Lab assistants

That is completely incorrect. A starting character can only have it with certain virtues. Later on it is available to anyone with access to it. Note all the posts in other threads about teaching scribes Magic Theory so they can copy properly.

Sacrifices? Middling? I know you haven't read or don't remember some of my other posts on Leadership in the lab. Leadership is by far the most powerful boost to lab totals if you have assistants available. Through intense bargaining (giving away tons of stuff that took me seasons to develop), I was able to pull off a lab total over 200. If you allow what you're suggesting, here's an inexpensive beginning to a route to scary lab totals:

Intelligence +2
Communication +2
Affinity w/ Magic Theory
Good Teacher
Puissant Leadership
Leadership 2 (laboratory work)
Magic Theory 5
Teaching 1 (Magic Theory)

I think we can agree I haven't pushed the limits much at all: 6 useful points in characteristics, 3 points in virtues, 70 points in abilities.

Now get ahold of 5 servants with Intelligence 0 on average. Spend 5 seasons teaching them Magic Theory as a group. After those 5 seasons this magus has +25 to all lab totals. Include Intelligence and Magic Theory and that's 35+Technique+Form+Aura+Lab for lab totals. Spend 60 more points to get Leadership 3, Magic Theory 6, and Teaching 3 and raise Communication to +3: that would be +36 to all lab totals after 6 seasons for a total of 44+Technique+Form+Aura+Lab.

Things that could make this bonus bigger with no effort: Magic Theory specialties for the assistants, more intelligent assistants, having the assistants improve your lab.

5 seasons for +25 to all lab totals done easily? Or 6 seasons for +36 without too much more effort? And more bonuses coming from it? That sounds like a good investment to me. I would never allow anyone with Magic Theory to help in this way. Let them be Servants as per the Covenants rules. That's a lot safer.

Chris

Quite true, yes.

Your argument is, in effect, that a magus who is specialised in leading a research group is very good at leading a research group and can gain large bonuses from this at the cost of other, less general virtues, and invent spells he cannot cast. I do not dispute this. My question is simple: Where are you going to get 5 literate, intelligent people who are willing to work long hours in the presence of a magus (and thus the Gift) for very little reward? Superb living conditions and good pay start looking unnattractive when they involve unnatural goings on, living in odd circumstances and the like. Even the nicest magus, in an urban covenant, is still an odd master to have. Educated, magically aware people are not grogs, disposable and comic relief. They are, at the lowest, companions or equivalent. If you want that many people in your lab, you're going to have to work for them. They don't just appear overnight when a magus summons them, and they require upkeep. When one dies in a lab accident, this affects things badly for the rest. When the family of another is shunned because he associates with demons (well, Magi), the others get anxious.

A starting magus with Puissant and Affinities with Creo and Ignem, and perhaps a few other virtues besides, all his points sunk into Creo and Ignem, a Magical Aura +10 aligned to Ignem, a familiar Fire Drake, a ruby amulet talisman and a few pawns of Vis can trivially create a spell which incincerates a city. You don't even need to go that far, really.

If normal limits of human behviour are not applied, just about anything in the game breaks. Yes, a little Rego Mentem solves the rebellion problem, and longevity rituals can keep your favourite ones alive, and all that, but even that still takes time and stories. If all you see are the numbers then yes, you can trivially break things.

I know, yes. The rules also contradict each other and themselves on many other topics and in this case I argue that they are not of the same spirit at all, merely the same wording.

No, that's not quite it. You are misinterpreting things. My argument was against this being a sacrifice and against the bonuses being middling. First, let's say you have have a 5 in each of 2 Arts and want to invent a level 20 spell (guaranteed success without other factors involved). This goes from impossible to doable in a single season with the lesser of the two examples I showed above. Think how much time this saves! And you can make invested devices if casting is an issue.

I didn't think I had to keep going, but I will since the point was missed. How much time would a typical magus have to invest to get +25 to a lab total? Typically you get about +1.5 or so in a single season via Covenants rules, and that's typically in more limited areas. But since most magi will tend to focus, let's forget about the limited areas. The +1.5 is also better than you'd get from investment in Arts or Magic Theory. If we're forgetting about breadth, then you could gain more from the Arts, but the specialist will end up learning more slowly eventually, so you'll still probably advance slower than +1.5. So, 25/1.5 is about 17 seasons. Subtract the 5-season "sacrifice" and you've saved 12 seasons. Give 2 seasons to each of the 5 assistants, and you're still at a net savings.

