I know there is at least one example underwater lab for a Bjornaer with a fish heartbeast. I'll have to dig around to find it again.
As this spawned from the thread regarding Bjornaer not having a familiar being too big a cost, there seems to be a lot of SG interpretation in this area.
It seems some SGs will have people getting a +3 int familiar, who gets trained up to Magic Theory 4 in a few seasons, so not only do we have the awesomeness of the 3 cords, we have a +7 lab assistant. In that case the Bjornaer is missing out a lot.
Other SG seen to think a familiar, while it won't be "Fluffy wants food" being the height of it's conversation, it's animal intelligence, even when boosted, does not lend itself to having a high int, as the book learning implicit with a high int in Ars, doesn't suit most magical animal companions.
I would think if the mage is getting a +1 or +2 I'd tolerate it, but people wanting those huge bonuses, I'd be thinking the familiar needs to be doing more than double checking the mages calculations and doing some corrections.
Familiars can be mundane animals, or magical animals.
If a Familiar is a mundane animal, it be Int -3, but they are much more common, and due to no Might, easier to bond. Plus, even if you don't wanna use Animal for the bond, there's a variety of mundane animals suitable for most Forms, except Vim.
If it's a Magical Animal, it can have Int between -3 to +3, has Might, and is harder to bond than a mundane animal (though smaller animals are easier than bigger ones). But, finding the right Magical Animal should take a couple of Seasons to discover and to befriend.
In a game I play in, a Magus with a Terram focus, has met a Magical badger, with a Terram theme, but while they managed to achieve some semblance of respect for one another, they are not friendly enough to bind him. Plus, they started off to a rocky start since the badger, unknowingly, kidnapped the Magus' lady friend and love interest.
Also, I'm on the opinion that generally speaking, the Familiar would be taught Magic Theory by the magus for one season, probably the one after being bound, and then just gain Exposure XP in it as he assists in the lab. It can easily get him to 6-7 MT in a decade or two, depending on how much time the Magus spends in the lab.
Sure, it can. It can have even higher or lower values, too. However, it still quite commonly could have Cunning rather than Intelligence. RoP:M has several similar comments about this, such as
Even with the sample dragon-kind in RoP:M we see one with Cunning, two with negative Intelligence, and only the one true dragon with positive Intelligence. As for the other magical animals presented, the birds have Int -2 and the cats have Int 0. The core book's wolf has Int 0, and the true dragon there has positive Int. HoH:TL gives the white wolves Int +1, while the shadow owls and fire hawks have cunning. Notice how among all these there are many Cunning examples. There are a bunch of examples of Int †+1 when we see something particularly intelligent. There are only the true dragons and the owl of virtue with greater Int. (I haven't checked all the Familiars spread through the books, which could theoretically have been boosted and certainly would have had Cunning become Intelligence so we're not as sure how they started.) So an SG handing out positive Intelligence magical animals as Familiars certainly is skewing the odds in favor of characters seeking Familiars.
The familiar might start out with Cunning rather than Intelligence, before it is bound.
But if it did not have Intelligence to start with it will get Int -3 through the bonding process. (ArM5 p105)
So all familiars will have human intelligence, even if many of them aren't terribly bright.
A magus wanting a familiar with high intelligence? Well, he can probably find one .... eventually.
Unless he gets exceptionally lucky (read: has a generous SG) it will take several seasons and several stories before he manages to find the perfect familiar though. Seasons in which he could have done a lot of other things instead.
Yes. My point is that the vast majority of potential Familiars will end up with Int < +1. Probably half of them would have Int -3. Most the rest would fall between Int -2 and Int +1. A very rare few would be higher. Thus, "an SG handing out positive Intelligence magical animals as Familiars certainly is skewing the odds in favor of characters seeking Familiars." It's not that they don't exist; it's that putting the average in the +1 to +2 region is putting the average about 2-3 points higher than represented in canon, so the SG is favoring the non-Bjornaer by about 2-3 points of lab total right there.
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True, and a familiar with high intelligence adds more than just a higher lab total bonus.
A familiar with Int 0 or greater is useful as a lab assistant as soon as it has a score of 1 or greater in Magic Theory, which it can easily be taught in a single season.
A familiar with Int -3 requires a Magic Theory score of 4 or better before it makes a positive contribution to your lab total. Even in the best of cases I doubt it is possible to get its MT score that high in less than three seasons.
So not only will smart familiars add more to your lab total, they can start helping you in the lab sooner.
