Apprentice start dates

Since this requires coordination between players, I would like for everyone to post what year they would want their apprentice to begin training.

Danton can really enter the game whenever, Andros is able to take him on immediately or because of the unaging virtue he can wait a long time as his teaching score won't suffer/he won't die of old age anytime soon.

But to be helpful and not just state the obvious I would say no ealrier tan 1120 and perhaps ideally 1130, although other players with grater concerns about their aging might wish to start earlier and as I said Danton can really go whenever as Andros can open the arts from the beginning with no deficiencies.

Ouragan is several years away from taking an apprentice, as his scores are not quite up to where they should be. I'm figuring somewhere around 1125-1130. (I need to update Farid's year of birth to reflect the extra time.)

Giovanni can start whenever the player of Taurus feels ready. Having checked the rules for teaching virtues in the Apprentices book, you might want to add a couple of points to your teaching score via lab improvements before you open the arts.

We don't actually need to start as formal apprentices getting our arts opened - our masters could be cheeky, take us in and send us to the teacher for a year to learn a little latin and Artes Lib and then open the arts before someone tries to snatch them.

Why would training them before opening their arts be beneficial?

@darkwing: I can have Taurus take the apprentice whenever you are ready. A couple thoughts I've had however ...

  1. Is this Taurus' first apprentice? If so, how did he get a Teaching score 6 with a specialty for apprentices? If not, who was his earlier apprentice?
  2. @SIlveroak: Are the apprentices just appearing, or are you anticipating some sort of story around them?

In my home saga, we had the apprentices taught Latin and Artes Liberales for a season or two by a covenant specialist, so that the parens could communicate with them more easily. Then, depending on the tasks they were set during apprenticeship, they got exposure experience in those abilities when not being directly taught.

It will take one season of adventure to locate the apprentice, though given the importance to development success is guaranteed for the pre-designed apprentices. If you wish to take other apprentices (which is possible, either if new people wish to enter the game with an apprentice, or as an NPC) then this must also succeed in the per stress roll of 12+ (botches will introduce ungifted characters who might seem gifted...)
The covenant certainly has a teacher and plenty of educated people if you wish to spend some time teaching the first- the risk of apprentice snatching during this time only applies in terms of generating stories unless the apprentice is an NPC.

I was under the impression Anna would be at the covenant in 1100. However, there is no need for her to start her apprenticeship right away. She could, for example, spend the first three years teaching herself Latin and how to read. Technically, she could just barely accomplish this in 11 seasons, if I remember the rules right.

Keep in mind that if Anna is at the covenant in 1100 she will be 128 when the full game begins- this may be what you want but it is by no means necessary. You can instead give your parens some time to grow before taking her on as an apprentice...

This is Taurus' first apprentice. To get the teaching score, he'd get it the same way he learns any ability important to his future within House Bjornaer - study. He may have read books (thinking of which, did we remember to put any Teaching books in the library?) or he can have spent seasons working with the tutor. A particular favourite of mine in sagas I've played in using the rule in Art & Academe which says when you study Latin, Artes Liberales or Philosophiae in a classroom, you can take half your study points in Teaching instead (no doubt they came up with this rule to explain how universities and cathedral schools produce the teachers who staff them).

The point is more that if he's never had a an apprentice how can he have gained a specialty for teaching apprentices. One-on-one is perhaps a more appropriate specialization.

Also with a a specialised lab and perhaps in exchange for a season of service Andros has a very good teaching score.

He may have traded teaching another apprentice for something in past seasons.

Since taking an apprentice is high on Taurus' to-do list, this will probably happen fairly early, after some lab adjustments and a few other details. How old would you like Giovanni to be by the time 1220 rolls around?

I'd like Giovanni to have had plenty of time post-gauntlet, but I'm not fussy if you take him as an apprentice anytime between 1100 and 1130.

I'd set things up for Evandrus to start training Camilla basically immediately.

Part of the reason I plan on taking Unaging with Death Prophecy. Death Prophecy does prevent dying from old age, and I did my best to pick a pretty explicit one about burning to death. Although I still plan on stacking health bonuses at least. Anyway my Parens can wait as long as he wants for the exact same reason.

It may save you from dying, it won't prevent lowered stats from aging, decrepitude, or twilight. Seriously- the idea here was you would spend some time building up your parens into good teachers, have magi finishing apprenticeships at staggard intervals, and have more realistic characters than the 30 points a year for character generation, not to wind up with a senior citizens crew who should be retiring when the main plot begins... and continues for decades from there...

OK, I can aim for 1130. If you want it earlier (you did say "perhaps"), I can arrange earlier. I do figure we should try to do roughly what the player of the apprentice has intended, though doing so as the Parens would want to do.

I do see his goals listed at the bottom, but I still have a few questions (#4 is the really important one):

  • With Unaging, he can appear any age. Is there a reason you have it matching his actual age? Is it that you always want him to appear 38?
  • Did you make the aging rolls for him? (I may have missed that elsewhere.)
  • Is there a reason he has used up Confidence Points? (I may have missed that elsewhere.)
  • I'm guessing your plan for his mMF, Great Weapon, and armor stuff is for him to remain in human form and to buff himself up in that form. Correct? I want to make sure I understand his style. With that mMF you might also do things like turning into a bear and fighting that way, though Weak Magic would more than counter the mMF on that particular method. Most likely he would train his apprentice similarly, so this is a biggie.
  • How did you get those casting totals? I can't figure a whole bunch of them out.
  1. Not really, I never really decided on what age I want him to look like, I usually take unaging because I don't like the aging mechanics ingame so I like to offset it with the virtue
  2. No I haven't
  3. Nope, that's just me being confused about how many confidence point you're supposed to start with
  4. Yup, self transformation was to help him develop a bunch of spells for himself to be buffed up with, I was also thinking that self-transformation might be a little more broadly interpreted to include stat increases and I was hoping to pursue that on one of the characters, however the downside being I would need to make it a personal range spell to get the bonus as a result of the "self" part of the self-transformation. Additionally a lot of his spells will be personal target so that he doesn't need to penetrate his parma on it
  5. A lot of them might be wrong I'll double check and recalculate.

I've changed them and assumed that at the very least gift of the bears fortitude gains the MMF bonus, let me know if there are any more you think are wrong, or feel free to change them to what you think is correct.