And then think of all the time savings afterward because you have a general +25 (which will grow to +30 relatively quickly)!

As you can see, my argument does not rely on assistants showing up overnight - you have spare time to find them. Also, where did you get literate? We're teaching them. Where did you get intelligent? I gave them Intelligence 0. Working long hours? You don't even need them a noticeable fraction of the time; they'd probably have 2 entirely free seasons in a year. Those aren't long hours. Yes, it would help to have a decent Parma Magica (to share it) or the Gentle Gift. Still, if they're spending that much time with you they should get past the Gift. (Yup, that's canon.) Little reward? That would depend on what they're used to, wouldn't it? And with all those seasons they've freed up, you could pretty easily give them each a season or two and still be well ahead of the curve. A season or two of a magus's work as a signing bonus! I'm not saying everyone would be willing, but I bet you could find 5.

As you can see, I saw a lot more than the numbers. If you have to change my example in a bunch of ways to make an argument against it, that says something, doesn't it? Hopefully you can see now that the savings are immense, so large they should be able to cover all the issues involved with plenty of savings to spare.

Chris

This spare time to find them - Do you intend to get them all at once? Do they all speak fluent Latin? Why is your magus only spending two seasons a year in the lab? Once you've exhausted the available books, labwork and the occasional expensive stock of vis are the only real ways to improve Arts? Are you rotating out of a larger stable of trained lab assistants? The penalty to the gift will also, amongst other things, hinder your ability to teach them, though I agree after the first few years or so, that does fade, as per Covenants. With all those seasons you'd freed up, why would you give up more ambitious projects to spend them on things other than research?

Once again, I'm not disputing the numbers. I'm quite sure that the Primus of Tremere, should he require something for the House, is capable of achieving obscene labtotals this way. I'm questioning the probability of it working in the manner you suggest. What you propose is, in effect, a nine-to-five job with little to no prospect of promotion and no credit for the work ever extended to you. Yes, there are those for whom that would be a good thing - job security is wonderful - but equally there will be more for whom it will not. The requirement that they learn Magic Theory makes this much like walking into a high school and saying to the kids, "Come and work in my computer lab, the one filled with dangerous experimental computers. You'll be somewhere between social outcasts and mildly distrusted, and whilst I'll teach you everything about programming you'll never actually be allowed near a computer to use it yourself. Oh, and I get all profits from the work, but you'll always have a moderately comfortable life. You're not allowed to quit however, because you'll know too much and be a security risk." Finding people willing to do that isn't as easy as grabbing a few peasants and wiping the mud off.

Your theoretical character is also optimised for this, in terms of his virtues and his own skill distribution. Most Magi will not be able to abuse the system to quite this extent. For a start, it's unlikely that they'll acquire more than a modest Leadership score, enough to cope with an apprentice and perhaps another covenant member or two. Seasons spent raising the skill are seasons spent ignoring magic, and magi are nothing if not obsessives. If they're not obsessives, why bother with the effort of spending years developing a skilled taskforce to aid your research? Most magi would probably also be wary of the idea since unless you keep your helpers locked up in your lab, they're an easy way to steal your secrets or indeed sabotage your work. Every extra person with free access to your sanctum is an extra layer of security required. Every extra person is another layer of human interaction and ego between you and your goal.

Likewise, the social stigma would be immense. The Order of Hermes is phenomenal in its arrogance, assuming all other traditions are mere hedge wizards simply because they do not know Hermetic Theory. The negative reputation the magus would acquire (for at least a generation, until someone else started doing it too) would be crippling, relying as he is on mundanes. He'd become a target for everyone's contempt and ire, and his helpers likewise.

Magi do play a long game, but the only magus who could pull this one off would have to be a saint. Were this not the case, his enemies would pull him down very quickly indeed, and frankly, universally beloved saints aren't much fun to play. Or, to look at it another way, every magus starts doing the same thing and the social stigma is ignored. The net effect - longevity rituals become more powerful, magical items become cheaper and Magi have more formulaic spells to play with. The average Art scores go up but only because more people flatted out at about 8 or 10 in everything, as generalists are slightly rewarded over specialists. Spontaneous magic becomes less popular as many small formulaic spells are easier to invent. Yes, this changes the game and world, but does it break it? I don't believe so.

No, you don't need to find them all at once. Did you see how much spare time this created??? Just look at the one level 20 spell example. You save many years this way; as I said, the 12 are just a start. A few extra seasons to make this happen? Sure.

