Indeed, I was thinking along similar lines -- books copied quickly (-1 Quality), perhaps even without the proper illuminations (-1 Quality) and/or flap-bound (-1 Quality) to save time and efforts. Few magi would consider studying from such books, but they are perfectly appropriate for apprentices.
Completely OOC, letting apprentices study from a full library can produce inflated power levels as compared to what the core book rules produce. Now, I understand and accept that an apprentice played out through the 13-15 years of apprenticeship will be slightly more powerful. But unrestricted access to the same library of full magi can produce an apprentice who Gauntlets nearly twice as powerful. So my rationale is that most covenant would consider letting an apprentice lose upon the library something undesirable.
In-character, I had Maximilian explain some of the rationale against giving apprentices access to the library -- books are fragile and valuable, apprentices are young and careless, and the uncontrolled manifestations of the Gift can create incidents. And magi are proud in general, so they would view those books are theior exclusive purview.
Of course there is very little in the rules to indicate the danger of who handles the books, in my experience it is far less of a issue once basic literacy (artes liberals:1) is achieved- at least if my children are any guide. That opposed to how the magi might worry however are two different issues. I am not concerned with trying to keep apprentices to match what the character generation process produces. Especially when we are talking about in play development. The one thing you can be certain of is that books being used by apprentices will not be available for other characters. If we want to have a house rule about book damage I could see either requiring a simple roll against age+artes liberals with a target number of 14 each season to avoid damaging a book, or against int+artes liberals with a target number of 3. Either of these is trivial enough that an adult magi would not need to roll, bt children with int penalties might potentially miss the roll, if the troop wants to enact such a house rule to give some validation to the concerns of some magi and make such considerations more meaningful.
The key to my reaction is that anyone who is willing to take the time to play through 14 years of apprenticeship is welcome to the boost it gives them. Presumably, by then our Magi will be rather better. I wish that the learning rules and common view of book availability lined up better with the apprenticeship guidelines in core. But things are what they are.
Given in my TT game our covenant was rather hands on and ensured the best education for our apprentices possible...my apprentice at gauntleting could wax her master and likely another. Though when it comes down to it, getting that sort of focus produces results, ive seen apprentices who get dipped in vis, and squeezed out to get the stuff and a lovely twilight rating of 4-5 upon graduation. Im a firm beleiver in this game of Effort in ---> Reward out, want to make sure your apprentice has it better than you then yeah they probbly are going to be, but thats sort of the goal of alot of magi to produce a better next generation. No one wants to be known as Magus DumF#* who produced such a poor student.
I'm not trying to force the troupe anymore on the power level. This is not about that at all. It is more of a roleplaying thing, my character making his view of education clear. And it was the prevalent view of education at the time.
For example, Apprentices p.43 mentions this:
So I don't think my magus' view on the issue is outlandish. Of course, other magi can have different views, so that's why I approached it through a roleplaying thread.
I don't think we need a House Rule for book damage. Too much book keeping and, in any case, even full magi can cause damage to books. There is really no need to go there, IMHO.
That said, just because we don't have rules on book damage (based on die rolls), doesn't mean that book damage doesn't happen as a normal thing. It just happens. When the reader is careless, or young, or if he/she reads books in an inproper place (such as outdoors), it happens more often. That's one of the reasons why libraries (in real life) were so strict about who could access those books, and under what conditions. I'm just suggesting that some (or even many) magi shared that approach. Maximilian is simply one of those.
So, again, this wasn't an attempt to force the troupe to restrict access to the library by apprentices, or to implement book damage rules. It was simply a roleplaying thread. I expect Maximilian to be defeated if he brings the topic to council vote. 8)
Arthur, I found the role playing aspects of the apprentice / books discussion your character had quite understandable and appropriate.
And I can well imagine having an interesting council meeting where this is debated by the characters. I did think that such a discussion would be helped if we had some understanding of where the players want this to go.
Excellent. I just didn't want the troupe to believe that this was (another) attempt to push forward my expectations regarding the power level of the saga.
I want to be clear that I did not think your suggestion or roleplaying was outlandish, simply that the game rules do not reflect the concern the magi feel. In game terms by RAW it seems to take a story event for books to actually get damaged, and I was simply suggesting a more realistic model would help reflect the concerns which do in fact match the real world.
It would be very prudent to require apprentices to leave the books in the library while reading them at least.
If you have the gift and are opened then yes to both. If you are ungifted then yes to magic theory- that way someone copying magical texts will eventually gain magic theory and stop having transcription errors from not having it... obviously the second refers to copying, not original transcription.
Sorry to be late weighing in. But I agree with Joel. I don't find the suggestion outlandish or out of character with Maximilian. Orion has a more liberal view of things than others might. I could easily see us limiting access to books until an apprentice reaches a certain age. I also think that since Magic Theory is the basis of everything, we might do well to make a copy of our Magic Theory summa, partly to allow multiple magi to study it if they want, but also to allow for a copy that could safely be used by apprentices without risking the 'main' copy.
Copying the Magic Theory summa could be a project assigned to an apprentice otherwise not being used by her master. It would help reinforce the notion that books are valuable and a big time investment, while also teaching her more about the scribing profession and all that it entails.
Further apprentices could be tasked with copying other books that are useful to apprentices.
But as a player I do not disagree with what others have stated. This is just a more modern point of view that our characters may not share -- as I have described Maximilian not sharing it.
Also for what its worth can we just post a seperate poll for all things going to vote, so we dont spend 5 posts all going aye or nay...it will probbly go much quicker.
I noticed yesterday that the following books had been added to the covenant's library:
Are these books obtained at Christophoros' suggestion? At what point do they become available? Are there separate copies for the school, or are they shared with the covenant?
These are books which the board seems to have authorized in the spring, they are available in the fall. It is up to the board if it wants to spend future income for duplicate copies. Master copies have been retained by the scriptorium for future sales.
Actual advancement calculations should be done in your character advancement thread rather than seasonal activities.
hat being said Gabriel can train in the winter, which would be SQ:9 for single weapon.
