I think the real issue is what is the impact of The Gift affecting other students (which it does) on a teachers ability to teach. The other students will assume that the Gifted student is cheating, and if the teacher is unaffected will believe they are doing something underhanded to curry favor with the teacher. What is at question is whether that would affect the teachers ability to teach, as well as the question of the penalties stacking. I believe that in general the penalties not stacking has been established, and if the effect on other students were disruptive to the classroom, I could see where having more than one student who is causing such disruption would be an issue.
However, as I see it while the Gift does cause animosity, it does not cause stupidity. Any student knows that disrupting class is not in their own best interest, so I would expect that such hostility would be confined to outside the classroom. I also would not assess a penalty to a teachers SQ for non gifted students who share a class with a Gifted student- the teacher does not trust the Gifted student and may withhold some degree of aid in their studies due to that hostility, but it does not make them less capable as a teacher.
I think the malus staks. But I don't remember where I red the rule and my books are nit at hand. Anyway I consider a good option to stack the malus. Always a magus can take the course of Latin and artes liberales and grant Parma to students and teachers. I think Parma must be something of big importance for the hermetic culture and not only a supremacy weapon over the non hermetic traditions.
Hi,
It does not cause stupidity, but emotions do cause people to change their perpective on what their best interest actually is. If the student starts to believe that the teacher sucks, why listen to him? If the student starts to believe that personal advancement depends more on stopping the teacher and his fellow students from sabotaging him than upon learning, he will spend more time thinking about his social situation than the course material. If the student believes he would do better to sabotage the teacher and get him sacked, then he'll be thinking about that. If the student believes that the failed student at the tavern really knows more than the teacher, who only has his job because he is toadying up to certain people, then he'll spend more time there. The student might decide to drop the course, and study something else. Magi can prevent this, of course, but students who brood with anger and resentment don't learn much.
I've been to university! Young men have interesting ideas about what their interests are. (So do old men. Women too.)
And alcohol does cause stupidity. There's a lot of alcohol at university...
Yes it does. If you have a problem kid in the class, you teach less effectively than if you don't. If you despise half of your students, the other half might do well, as you suggest, but they also might find themselves learning nothing. If you are worried that when you turn your back to write on the blackboard, one of your students is going to throw something at you (or shoot you, or do something to another student), you are not likely to teach any of the students as well as you might. A group learning experience has advantages over 1:1, such as hearing unexpected questions and perspectives. If the group is damaged, the benefits of group learning is also damaged.
I don't have an opinion about whether the -3 penalties stack. But with teaching rules abstracted, I find it better and easier to provide a single teaching total that represents the classroom.
Also, given that AM has always promoted an apprenticeship model for magi, rather than university, I favor rules that make apprenticeship good and alternative learning methods difficult and/or dubious.
Now, if the goal is to have a university-based saga, easy enough to interpret or change rules to make that work best.
Anyway,
Ken
Why do you need any immunity to the Gift? How about just a longevity ritual? As with Redcaps, you can get accustomed to the Gift over enough time so that it doesn't give you a numerical penalty. So you make sure you have teachers who can handle Gifted students without any need for Parma Magica or a Virtue to make them immune to the Gift's effects. Sure, you'd have to make an effort to have your teachers exposed this well, but there are things they could be doing in the meantime while they're getting exposed to prepare them to take over after the other teacher cannot teach any longer. You ought to be able to get 50 years out of a teacher as a teacher this way.
Hi,
Redcaps do not become acclimated to the Gift, but to specific people who have the Gift.
Still, after almost half a millennium, one would think that someone in House Mercere would have found it worthwhile to develop an initiation script for the minor virtue....
Anyway,
Ken
Page 43 of Apprentices, under Teachers?
I'm having trouble finding the rules where it talks about the number of years to reduce the penalties, but this statement does not match how prevailing loyalty is handled in Covenants. There experience with the Gifted still counts towards interactions with new Gifted magi joining the covenant. The calculations would have to be done differently than they are were what you say applied there. I'm still trying to find the specific rules for individuals, though.