Why Latin? If they speak a similar enough language to Latin, you're OK. If they speak your native tongue, you're OK. If they speak something similar enough to your native tongue, your OK. And then there are other ways to deal with speech. Honestly, if the hundreds of thousands of persons speaking your native language, you ought to be able to find five.

I already agreed about the teaching problem. However, there are a bunch of ways to deal with this. I can think of half a dozen while writing this paragraph.

Two seasons in a lab ought to be plenty except for the lab rat. Let's see: teaching apprentices, writing books, adventuring, studying (It's pretty hard to run out of books. It's also safer to pay vis to someone new to write a book than it is to study from vis once you're advanced in an Art. Plus there's other stuff to study.), mystery cults, practice Spell Mastery, etc. There's a lot of other stuff to do besides work in the lab.

Well, in the real world there's no shortage of persons to do this. Just look at many militant groups (terrorists, drug cartels, etc.). In the real world many many persons go in just such a direction with far fewer rewards. Or if you want something older, many persons volunteered to become gladiators (and slaves at the same time) in Rome with less prospect of a great outcome than with the magus, though the gladiators weren't killed frequently. So I'll go with the real world over your theoretical real world.

Did you see how little I spent in the lesser example? And where did most of the points go? Half the characteristic points were in Intelligence. That's not odd at all. Most of the points in abilities went into Magic Theory. With Good Teacher and a good Communication this magus can also write well. My "optimized" was investing a handful of points and one virtue beyond what a decent writer would start with. I hope you don't seriously think I optimized anything. If you do, I can write optimized examples to see how incorrect that notion is.

Sure, most magi won't be ready for such abuse. But the worry isn't about those who choose to avoid the abuse. The worry is that the abuse is available for those who want it.

Here you disagree with canon. This is basically the most efficient way to improve your laboratory. Since laboratories are improved, canon magi devote more seasons to such things. Thus it should be considered.

It is in canon to have non-Gifted people working around the lab. They're just not "assistants." So unless someone's spying on the magus in the lab, the issue would be unlikely to arise. If someone is, that magus would have some other legal problems. Also, Verditius magi have mundane helpers in a related way. So your view doesn't seem to mesh well with what's been published.

Well, seeing as how I've had a character who was very much not a saint pull off crazy lab totals this way (though following the rules, not using random persons), I'd have to say you're wrong. Sure, maybe it looked like I was a saint with all the favors I was doing, but I was just currying favor setting up what I needed.

Chris

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Aside from my above suggestion(halve the total bonus from ungifted), ill add that i have toyed with the idea of letting those with relevant Arts get a bonus of 1/10 or maybe 1/5 of the total of those Arts.

This would make it far more desirable still to convince as powerful magi as you can to assist, not an easy thing.
At the same time, if a handful or two of old archmagi figure they have a need to do something together and unite under a good enough leader, the potential could be very nice indeed. Of course, such cooperation would probably lead to suspiciousness even worse than the social stigma.

And it would add the potential for magi completely without scruples(or political and social ambitions) to go one step further in their humiliation and simply hire themselves out as expert labassistants, for a massive pricetag.

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Allowing ungifted is a mistake. Too much munchkinism, too much real life drudgery, no myth, no story.

  • Where are the years of searching for an apprentice?
  • What of the fear a bonisagus will steal your apprentice?
  • What of the politics, the accusations of low crime?
  • Where are the stories if it becomes a commodity?

Lets face it, a high-average magus with +2 Perception will have 6% per season of finding an apprentice. After 3 years of searching he has a 50-50 chance of succeeding. Help in the lab should be a rare treasure, not a commodity.

If you really want to allow ungifted help, at least force them to spent years studying before being useful in the lab by imposing a -3 to -5 malus. The xp cost is way more than your half value.

I don't see how this follows? - The Gift tself provides no understanding of Hermetic Magic, merely the capacity to learn and wield it - or any number of other magical systems.

And this is necessarily a problem? This is why it's magic and not science - not everyone can do it (well, obviously no-one can, but...).

How must they necessarily be companions? Covenants has a very nice grog-level failed apprentice/scribe who's had several of my players drool.

