Okay, after talking it over with Nick, I've made some changes to the boon system with regard to buying skill points. The boon cost per skill point for 3rd level characters has been reduced from three boon to two. Every three levels beyond that has seen a reduction of one point as well. This should make buying skill points a slightly better deal than it was before.
However, there is also a new rule in place. No new PC can have more skill points than the highest-level PC already in play. Thus, somebody could potentially buy their way to a 10th-level PC, but not until there's already one in play that got there naturally. This is to prevent game imbalance.
Since this is the start of the game and no PC has more than 20 skill points, I've artificially set the cap at 40 (4th level). Thus, if you can get your hands on 40 boon before the first event, you can buy 20 additional skill points and start that event at 4th level, but no higher. The excess, of course, would still be useful for later on.
No doubt this will elicit some questions. Feel free to ask and I'll be happy to answer.