An in character response from a less generous mentor
"Wait, creating more laboratory texts that can be used by multiple magi through the years, creating arcane connections to give the order enhanced abilities on certain locations or people, creating casting tablets that give any member of the order the ability to cast spells far beyond the ability of the apprentice, and creating vim vis to open invested devices is about short term benefit while say teaching an adolescent girl sufficient mentem to manipulate her peers or a twelve year old boy enough rego animal to spont cat-catapult is somehow doing the order a service?"
"You are such a desiccated old corpse. Sitting in a boring lab mindlessly fixing Arcane Connections may have been what you called "learning ancient magical secrets" in your day, old man. But you just totally don't get what being an apprentice in the early thirteenth century is all about. At the rate you teach, I'll be in Final Twilight before I learn anything worthwhile. And a cat-catapult is like so totally cool and essential for the covenant...like, what happens if we get attacked by flying mice?"
Seems like my 30 yo mage should be more than capable of training an apprentice then...!
If e.g. a familiar teach the apprentice latin and MT that is even less time wasted for the mage.
IMS I think we manage 3 to six seasons on average between events. However, there are 4 magi + 4 previously gauntleted apprentices, plus one mythic companion, spread over two (now three) sites (main covenant, and daughter covenant about 20 miles away (and flying covenant ("Prototype Mark One") about a mile from the daughter covenant). I think they can handle it.
"I can't go and help defeat the swarming, I'm teaching my apprentice. Take the device from the second section of the lower drawer in box number... seven, make sure to be at least Voice range away, and cover your eyes. Bring it back when you're done." - in best Q to Bond impression.
Alternatively, play a grog or companion while you train your apprentice. If it's your story flaw, you have to go, that's fine, but you still have a season a year to do your own stuff by my schedule, and... You are the master, not the apprentice. If you don't want to, aren't available, or simply don't have the knowledge, then don't do it. They can't argue as they are getting far more than normal training anyway.
I suggest actually running a quick spreadsheet to see what you end up with as a character afterwards.
You'd be suprised how often I forgot that they needed L: Latin (Hermetic) 3 to read a book!
If people are thinking that their apprentice needs more free time, the thread on "Sleepwalking for fun and profit (and XP!)"
might be of some interest.
Of course, this assumes that the apprentice is using his own time for study, rather than "immersive combat and social training" with the grogs. (Getting the entire pub so drunk that they actually talk to the apprentice, then trying to get out of the ensuing fight safely.)
Or whatever he's teaching. Doesn't change the basic message:
A Parens with Com 0 and Teaching 1 gives you 240 XPs over the cause of your 15 years as an apprentice if s/he teaches exactly 1 season/year and you only get exposure for the rest. And that is the default starting magus.
That's 15110 Teaching + 1532 Exposure. That's disregarding 1 season to open the Arts and 3-4 seasons for spells, or at least assuming they are part of the Exposure seasons.
Not that counting the spells as teaching seasons changes much, you only need 12 in Teaching to get the 150xp: 12112 on Abitilies + 312 on spells.
Lab specialisations apply to lab totals, so they don't help with teaching abilities; only with teaching spells (normal teaching doesn't use a lab total)
Is there some other way to get bonuses to Teaching in covenants that I've missed?
Oh, cool, thanks for correcting me.
I clearly misread that section; that's definitely a useful boost, I'll have to add teaching specialisation to my character's list of plans.
Apologies, I should have double checked before 'correcting' you.
You didn't come across as nasty. And I'm also under attack by a headache... I hope this isn't the result of a mage testing out the new spell target "website".
Here's a (potentially munchkinny idea worthy of Janus) variant that could be used: Training in lab work!
So, there's Exposure (if the apprentice is used to extract vis or help in the lab), Practice, Training, Teaching, Books and Vis. Exposure is the low xp option but what you rely on if the master wants to exploit an apprentice as much as possible. However, until the apprentice has a decent Int + Magic Theory (and remember, Int will be reduced for children due to age modifiers) they're not much help. Practice helps with abilities, but not Arts (handy for getting Spell Mastery though).
Training - now this is where I had an idea. You can't train Arts, but you can train someone in whatever you're earning a living in. For a magus, I would suggest that tasks like producing magic items from a lab text or tapping an aura for Vis are everyday tasks in much the same way that helping a blacksmith in a forge is. I would therefore argue that if a master is doing this in the lab without the apprentice's help, they can work as normal (and get the exposure xp) while the apprentice gets the master's Magic Theory + 3 xp that season in Magic Theory as they learn how to follow Laboratory procedures.
Teaching - the standard, I often take Teaching 1(apprentices) for magi as a handy way of being ready to train. If I have a familiar, teaching MT with the apprentice and familiar as 2 students (for a +3 bonus rather than +6 for one) allows you to train up both your potential lab helpers. (I would use the phrase "Killing two birds with one stone" but I usually have a bird familiar and avoid that phrase). Thinking about Teaching, Good Teacher with its +5 bonus is much better for one-on-one tutors, but Puissant Teacher is better for grog drill instructors or professional schoolmasters, as the extra +2 teaching allows you to train 10 more people.
Books - primers are useful for getting apprentices up to speed quickly, but you'll probably need to accumulate a bunch early in the campaign as all your specialised magi pick up the Arts they neglected to get to 5 in each so they can open the Arts without inflicting deficiencies. For reasons of vanity, I may construct a Great Work (from Covenants) one day - you can triple the resonant materials bonuses, but not get clarification, so you can in theory get a work with Quality 3 higher than a book for a mere 100 mythic pounds of mundane stuff and an adventure or two to score super-resonant materials.
Vis - theoretically can be done anywhere and doesn't need a lab, and is incredibly cheap at low levels. However, in every saga I've played in Vis is too rationed to waste on apprentices and apprentices don't get a vis salary. In a vis-rich saga you could think "screw buying a good primer, I'll teach my Apprentice how to benefit from Free Study like I do".
Then why does it feel like every story for the first few months of the saga involved saving us from destitution or having people take our land/vis sources/covenfolk from us, and now we actually have power we have to save the tribunal/order/world every week?
Oh, I forgot, that's unpaid work, so we're not earning a living.
Actually, to argue the point, every covenant which insists on magi performing covenant duty for a season in exchange for a vis share/vis salary IS making their magi work to earn a living.
