I was just perusing the force power section, when i looked at Sense and got a little confused. Page 181 on the right hand side of the tree, after you purchase the control upgrade you can purchase a magnitude upgrade that increases the number of targets you can sense. So far so good. The next upgrade on the page is the same one, followed by another of the exact same one. and the way it reads, there is no additional benefit in doing this. Anyone else run into this yet?

If I'm interpreting your question right, I think I see where your mistake is. And yes, the bonus is worded poorly. I think there are 2 ways to look at it.

Taking the each magnitude upgrade should increase the number of targets you can detects by a number equal to your ranks in willpower. So if you took all three upgrades, that force user should be able to

detect the thoughts and emotions in a number of targets equal to 3 times her ranks in willpower.

OR

the thoughts and emotions in a number of targets equal to one plus 3 times her ranks in willpower.

The plus one represents that the rules may or may not include the original target. Either way, a lot of mind reading.

-WJL

Check the Magnitude Upgrade description on page 180, specifically the sentence that's in parenthesis.

It spells out that each time you take this talent, you can read the thoughts/emotions of a number of targets equal to your Willpower x the number of times you've selected this upgrade.

So if you have a Willpower of 3 and have taken the Magnitude Upgrade all 3 times, that means you can read the emotions/thoughts of up to 9 people at once, provided they are within range (so you'll probably want a Range Upgrade or two as well).

It's another case where the talent tree just gives you a quick description, but you need to look up the full text to get all the information. It's quite common (perhaps distressingly so for some) in the regular Career talent trees as well.