Lab assistants and non-standard routines?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

One of the magus in my saga is investigating an enchantment with an assistant in his lab. He’s taking a non-standard lab routine (from Covenants) to improve his Lab Total, and I have some questions... should the assistant use the same routine too? Can he choose not do it? If taking the same routine, should the bonus be added twice? Or he will only suffer the penalties?

I haven’t found any reference to this in Covenants... any advice? For me this should be only allowed for primary researchers, but I'm not so sure...

2

There is no clear written rule, but

1.) The bonus for non-standard lab routines is only given once - this closes the door on rules abuse.
2.) Does the assistant really matter? Is he a complete character or just a name?
If the assistant matters, I would expect him to work as long as the magus (and suffer the consequences)
because
a) if you handle it differently your player will make him work longer and then ask for an extra bonus.
b) Working longer is risky. Having people who work for you carries a responsibility. So the moral dilemma of sacrificing someone else's well-being for your project can be quite interesting storywise. It would also explain why so many magi have hermetic flaws (because their parentes made them work overtime when they were still apprentices).

3

Yes, the assistant is a fully-developed (and rather relevant) NPC. Which makes things more interesting and/or tricky, I guess.

So, that's what I initially thought: get the penalties, but not the bonus twice. Makes sense for me, but I was not so sure.

I'm about to have two addled Bonisagus wandering through the covenant...

4

If the assistant is smacked with the penalty, there should be SOME sort of bonus from it, otherwise its odd.
I wouldnt give the bonus twice(currently dont remember what the bonus is so...) but i think there certainly should be something even if small.

5

I agree with Direwolf on this. Add an extra point (or two, for any extreme routines).

6

I wouldn't add or subtract or even make the assistant follow the same routine. They get the Int + MT, and that's it.

If I have someone assisting me IRL, I have a set of tasks that I break out for them to complete, they do them, and then I judge the results. I could do the things they could do, I could do them faster in many cases, but I'm freed up to focus on other things, and that's the advantage of having an assistant.

7

An Assistant is a Free Outfitting Virtue (Cov p116). As such, there should be no routine bonus.

When a base rule is modified by a supplement, it is restated with changes. They did restate the Assistant bonus without mentioning any change, whether from routine or not. Moreover, the text about routines specifically uses "maga". That makes it hard to argue otherwise.

That being said, unless the story is about being a point short, handwave it away if you wish.

8

I agree that the assistant must use the same routine as the master, suffer the consequences but add no further bonus.
Remember that the assistant only adds Int+MT to the equation, and as the primary researcher also has his aura, lab bonus and arts, as well as any other bonus concievable like familiar, similar spell, S&M etc. the assistant's bonus should be rather small compared to the master. So given this scale the assistant should absolutely not add the same bonus as the master for non standard routines.
If it appeases people's sense of balance that the assistant acutally achieves something and makes a difference by also working triple overtime and smoking faerie 'shrooms I'd never consider more than a fraction of what the primary researcher gets. Fork out a +1 to stop somebody whining perhaps.

9

This is my main problem. The assistant contribution is quite large as it is, and adding the extra bonus for the routine would seem a bit too much for me. The +1 consolation bonus is nice idea, though...

10

Sure the ideal über-assistant had Int +5, Magic Theory 10+, Puissant MT and Inventive Genius, so his contribution might be a significant part of the lab total...unless the primary researcher was alreadu über himself. If not, why would the assistant be assisitng in the first place and not leading the whole business?

11

I thought the familiar acted as an assistant, and therefore you could only use it or another magus?

12

Not if you have leadership :-/

13

Not quite, page 103, "The exception is that a magus with a familiar may always have at least one assistant in addition to his familiar."

And then if your a Bonisagus with a familiar you can have two assistants + familiar without skill in leadership.

14

I can't remember ever hearing of this lex bonisagi before.

15

First paragraph on page 16 of HoH:TL states "...magi Bonisagi can always have one more lab assistant then the normal ArM5 rules would allow a magus character to have."

16

The familiar is extra aside from another assistant, they´re not counted as the same. And if you have leadership you can have X number of assistants AND the familiar.

Damn, that should REALLY be in the core book you know... Such a basic and useful thing and you have to find it in TL... Sheesh, i´ve even looked through TL many times and this is still news to me.... :confused: sigh

17

Indeed! So many lab freebies for Bonisagi...

I read in some thread that the number of assistants was also limited by the Lab size (something like Max number of Assistants = Lab Size +1), but I think that was a house rule...