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.
Yup, no reason for this not to work. IĀ“m not even sure it i would count it as an exploit or anything.
Also, you could choose to interpret the RAW writing of "...five to the Study Total of anyone who studies with you." from Good Teacher. That could easily be considered to cover Training as well as Teaching.
If with your covenant, you get either one PC or one teacher with really high Score in Teaching and Com, all PCs can sit down nicely in class for a single season and easily get a Teaching Score of 2.
+3, Com +5, Good Teacher +5, Affinity Teaching (~+2), Puissant Teaching +2, use a Lab with a +3 Teaching bonus and with a teaching Score of 12, end result is 30XP learning of Teaching per season.
Spend a year while starting up to get everyone up to Teaching Score 6.
(it actually isnĀ“t nearly as munchkin as it may look, you still have to spend a lot of time at it, and the bonus isnĀ“t exactly huge in the short term)
Agreed, following the recipe / lab text while under the direct supervision of the parens would count as training. Pretty sure sending them off to play in a lab on their own counts as exposure. I suppose this would be handy if you were making charged items.
I don't know if anyone actually noticed the wording here...
I don't recall ever stating that the craft skills are taught by the parens. Obvious assumption to make, but what if you are, say, an armourer, and your apprentice is a perfumier?
(Admittedly my magus ended up with about 5 craft skills at 3-5 ish, and one at 7, so he had good odds of covering the basics, but Journeyman to Master craft status kinda need proper training.)
*** Everyone who can't be bothered to read a rant can stop here ***
Oh yes...
Would like to point out, I am (second) least munchkin member of team. Do not have multistrike spell that affects single target (thousand javelins); do not have multicast / penetration / resistance / fast-cast / still / silent / etc mastery of BoAF; do not have death prophecy and harnessed magic combo; did not spend three times entire covenant budget buying gems for talisman.
To be fair Phil hasn't done anything I can point as munchkin yet, but he hasn't been playing long.
K.
"How in the hells did you get a security clearance? you can't just go "oh, yeah, spoilers." AFTER you tell everyone stuff!"
OK, because I am currently going through my current magus and re-writing him slightly, based on the "take him through every season, rather than throwing points at him" theory, I'd like to see if I can summarize that this thread is about:
The "book default" assumes 2 points of exposure per season, with a single season of instruction from the magi. Assuming an average paren with non-horrible Communication, that will actually give you slightly more than the starting number of points. (Plus a season to Open the Ways, plus an assumed few seasons to teach spells.)
Children make for horrible assistants: until their Int+Magic Theory gets up above 0, they aren't going to be getting Exposure xp from being lab monkeys. (Probably would start around age 12 or so, as the age penalty really gets in the way before that.)
Training XP can be from a lot of things, not just the one thing you're working on - it can also be in Teaching or in the Language in which everything is being trained in.
Apprenticeship, rather than Teaching, is probably what is going on in the Lab with the Magi - it doesn't take up a season of labor from the Magi, but isn't QUITE as effective as teaching, depending on the level of skill of the Paren. You can't get Arts that way, but pretty much anything else the magi uses is fair game. Magic Theory is probably the most common thing trained this way. Note that the apprentice has to have the skill at 2 before they start this, so it needs to be up at that level somehow, beforehand.
Assuming children don't become real lab monkeys until they're 12 or so, what are they doing? Well, Practice, semi-formal scholastic education (if the covenant is set up for it), goofing off and being a kid, and Language Training.
Language Training is a biggie, as you can't really read from a book until you've got Latin 4, or Latin 3 (appropriate specialization).
Don't forget that various merits (skilled paren, educated, etc.) exist. If you give your character 50 xp in Academic abilities by the time they're 10, you need to design your character with the appropriate merit. That's what it's there for.
The description of books from Covenents completely throws the numbers out the window - the Roots of the art (which are supposedly cheap and easy to get) completely jack up an apprentice's magic skills in just a few seasons. While in-game there are good reasons to keep valuable books out of the hands to tweens, once they get above 13 or so there's no real good reason to keep them away from the basics.
Hm... anything else?
EDIT - be sure to maintain correspondence with someone, about something related to what the character is working on - Magic Theory and Latin both seem to be safe bets, as the character will probably be learning those throughout their careers. (Hey - it bumps your exposure xp up from 2/season to 3/season. No reason not to, unless for RP reasons you don't have access to writing tools - which may be the case.)
I would be happy to give a young apprentice in the lab either practice or exposure in Latin while they're still junior and counting as a 'person' rather than an 'assistant'.
It may not be the most effective way to learn Latin, but it will get you there.
