Yes, but relatively low Craft is sufficient, while no amount of Magic Theory is sufficient.
I was certainly going to say that yes, one certainly needs the Arts.
And I'll add that with an Art at 0 (and not a single xp) one knows more about that Art than someone with an Ability at 0 (and not a single xp) knows about that Ability.
But I think your point about Wondrous items is a very contrived fallacy!
A Craftman crafting a Wondrous item is clearly "extending" what he could do by Craft alone. It seems reasonable that this process is sufficiently similar to what's done using Craft alone that if the latter qualifies as a source of Trainining, so does the former. But I can't imagine a "lesser" form of enchantment or spell discovery that uses Magic Theory alone, and which could be logically extended to "standard" enchantment or spell discovery via the Arts in the same way.
As I mentioned, there are many activities that are impossible without a particular set of skills, and yet those skills are only used a very small fraction of the time. You can't a priori rule out that Magic Theory is one of them.
If a character has no score in an Ability, she may or may not be able to use it... If it is asterisked, she cannot use it at all.
So it can't be used. But does a lab total use it?
LAB TOTAL: Technique + Form + Intelligence + Magic Theory + Aura Modifier (p.94 and more spots)
Yup, you use it in the lab total, but you can't.
So you need some experience in MT to allow using it to allow for a Lab Total. That makes it a requirement for Hermetic lab work.
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And, separately, there are things like you can't use vis in the lab without a score in it, so it is a requirement for a lot of lab work that way as well, even if it weren't required for some things:
The amount of raw vis that a magus may use in a single season is limited to twice his Magic Theory score. (p.94)
Charged items are even debatable despite not using vis. Does this fall under the "compound item" rule, where you would be limited to no components? "Compound item" isn't truly defined except to allow you to use all of the components. All of one is one. But that doesn't feel very "compound." That's why I say it's debatable.
A compound item of this sort may not contain more components than your Magic Theory score (p.97)
Oh, and checking Craft (Type), it has no asterisk. That means you could to blacksmith work with no experience at all in Craft (Blacksmith), perhaps with Str +5 and a manual. So Magic Theory is more necessary for lab work than Craft (Blacksmith) is for blacksmithing.
I wrote "[a] relatively low Craft [score] is sufficient [to earn a living through a season of Craft], while no amount of Magic Theory is sufficient [on its own to perform a season of labwork]."
Meaning: a character who only knows Craft: Blacksmith, and nothing else, can "earn a living" doing Blacksmith work. On the other hand, a character, even a Gifted one, who only knows Magic Theory, and nothing else, cannot perform a season of "standard" labwork (say, enchantment or spell invention) no matter how high his Magic Theory score is. Hence my conclusion that Craft: Blacksmith is more central to a season's work as a blacksmith than Magic Theory is central to a season of work in the laboratory.
Yes, I did misunderstand you. I thought you were saying "no amount of Magic Theory is sufficient," meaning no Magic Theory is needed. Rather, you're actually saying "any amount of Magic Theory" is insufficient, right? That would be true. But making this statement about Craft is deceptive, probably even to yourself.
(Oops, botched my early-morning logic. Fixing...) Look at the flip side of sufficient v. necessary. No Craft: Blacksmith is necessary for a season of blacksmithing. But Magic Theory is necessary for a season of lab work. If we just look at sufficiency, a bunch of assistants plus Leadership are sufficient for blacksmithing. A manual is sufficient for blacksmithing. Does this mean assistants are necessarily "central" to blacksmithing, even though we know you can do it without them? Does this mean a manual is necessarily "central" to blacksmithing, even though we know you can do it without one?
Now, look at the same thing further. If Magic Theory is absolutely necessary, but Craft: Blacksmith is not at all, doesn't that make Magic Theory more central?
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Separately, look at this comparison. I have a blacksmith making a living by crafting a Wondrous Item in the workshop. The blacksmith has a low score in Craft: Blacksmith (2 to allow Training), but a craft manual, great Strength, a helpful workshop, a helpful aura, a Faerie Sympathy in iron, and Mythic Blacksmith. I'm going to compare this to a mage with a low score in Magic Theory (also 2) with a lab text, great Intelligence, a helpful lab, a useful Virtue (e.g. Cyclic Magic), and Opened Arts.
They both have low scores (2) in Craft v. Magic Theory.
The majority of the total used does not come from Craft v. Magic Theory
They both have helpful labs.
They both use texts.
They both take advantage of an aura.
They both have a Virtue that boosts things.
They both require an extra thing to allow their Craft or Magic Theory to be applied.
How much is really different there? And yet the blacksmith qualifies as being able to Train and the mage does not?
callen, if you assume that one can earn a living doing blacksmith work without as much as a single xp in Craft:Blacksmith (or some supernatural assistance that effectively replaces that knowledge), you are playing a different game than I am; so I am afraid there's not much else to be said here. I hope I made my point abundantly clear - most people on this thread seem to have understood it, even though some may disagree.
I think this issue has derailed this thread enough as it is, so let me leave it at that (though I have openened a new thread clearly devoted solely to this issue).
