the character and allies affected…” but they didn’t. Word count restrictions?
I agree, should be all those benefitting from the first talent.