My general plan was just to be old, or possibly have strong fairy blood or Dhampir.
Oooh. Dhampir would explain the zero arts thing.
"No Tremere sir, he's not my apprentice, I know that's not allowed; he's a fancy lab assistant! That's why I've only taught him Magic Theory!"
The no-Arts concept won't work well when he will have to stabilize a magnitude 4 or 5 effects (because of researching for 4 or 5 points as initially stated). There is a difference between Arts at 0 and Art not open. You cannot generate a labtot with Arts not open, whereas you can with Arts at 0.
Sure, I figured he's lying to the Tremere in the quote above.
Edited the post above for clarity.
For what its worth, I am currently playing with a Verditius who came out of gauntlet with like, 7+2 MT, a specialty in enchanting, and boosted to 8+2 like 3 years out of gauntlet.
It works quite well because Verditius mechanics allow you to functionally double dip the MT utility by adding MT straight up, and then increasing the shape and material bonus cap which then is subsidized by the Verditius Runes that let you substitute Philosophy for some portion of the shape and material.
It is really pretty decent, and the facts of enchanting make it quite good, and less of a liability than the opportunity cost would otherwise see it be.
While I haven't yet done original research with the character, there is an interesting interaction in that stabilizing a breakthrough involves recreating that season if you are doing so with enchanting. The drawback is using double the vis, making it very expensive, but the upside is that you end up with 2 enchanted items at the end, so you aren't 'wasting' a season compared to reinventing a spell to stabilize it, where you only end up with 1 spell.
Also worth noting that while spell invention and enchanting are hard to justify training xp in Magic Theory, taking a season to open an item for enchantment in the Veriditius manner is much easier to justify training xp in carpentry and MT, those being the requisite skills being used.
Actually, since MT is part of the Lab Total for any lab activity, MT is easy to justify exposure xp for when doing any lab activity.
Sure but exposure xp is not training xp. The former is 2, the latter can be quite a lot more and actually scales up. The point of the latter is that it is basically workshop apprentice work, so if you are in a forge and the blacksmith makes little Timmy stoke the fire and hold the sword while it is hammered on, he gets more xp than exposure, usually less than teaching, but the blacksmith gets to do a productive work season without spending the whole season teaching.
The key point is work seasons though, which is why opening an item is a more physical task involving MT and say, Blacksmithing, but the actual enchanting season is a more cerebral and intellectual exercise which only really justifies exposure xp.
No, if you have an apprentice in the Lab, you can give him training xp, while you get exposure xp.But, keep in mind that the apprentice doesn't actually help you in the lab that season, so he doesn't add his Int + MT to your Lab Total.
Ah. I see what you are saying. I didn't word it well, but I was trying to convey that my troupe had concerns about training xp being allowed for every seasonal activity, given how time efficient it is and how it becomes better than teaching if one is pressed for time. Since it was intended for craftsman style work seasons for people who work for a living, the collective ruling was to disallow it for stuff like reading books, studying from vis, and inventing spells, but allow it for stuff like building labs, opening enchanted items, and distilling vis from auras.
Inventing spells and enchanting items is how Magi make a living. And generally speaking, teaching an apprentice should grant higher SQ than training, unless you Magi got very poor Communication, since the base SQ for teaching is 3 + 6 (single student) + Communication + Teaching Ability, while training in MT will be MT +1.
I get what you are saying, and it certainly is a valid interpretation. Two things. One, IIRC training does not suffer from training multiple people like teaching does. And two, from a RAW standpoint, mages don't earn their living from inventing spells. They are financially supported by the income sources of the Covenant, and story actions. But unless you are playing in a very particular sort of game, mages don't get wages for seasons worked, they just kind of live off passive income. Contrast with everyone else, who are obligated to burn 1-3 seasons on work, depending on Poor or Wealthy, and can only gain exposure xp, and possibly merchant and craftsman points depending on how important you take City and Guild to be to your setting.
But the context behind training xp is to make work seasons less arduous and make more sense for getting apprentices ready to take over the business, xpwise and narratively.
As pointed out by ezzelino, whose point I was adding onto, it is already a stretch to allow that for mages who don't do any work seasons mechanically. My troupe made an argument that it can be allowed for very particular lab activities, but mostly disallowed for bread and butter lab work, and houseruled it. My impression of the rules is that RAW mages don't get access at all, but I don't have a strong inclination for a close reading to prove either way at this point.
Your troupe might well rule a different way, depending on which arguments you find compelling.
Let me reply to your two points:
While that is a sensible suggestion, if you have Vis you could also enchant a decent Talisman. One with lots of potential (and maybe experimental) shape bonuses could be an idea.