I'll just add that the notion that asterisked abilities must be known to be used at all, and non-asterisked ones can always be used even without a single xp in them, is meant as a rough guideline, because the "asterisk" is a single bit of information that fails to capture the whole complexity of an Ability. The average character in Mythic Europe will know what a mass is, even without any xp in the appropriate asterisked Lore (Dominion Lore, or Area Lore, or whatever). On the other hand, if you've never received any instruction as a smith, a sufficient Perception may allow you to sense whether a certain knife is good or bad; but you won't be able to forge a decent knife unassisted no matter how strong or smart you are. It's really that simple.
Actually you can do lab work with just magic theory. It is foolish compared to spending a season reading a book in an art, but it is doable. You have a lab total equal to your Intelligence+magic theory+aura, with a zero in both arts.
On the other hand while you can certainly do productive work in a workshop in a season with nothing but a craft skill, I'm not sure you could actually earn a living since without social standing and some social skills such as bargain you wouldn't be able to sell the work for more than what you spent in materials. And yes that is even true by the rules since you require the social virtue pf "craftsman" to own and run your own workshop (though admittedly this does not technically require skills.
The point here is that we can be pedantic about this all day long if we just want to pontificate endlessly into a void of people who we have no chance of convincing of anything, but aside from the fact that magi live like nobility and perhaps the SG is being a jack, there is nothing to prevent them from training someone in magic theory during a season of lab activity.
Then you are not doing lab work with just magic theory. You are doing labwork with magic theory plus an Hermetic Form, plus an Hermetic Technique. Remember, an Ability at 0 means you have no knowledge of it, and indeed the minimum score at which you may have a Supernatural Ability is 1; but an Art (Hermetic or otherwise) at 0 means you do have minimal but working knowledge of that Art.
Not really, you have a zero as soon as your arts are opened, so you have a capacity that others lack (the same way you have the Gift) but that isn't an ability that you have developed or learned.
An Art at 0 is certainly not an Ability - it's an Art. But having an Art at 0 means you have been trained and know stuff. Just a little, but enough to use the Art to cast spells. "Opening the Arts" is not just the turning of some metaphysical key - look at ArM5, p.106, on training your apprentice (emphasis mine):
One of your seasons of teaching must be spent training the apprentice in the basics of Hermetic magic, and you can teach nothing else in that season. Thus, in this season the apprentice gains a score of 0 in all fifteen Hermetic Arts, but learns nothing else. This is
referred to as “opening the Arts.”
If a character has no score in an Ability, she may or may not be able to use it. If the Ability is not asterisked in the list from page 63, she may use it as if it had a score of zero, but rolling three extra botch dice. If it is asterisked, she cannot use it at all.
A character who has placed a single experience point into an Ability may use it with a score of zero, with no extra botch dice, regard-less of whether or not it is asterisked. Experience points represent a noticeable amount of training, and thus make the Ability available to the character.
Characters cannot use Supernatural Abilities unless they have at least one experience point in the Ability. Only characters with the relevant Virtue, or The Gift, can put experience points into Supernatural Abilities.
So a character with a zero faces notable difficulties in using the ability; which can be negated by putting even a single point of experience (but still having an score of zero) into that ability. How much notable training does an Art score of zero represent?
Abilities are different from Arts.
Abilities are hard or impossible to use if you have put no xp at all in them.
Arts can be hard to get, but once you have them you can use them just fine even without putting a any xp into them.
So what about Accelerated Supernatural Abilities? And how are those different from Arts, other than 'The authors did not seem to have thought of that'. More to the point, 'Opening the Arts' looks like it might put as little as a fifteenth of an experience point (a noticeable amount of training) into each Art.
This seems to simultaneously be enough training to avoid charging around like a bull in a china shop & being a destructive, counterproductive distraction (for an art) -- but somehow, simultaneously not enough for Magic Theory.
Accelerated Abilities are Abilities. Except for the xp scale, and no age limit at character creation, they work as regular abilities.
Supernatural Abilities, which includes Accelerated Supernatural Abilities, can't be used unless you have put at least 1 xp into them.
Opening the Arts does not put any xp into any of the Arts, but does include enough training that you can use them all.
read the section, and it seems at best a stretch to read into this that opening the ats is a form of training, especially considering that apprentices refers to it as a lab activity using the forms InVi, in which the apprentice is the target of the magical work. Do you also train a familiar when you form the three bonds?
In our game, familiars benefit from the familiar bond the season it is created for learning purpose, and get 2 xp in magic theory from labwork expisure. YSMV
2 xp is, as noted, exposure, not training. The idea that opening the arts is somehow training an apprentice to level 0 in each art would be the same as alleging that binding a familiar is training them in being a familiar.
It also beggars all belief that if opening the arts were a training process it would be based on lab tota rather than teaching total.
One of your seasons of teaching must be
spent training the apprentice in the basics of
Hermetic magic, and you can teach nothing
else in that season. Thus, in this season the
apprentice gains a score of 0 in all fifteen
Hermetic Arts, but learns nothing else. This is
referred to as “opening the Arts.”
ArM5 p106
This is not "Training" in the technical sense used in the experience rules, and does not have a Source Quality.
It is however training in the more general sense of the word.