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On the other hand there is no closing date unlike an apprentice, so they can receive training before they would be a positive influence on your lab total, and not feel like you are rushing to make them useful within 15 years. A CrMe(An) ritual can also help with boosting their usefulness.
Yes, you get to keep them forever, so the value is lasting and a better investment.
I'd originally misread, thinking you wanted to give them training ahead of time because you didn't want to close off them being available to others, which would rarely be a great approach with a potential Familiar.
It's worth repeating that any creature with a Might score subtracts that score from the source quality when learning anything. This includes, by RAW, familiars. It's fairly common to ignore that by house rule - which is even more unfair to the poor Bjornaers, alas - but by the original rules even a mouse with a Might of 8 will have trouble getting to a Magic Theory above 3. A truly powerful familiar will need to consume raw Vis to learn anything at all.
OneShot already pointed out the error. I'll add that that penalty does remain for Familiars going through Transformation, though, as the normal human learning doesn't improve that end.
It's also now been formally errated (Atlas Games | Ars Magica Fifth Edition Errata):
Advancement (p. 51-2): On page 52, add the following sentence at the end of the first section, immediately before the Transformation header. "Finally, as stated in ArM5 (page 105), magic creatures bound as familiars to Hermetic magi learn in the same way as humans, and retain those Abilities if the familiar bond is broken."
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Would an ex familiar still be able to serve as a lab assistant, the same way a failed apprentice can?
That's an interesting question. As there is only a list some (maybe or maybe not all) who may be lab assistants, we don't know for sure. My best pattern is that you must be connected to the Gift in some way: have it, used to have it (Becoming, Failed Apprentice), linked to one who has it (Familiar). The Familiar with the broken bond would be pretty close to those, though it's now two steps removed rather than one (link broken rather than just link or just broken).
Generally there probably hasn't been a need to deal with it since usually this ends up paired with the death of the Familiar.
I do see a problem with it, though: If they could, I could easily build characters to have a small collection of laboratory assistants.
There is not much about what ex-familiars can do in the rules, but I think that even if they could theoretically still assist in the lab , they wouldn't.
If the magus dies before the familiar, the familiar is reduced to a pathetic, devastated condition. (ArM5 p105)
If the bond is severed, the familiar normally flees into the wilderness, avoiding any future contact with magi. (HoH:TL p61)
On the other hand a powerful magic creature still needs to avoid acclimation, which may require spellcasters or vis, even if it isn't willing to become a familiar again...
Possibly, but on the other hand, a familiar with Might presumably managed to avoid acclimation just fine on its own before becoming a familiar, and should be able to do the same afterwards as well.
Almost mundane, maybe, but you need an animal with «inherent magic» [core:104] and such an animal is «likely» to have a might score [ibid].
This is all about player expectations. If players see the familiar as a necessary and powerful feature of the magus, and expect to have it in place, and useful with a typical +8 or better to the lab total, less than ten years out of gauntlet, there is pressure on the SG to make that possible. Rarely is the quest for the perfect familiar the quest of the story, and the Int +3 familiar with the maximal just bindable might and useful powers tend to just pop up conveniently.
If the players agree to see a world where intelligent beings of might are rare, and ritual casters who boost familiar Int even more so, then the playing field changes dramatically. What you can expect to get within a season of searching is one with Cunning. Some players may pick up a familiar early, but with -3 Int it is not going to make that much of a difference on the lab total any time soon. It is likely to gain MT through training since it may want to hang around with the magus in the lab, and after three seasons it gives +0 as an assistant ... two more of training and it gives +1, probably. Useful, but not a game changer.
Yes, the Int can be boosted by CrMe(An), but unless we assume that ritual casters are readily available for this spell, that too will take time to achieve. And furthermore, maybe the familiar does not want to?
Other players will wait and mount an extensive search for the ideal familiar, and after decades they find it. Then they have an excellent lab bonus, but the Bjornar has also had time to initiate many mysteries.
Canon suggests that familiars are not that hard to acquire, and it also suggests that Int +3 or better is possible. It does not, however, suggest that Int +3 (or even +1) is easy to acquire; that would only be a convenient interpretation for power gamers. A valid interpretation, but not the obvious one.
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"I know all the effort you went to raise my intelligence; and I feel terrible about asking Moe the Flambeau to multicast his signature Perdo Mentem spell on me. Lisa, Iâm taking the cowardâs way out. But before I do, I just wanted to say being smart made me appreciate just how amazing you really are."
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