Karma isn't meant to be a "apply it in every single instance you can, period." Its meant to be a little extra gas on the flame, that little extra oomph to get the job done or get out of a sticky situation. It's a nitro boost. If a close combatant is tearing through all their Karma in a few turns because they're using it at every single opportunity they can in a combat, this is either a boss battle, they're screwed in some way (lots of wounds, one character down, back against the wall, etc), or they aren't properly weighing the concept of a limited resource. It's comparable to a character healing IMMEDIATELY when they suffer damage, regardless of how much damage they have, despite the fact that they have a very small number of Recoveries.
Dyrmagnos wrote:It makes skills much more powerful and situation when skilled non adept is beating 3-rd circle adept would be common.
I must be missing something here. A battle between an Adept with DEX 7, STR 7, Melee Weapon [Talent] 3, and a dagger with zero Forging up against a non-adept with DEX 7, STR 7, Melee Weapon [Skill] 3, and a dagger with zero Forging, and assuming that there are no wounds or damage and the non-adept somehow has the same Health Ratings (which shouldn't normally be the case), then one of two things happens: (1) they are evenly matched because the Adept blew all his Karma before hand, or (2) the Adept has the upper hand because he still has Karma available. I cannot think of a situation where, all stats and conditions being equal, that the non-adept would have the upper hand.