I think a senior magus or maga would find it unacceptable to pay 4 pawns of vis for a teacher and not be the only student. This should be considered a season of service in place of the yearly payment in vis.
You appear to be trying to work around the guidelines here, and gain multiples advantages from a single season (vis, book, xp for your familiar).
EDIT:
You did not have two seasons during which you gained xp in Magic Theory, so you cannot gain 2 xp from correspondence (it is 1 xp per season).
You did not have two seasons during which you gained xp in Magic Theory, so you cannot gain 2 xp from correspondence (it is 1 xp per season).
Perfectly correct, I will edit it down.
I think a senior magus or maga would find it unacceptable to pay 4 pawns of vis for a teacher and not be the only student. This should be considered a season of service in place of the yearly payment in vis.
You appear to be trying to work around the guidelines here, and gain multiples advantages from a single season (vis, book, xp for your familiar).
This however, I would like to make a small push back on.
First of all, the vis immediately paid for a book, which in turn was going to be a covenant service for next year, so it is essentially me doing my covenant service for a year, just made a tiny bit more thematic and admittedly getting some xp on my familiar. But also you said:
. Teachers have a Teaching Source Quality of 6 to 12, plus the bonus for single-student teaching. Magi charge a very high price for teaching another magus for a season (the equivalent of 4 to 10 pawns of vis).
Marcus has a teaching source of 14 for magic theory, two higher than the maximum total possible in the rules, and he is charging the absolute minimum it is possible to charge, by the economy you proposed. That deal is honestly excellent. You also said
And they might combine that teaching with the season when they teach their own apprentice.
Which is similar if not identical to combining with a apprentice. So marcus is giving the rock bottom price for near top service and using the caveat that you included and pointed out people should not assume 1:1 tuition consistantly, especially not with high end tutors (in plot device's thread, I think, though not certain).
If I am able to insist on 1:1 tuition with a source quality of 14 for 4 pawns of vis, then I know what some of my future seasons will be spent in, because that is 20 xp a season!
Source Quality is an out-of-character artifice for the benefice of the players; npcs cannot guess what your talent as a teacher is, except based on your reputation or past experience. You have no such fame at the moment. You are also teaching a more senoir maga of your hosting covenant, after said covenant provided you a teacher at a reduced rate. The maga would percieve your decision of sharing that season's teaching between her and your familiar as 1) an insult to her, and 2) cheating her out of part of the agreed upon season of teaching. Would Marcus risk that with Daria La Gris of House Tremere, the leader of the covenant (since you didn't name the maga, I just do so now)? And if you did, what do you think the consequences would be? That's the in-character part of the issue.
From an out-of-character balance perspective, you are trying to achieve too many things at once for a single season. If you want to teach your familiar, do so. If you want to pay your peregrinator fee to Triamore, do so. If you want to fulfill your agreement to teach a magus, do so. If you want to earn vis, do so. But trying to do all of those things in the same season looks like trying to "game" the narrative advancement guidelines to get the maximum benefits out of a season. Don't do that, please!
@Arthur can I ask for some help with Spindra in a moment, I am extremely unsure I have done her right. Please give me the benefit of the doubt here, and do not jump to the assumption I am trying to game the system, or cheat, I am flagging this as probably not done correctly and an area where I am weak, mechanically.
Thinking behind these: Magic might 9 before size gives 9 points of powers to spend.
Major focus power on spider webs:
To allow her to use rego animal powers to weave spiderweb into things and use it as a resource. The improved power will probably be spent here.
Using it as Crafter of Animal
Personal power
To allow her to climb everything. I think I can make a minor power stretch far enough on a rego animal power to let her climb anywhere, though I still have to make this.
Minor power:
Using the example from the book again, I think grant puissance in weaving is not unreasonable for a spider weaver. I know it relates to my character pretty strongly, but isn't that natural in a familiar?
Gift of speech
She canonically could speak to Marcus in the times they met.
Improved abilities (minor) x2
Partly filling out and partly so I can buy more skills. I don't think there is a super strong argument for this here.
Characteristics are fine, you got how Size affects them only after the initial 7 points.
Not unreasonable, if a bit uncomfortably tailored to your magus, since it he has Affinity with Craft but not Puissant. Make sure you label it correctly and specifically as "Grant Puissance in Weaving".
I don't think that the Slow Power flaw would be appropriate. It's not like weaving is a time-sensitive ability, so taking an additional round to imbue the puissance does not sound like a flaw. And a flaw that is not a flaw isn't a flaw.
Restricted Power may be a viable alternative, if it requires the target to be submitted to an uncomfortable situation for the puissance to be granted (like be wrapped in her webs to activate the puissance for a season).
How much spiderweb could be used that way in a day? Would those things be permanent?
Technically, a Focus Power does not need be limited to a single Technique, so she could use Creo to cast Weaver's Trap of Webs, for example. Or Muto to make them stronger, Perdo to remove them, etc.
Certainly! It can be used to give flight, so being able to climb anything is fine.
Re: puissant weaving. I agree it's a bit uncomfortably tailored. That is why I wanted to run it by you. I agree the slow-> uncomfortable makes sense. Can I suggest it goes further and only works when there is still some web attached to you? Seems thematic, somehow.
Re: the focus power, I thought to model it on crafter of animal, which means any CrAn or ReAn spell of level 12 (her might) or below is fair game for it. Then the enhanced power and remaining 2 magnitudes would be spent on reducing might cost, to make it something she can just sort of do at will.
If it comes with the Restricted Power flaw (instead of Slow Power), then I'm fine with it. I like the thematic part too.
Craft of Animal sounds good. It would be limited to the spider theme?
Depends on whether you are planning on teaching stuff to Spindra in the coming seasons. There's a few things that I still need to look at. I haven't reviewed abilities fully yet, and since you took some of its Qualities to improve abilities, there may be some change there.
Note that a familiar automatically gains any language ability that his magus speaks (ArM5 p.105, The Bound Familiar), so any xp put into Latin before Spindra is bound is pretty much a loss. The same is true, to a certain degree, with Low German (magical animals do not get a free score of 5 in a Living Language, see RoP:M p.34 with the example for Aeolus) .
You could have given Spindra a lower score in Low German (3 or 4) so that should could speak with humans before she becomes Marcus' familiar, and that score would also increase post-familiar binding. That would save between 50 xp for the Latin, and 25 to 45 xp for Low German. That would (at a minimum) make up for the lost 75 xp from not having a free language.