Question for y'all,

Issues with lab totals aside (and I can easily see why restricting things to the gifted stops the bonuses multiplying up very quickly - maybe if you want this solution there should be a minimum lab size per extra worker or something to stop things getting too insane (I don't see more then three or four workers helping in most of the labs I have seen without getting in each others way), perhaps also a restriction on numbers of helpers by task (does an extra 10 assistants past the first ten really help you on that spell? But maybe they would if you where working simultaneously on half a dozen spells)),

Anyway, my point: Does allowing any character to become a lab assistant in this way devalue apprentices (or even the Gift)? It seems like one of the bigger benefits of apprentices (aside from scutwork) is in their ability to boost your lab total (it also allows the ST to easily throttle the lab bonus you are getting to keep the interest in lab work - if it gets too easy then it will be boring to the players).

If pretty much anyone with a bit of training can do this, then do apprentices become a lot less enticing? (The same argument could be used for familiars, but they have lots of other advantages so I'm not as convinced that there would be a problem),

I'm with callen here. Allowing non-Gifted to aid in the laboratory can get very effective very fast, as he demonstrates. And I don't like the roleplaying-limitations Fhtagn raises as counter-arguments. I'd like to think that, quite to the opposite, being such trusted personal servants would put them at the higher levels of covenfolk, and generally don't want my magi's personal aids to be treated as lepers, thank you. If the SG wants to make a story out of the magus obtaining and teaching these servants, fine, but that should be the extent of the difficulty - it should require a story, perhaps a story-line. No more. Getting such assistants should be something any normal magus can manage IMO (exceptional magi/covenants may be pariahs, sure).

Also,

Absolutely.

It's far better for your game for lab assistants to be limited - it keeps lab improvements more viable, it keeps the assistants as interesting and important characters, and it keeps the lab totals down.

Now, as for Direwolf's idea of adding Arts/5 instead of Magic Theory or something like that... Well, yes, that does address a sore-point. Perhaps if you let the assistant add his MT or highest relevant Art/5? In this way a Bonisagus would be useful for the theoretical insights he brings (MT), while an Ignem specialist for his insights into the nature of fire (Ignem). With Arts effectively capped at 40, the maximum bonus becomes +8 which is not excessive (i.e. is on par with a bonus provided by a master at MT). The problem is that this variant lessens the importance of Magic Theory - but not too much, I think, as it is still immensely useful for all lab work.

I'm against allowing mundane scribes to learn Magic Theory so they can copy books. IMHO it undermines the whole concept of magical knowledge being mystical and rare, good books become mass production items. But I wholeheartedly support the concept of a mystical Companion or even a valued NPC (used for characterization of the saga/covenant and in stories as a McGuffin), with the ability to copy magical texts. They need to be more than just a tool you pull up from the drawer when you need to have a book copied, and can't be bothered yourself - being an important and busy magus. Nor should they spend all their time copying.

Hmmm. I wrote a long reply last night which it seems has been eaten. In summary: I don't believe it's broken. Powerful, yes. Since everyone can do it and it does not provide an instant kill button, an instant win button or indeed anything other than making formulaic spells more common, along with lesser enchanted devices ... I have exactly the same issue with books and the usual complaints about those. Good books will be created. People will copy them. People will still read lesser texts because good books are expensive and bargaining tools. Nothing is broken, except the desire to play in a very slow game with few books, and that depends on the original saga set up and not the rules themselves.

I see no real life drudgery involved, I'm afraid. As for myth and story, I must totally disagree. The apprentice or servant to a mighty mage but who has few to no powers himself is a staple of many stories. And many, many stories can be hung off a magus and his favoured servants.

-Your apprentice is your legacy.
The Bonisagus steals your secrets and your invested time.
-I have no idea why this is here.
-What commodity? Stealing lab assistants to acquire secrets, sabotaging projects, assistants rebelling against their master, political machinations to discredit a magus who relies too heavily on mundanes, accusations of endangering the order by allowing secrets to spread - it's all there.

The groups you describe are comprised of people with no other options (this is not the case for someone educated and free, which is what your lab assistant would swiftly become), people who are idiots and cannot see their situation clearly (whom you really don't want in the lab as they're a menance and a penalty), people out for themselves (drug cartels want money and power, as well as perceived respect) and fanatics (and are you really likely to find someone who believes that strongly in your magic)? Gladiators are the perfect example of this - people of low status undertaking risk because it grants them privilege and prestige. As for time invested and long term planning, the situation you describe is alien to humanity. Humans, as individuals, focus on short term goals. The set up you describe takes time measured in years (15 months in your constructed scenario) during which absolutely nothing is achieved. This is not the case of a factory hiring some workers and training them on the job, but a case of building a factory and then letting it sit idle for a year or more whilst your competitors leap ahead. Cottage industries grow to be massive companies by slowly acquiring people in an almost pyramid scheme of training and promotion. The magus is the limiting factor here - he cannot teach and also perform research, and there is a small and finite size to the group he wants, and other than regular pay and intellectual satisfaction, there are no prospects for promotion. There are ways around this - hire scholars who are already fluent in Latin and let them read books on Magic Theory - but you still need to find them and motivate them and keep them. So I'll go with the real world over your theoretical real world.