The issue is that the rule about training a student in an Ability you are currently using to earn a living seems clearly one about a mundane Craftsman or Professional earning Labor Points during one of their 1-3 work seasons with their primary Craft/Profession ability.
Note that I do not think that a blacksmith can train a student in ... Living Language, or Bargain, or Area Lore during a season of blacksmithing, even though he probably does use all those abilities. For the same reason, I do not think that a magus who spends a season on labwork - inventing spells or enchating items - can train an apprentice in Magic Theory, as Magic Theory is not as a big a component of labwork as Craft:Blacksmith is of blacksmithing (the 2+ Arts involved are at least as important, for example).
A magus who sets up a lab, on the other hand, does use Magic Theory almost exclusively (in fact, even a mundane could do it). So in that case I'd allow training a student.
Yes, but RAW, a season in the lab can be used to train MT.
Probably because Bonisagus wrote the rules.
Hmm. Could you provide a precise reference for the fact that any season of labwork, e.g. inventing spells or enchanting devices, can be used by a magus to train an apprentice as per Training rules?
a precise reference for a very specific reading of the rules? I doubt you could find such a thing anywhere in the entire line of ars magica products, but the quote from apprentices above suffices to my mind. Given that only abilities (not arts) can be trained it would seem to me that Magic Theory would be about the only thing that could be trained in a normal lab session. There is also, on p. 31 of Apprentices
every ability can be increased through training
So what activity do you believe is a better way to train magic theory? It seems to me that you are more thrashing about in defiance of a rule you don't like than making a real argument.
That quote solves one, and only one of the two issues I had raised: namely, that the one-on-one season of instruction that a master must devote to an apprentice can be a season of training.
But it does not solve the other issue: namely, whether you can perform training during a season of laboratory activities. Because that does not appear to be a season in which a magus uses Magic Theory to to earn a living, the way a blacksmith would earn a living with Craft: Blacksmith in one of his 1-3 "unfree" seasons.
But you are assuming that some ability can be trained during a "normal" season of labwork. That's what I find unsupported by the RAW.
I pointed out that setting up a lab would definitely be a more reasonable seasonal activity to train Magic Theory. Because the bulk of it is Magic Theory; no Hermetic Technique, no Hermetic Form, not even the Gift is required. Still, even that is somewhat open to interpretation.
I would also point out that the fact that every ability can be trained, and that you can train someone in an ability you are using to earn a living in the same season, does not mean that for every ability there's some way to earn a living with it or otherwise be "productive" during a season in which you train someone else in it. Take Parma Magica. You can certainly train someone in it, and it might be the best way to pass on knowledge if you are very good in Parma Magica and very bad at Teaching, but I am hard pressed to find a way for a magus to get "productive" work done in a season he trains someone else in Parma Magica.
I'll try the counter.
Core rulebook page 163
" In particular, Hermetic laboratory activities grant Exposure experience both to the lead magus and to any assistants."
That seems to clearly suggest it is only exposure XP.
If any troupe chooses to allow training XP instead of exposure XP, they are going against RAW, using a house rule. Anyone using that house rule, I'd be intrigued if the apprentice is helping the lab total. Anyone who has every trained anybody knows that actively training someone slows down your output.
It's a degree of power creep to allow an apprentice to be trained while the Magi is doing a lab activity. it's huge power creep to allow the apprentice to assist the lab total, and to allow training XP. If the troupe wants to do that, it's up to them, but I think the rules are clear.
Any lab activity can be used to earn a living- your lab texts can later be translated and sold, longevity rituals can be sold as well. The only thing which differentiates these from a non-commercial laboratory activity is whether you are doing it for yourself or for someone else for pay. On the other hand no activity is earning a living for a magus in a covenant because the covenant provides a living for the magus so players do not need to worry themselves over such commercial transactions, and yet apprentices clearly says that apprentices can receive training, and i any ability, despite this peculiarity.
I will also note that an assistant (contributing their MT bonus) receives only exposure XP, this does not mean that an apprentice who is not assisting cannot be trained.
Every
Ability can be increased through
training, as long as the require-
ments for both trainer and pupil are
met (ArM5, page 164).
Apprentices p31.
The apprentice may only be taught an Ability
which the master is using to earn a living over
the whole season. The apprentice may not earn
a living or produce anything useful.
ArM5 p164
That little qualification in Apprentices is important. While in theory every Ability can be trained, in many cases it will be hard, or even impossible, to find a situation in which a given Ability can be used to earn a living over a whole season.
If you can find a way to use an ability to earn a living, great, but there is no guarantee this is always possible.