Both previous posters have good points. The loophole on infinite adaptations is potentially big, but casting a spell vs. hitting someone are two different rolls.
Still, going with the original posting concept, infinite adaptations on area-effect spell means that a miss still does some damage. Take Elemental Bolt, adapt it to become a 10' radius spell, and add infinite adaptations to give a die bump to the damage die. That second adaptation may explicitly be applied multiple times to that spell, and that's the part of damage that everyone in range suffers even on a "miss" attack roll. However, a standard die bump arguably caps at d12+2 (see ARPG, pp.91,170,238), and thus it's not really infinite and IMHO not really a problem. (I say "arguably" since the rules aren't fully clear IMHO on pp.91 & 170 as to whether multiple +2 bonuses would stack.)
Beyond damage, though, there are probably other situations of abuse with infinite adaptions. Some spells allow multiple stacking of range increments. Ward of Shielding can stack damage absorption. Summon spells (e.g., Elemental Guardian, Summon High Elemental, Summon Lesser Infernals, Summon Steed, Summon Sarish's Own, Graveblight) can stack bonuses to all defenses and attack rolls of the summoned creature; and thus a Tier I binding spell can potentially summon something unstoppable.
With some spells, though, that potential abuse exists in the rules system anyway as long as someone doesn't mind casting the spell 100 times to get that critical success roll. For example, Clairvoyance and Shadow Stride each allow for increasing range. Eventually, someone could use Clairvoyance and then Shadow Stride to go to any Shadow at any range anywhere in the world they've been before as long as there was no time rush. That's less true for binding spells like the summon spells since they can be cast only once a scene, but if one pushed the RAW [Rules As Written], someone could eventually summon that unbeatable creature on a critical success even though that's clearly not the RAI [Rules As Intended].
One possible solution both the Burn the Soul auto-success and the repeating castings aiming for a critical success is to add a rule limiting how high at CTN a caster can even try to cast. For example, rule that no one can even attempt to cast a spell with a net CTN 10 points higher than their Passive Arcanum skill. (I don't know what that maximum should be, and I'm just picking an arbitrary number. I can count ways to get up to +12 bonus for some spellcasting since bonuses to Action Rolls usually don't affect the Passive skill.)
_________________ David Thomas Chappell Sestius Ovidius val'Mehan Comma and Khamat - psion patrician diplomatic legate and his Myrantian tutor Quintus Ovidius val'Mehan - patrician military tribune Amadi val'Abebi - Monk of Althares Talathos - choleric Kelekene dabbler
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