Further more, the notion that simply training people is sufficient is laughable. You need only look at a university: Every year, a few hundred enter a science course. Every year, a handful enter the next degree stage. Of those, relatively few actually go on to work in the relevent industry. Int +0 is not sufficient, the aptitude for the subject must be there too. Research is intellectually demanding and very few can actually do it, not because it is inherently difficult, but because it requires a mindset that most people do not have. These are exactly the sort of people who are fractious and ego driven, and they don't play well as a group. Given the necessity of the subservient relationship, I find it nearly unbelievable that any magus could manage to find and work with more than one or two trusted mundane confidants. Humans don't work that way.

The difference here is between the lab cleaner, the carpenter on call to build custom benches and tables for specific experiments, and the assistant designing and using the tables to perform experiments himself. One of these is clearly involved in the research himself as a contributer, whilst the other two, despite making life easier for the magus, are no more involved than the cook who ensures he gets a hot meal each night.

If ungifted can help, then count me amongst the players who want to have an affinity + puissant leadership, good teacher and gentle gifted, and i will have a extracting vis lab, with which i will extract 40 pawns per year, allowing me to buy any spell/item i want. Then i can buy labs, teach 2 apprentice, and give them, one after the other, the duty to extract vis (and as i would teach them leadership, they will have good helpers).

Then i have an industry, producing during 15 years perhaps 60 pawns per year. (And i repeat that after).
Then I bribe other magi to vote for myself in any tribunal issue.

With vis, i buy big wards/aegis/peco long distance item, to give to some magical dragon i will pactise with ("i give you 300 pawns of vis during 10 years, enough for you to stay active, if you help me out with some petty little magi"), and i kill any enemy, stealing their possessions.

No, it's a bad things.

But i can understand your arguments, even if i don't buy them.

And why can't that be the case with those you're finding? Clearly such persons exist. Wouldn't that make it easier to find someone?

Now you're contradicting yourself. That reply was because you said they aren't free. Now they are? Which is it?

Actually, lots of them aren't. Numerous ones are well-trained or educated.

Just because you disagree with their choice doesn't mean they don't see the situation clearly. Some may not, but that doesn't mean all don't.

They weren't all of low status. But even so, how would this be a problem? What you've said is that people of low status may undertake risk (working with the magus) for privilege and prestige (note, this included being somewhat an outcast) (privileges from working for the magus). Seems OK to me.

Right... that's why apprenticeship never worked in the real world?

Exactly. You need to have the Gift or some remnant of it, too. Training isn't enough. Oh, but wait, you're the one who was claiming simply training is enough, that you don't need the aptitude (which is just what the Gift is). Which is it? You've basically stated your position (that aptitude need not be there) is laughable. Even I didn't go that far; I just disagreed with it from a balance point. But if it's laughable, then things are settled.

Forge-companions do more than that. They can assist in working on the project if they have relevant Craft abilities, augmenting the magus's Craft score, which can save him vis or add to his lab total.

Chris

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:unamused:

You DID notice i hope that i said allow ungifted but HALVE their contribution? They NEED to spend years studying MT to be useful already. I consider MT an absolute must for an ungifted assistant, so even one with Int +5 and minimum MT of 1 means the total bonus becomes 3. Thats NOT much. And finding a suitable person wtih Int +5 isnt going to be easy. Even if you stick to just Int +5 persons and have them study until they get MT 5, their total bonus is still just +5 per assistant. And then you need high enough leadership to make use of more than 1. Calling that munchikinism is just incomprehensibly silly.

Do you realise that if i ALSO were to impose a -5 penalty, noone would ever bother and it would be a completely useless additional rule noone would ever bother using. Read and understand before you reject.

Sorry but your objections is a pure kneejerk without giving a single thought to it. Your list of "problems" is also completely irrelevant.

Free, in the sense that they have options. In medieval and mythic Europe, literacy and numeracy are valuable and useful skills. Once you have taken a peasant away from their liege, or educated an already free man, they have many options and unless you plan to chain them to the lab, at least one of these options is, "Find employment elsewhere."

I know some remarkably highly educated idiots. I know some people who dropped out of high school who are, frankly, brilliant. I have seen displays of phenomenally trained dogs. These things are not related. See also: all the other options listed.

Apprentices get careers, skills and the possibility to become masters. From the assistants perspective, provided you can find one who is willing, this is what they see. However, from the master's perspective, he is not training someone on the job. He is gaining nothing tangible for the time taken in training. He is gaining assistants in potentia. In an apprenticeship the training is, at least in part, on the job. The master gains an assistant, and the work continues, more slowly at first and then with increasing efficiency. In this case, things stop. And then, a year or more later, may start again.

At no point have I claimed that the Gift could be trained, or rather gained by training. The Gift is not aptitude for learning magic, the gift is the potential for learning magic. Seriously - the Gift is the capacity to learn magic (represented in game by Arts and Virtues). It has nothing whatsoever to do with your aptitude for study. It is perfectly possible to create a Gifted character with -5 Int and the rudiments of Hermetic magic. You can even give him massive communication, and leadership scores. By the rules, he can excel at research, especially if he has Inventive Genius. By real life, he'll probably muddle through and may, given the right circumstances, discover many interesting things. He's still an idiot, but he's an idiot with skill in the lab. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his Gift.

My statement, which I thank you for failing to clarify, is that aptitude is needed. Aptitude is always needed, otherwise there would be no skilled professions at all. I merely put forward the argument that requiring the Gift doesn't actually change much unless you decide to invoke tortuous circumstances.

Well, second, your aura will fade to nothing. First, I'll create a magus with Puissant and Affities in Perdo and Vim, maximise my Parma, buy up skill in a crossbow and put a bolt through your head and nick your vis. For every action, there is a reaction. Not to mention inflation; you'll do is collapse the value of Vim vis.

You can create a labrat with infinite resources with little difficulty if you so wish. You can create the ultimate killing machine. You can create a bloke who, frankly, wants to sit in his garden and only really uses magic to extend his life a little and occasionally make sure the blight doesn't harm his flowerbeds. Are these fun to play? If yes, go for it. If not, don't. If someone creates a character which ruins your game, disallow it. If you start a VtM game of Camarilla politics and someone creates a Tremere Antitribu with Vicissitude and a blood-bound Assamite slave, you're well within your rights to say, "No." The rules allow it, but you don't have to. Or allow it - if the world is as presented then said character has a projected lifespan measured in seconds if he shows up in front of the Prince. The game world is not a static place.

:open_mouth:

Ah, please tell me exactly how you´re going to get a Leadership score of 20 or so? I mean without sacrifing everything else for decades...
Each assistant beyond the first needs +1 in Leadership Score.

I will usually get a leadership score of between 2 and 5 for my magi, 2 and 3 most commonly. Above 5 it just takes far too much effort to gain another few points in a lab bonus that you use perhaps once per year.

Does it? I´ve always found that if you can get a higher lab total, you start aiming for ever more high level projects.
And if you CANT get a high enough lab total, many players will simply look at it and say "-10 seasons to get just THAT, no way!" and then do something else.

Not if they´re automatically better overall, as by my suggested rule.

Thats not automatically a good thing. It depends on how you play. As i said in previous post, players finding themselves with the ability to raise their lab totals tends to start thinking about more higher level projects pretty soon. While those who have trouble getting their lab totals up will go do something else because "its not worth the time".

Well, my thought was to add both, as this would mean someone with high MT and the gift but without the Hermetic arts to be good but someone with a high MT AND high level Arts to be superb.
And someone without hermetic arts but perhaps a score relating to perhaps weather magic, assisting a lab project involving weather, would still be useful.

Still, allowing the choice between the two instead is also a nice thought as it would make magi who has concentrated on raising Arts to HIGH levels but has a MT of maybe 2-4 to be good helpers if the work involve their good Arts.

Since MT gives a bonus regardless what Arts involved in the current lab project, its still highly important.

Adding a single extra assistant is easy, and 2 isnt hard, but after that the rewards starts looking less great, and spending the same time trading for Tractatus on the relevant arts or on MT might be worth just as much.
And with my "nerf" of ungifted added i think it becomes more a matter of choice and preference at the moment rather than "easy" or overly effective.