Also, this can be handled by a ReMe effect in a lesser enchanted device. Just wear the thing while you're teaching. It is unlikely you would pull off any Warping for the year using it unless you're doing some sort of crazy teaching schedule.
This certainly says both sides (teacher and student) can cause penalties. But it doesn't say the teacher would get -3 per Gifted student.
Hi,
The core rules specifically discuss acclimation to people with the Gift.
The rules in Covenants for prevailing loyalty are an abstraction. (And, like so much else in Covenants, really needs to be looked at carefully.) The rules also discuss how grogs get used to magi of the Covenant, but if they are manning a guardpost (example from the rules) and a new magus shows up, they utterly distrust him. This seems to contradict your position.
As for ReMe, yes, it does handle a host of problems. ReMe can force a man to eat his own arms. The books do have tendency to inflict nasty side effects on situations where people are controlled over an extended period, such as Controlling the Unruly Turb. I'm not sure this will approach will work very well in most sagas. (But I would agree that hard ReMe control "you will teach to the best of your ability and ignore provocation" should work fine.)
Finally, the social problems of the Gift tend to manifest as distrust, but I prefer (I don't recall a specific rule for this, and I recognize that there is a spell in the Guernicus chapter that utterly contradicts me, which would bother me except that I consider the entire text of that spell a giant typo) to think of the social penalties as a kind of discomfort that shows up as distrust but is not itself distrust. If I ReMe someone to trust a magus, he'll trust, but then he'll have a different problem (the magus is trustworthy, but only because he is too cowardly to eat babies and otherwise follow his inclinations, and he's also a privileged pompous ass...)
The Blatant Gift certainly does not manifest as distrust at all, but outright hatred, fear and loathing!
Anyway,
Ken
More to the point, Redcaps are trained to recognize when they are dealing with someone Gifted, so that their inclinations can be somewhat overridden by their reason. When a Recap finds a magus, creepy, dangerous and untrustworthy, he knows that feeling is probably due to the magus' Gift. It's not super helpful in social interaction, but it does prevent Redcaps from quitting because magi are creepy.
I'd expect anyone planning a social discourse with the local Redcap to offer to extend Parma Magica as a courtesy; this might even be standard procedure at a covenant when a Redcap arrives (designated Redcap escort). And almost certainly Redcaps at tribunal meetings have somebody offering them Parma during debates.
Yes, you're right about it being in the core rules. And there it says most people just get used to their specific magi, but Redcaps and others used to dealing with many different magi get used to dealing with it in general.
I'm pretty sure this shows up mechanically as a reduction in the penalty. I don't think the core rules have the 5 years per -1 note in them, do they? (I think I remember the 5 years part correctly.) That's the rule I want to find.
Not even that hard. Use Trust Me from Covenants. You want R: Touch and D: Concentration for level 15. Then have the item maintain it. Once a day really is sufficient. So that's a ReMe20 lesser enchanted device, not too difficult and only costing 2 Vis.
Hi,
By "hard," I didn't mean "difficult" but "hard" in the sense that various other rpg boards talk about "hard" vs "soft" control.
Anyway,
Ken
You could always use CrMe to implant memories of orders coming from trusted sources. A grog might not trust the wizard, but he'll trust his captain's orders - whether or not they came from the captain! Implanted memories like this could be done as Momentary Rituals (therefore permanent) without ongoing Warping. Everybody remembers the time the wizard saved everyone at great personal risk, right? Right?
But if you mean it that way, I think you either are using exactly opposite to how other use it or you are not at all familiar with the canon spell Trust Me that I mentioned. Take a look in HoH:TL. Wouldn't that be what most people would consider "soft" control? Doesn't the spell description itself nearly say that directly?
I think it may have been a reference to the necessity of having a high Parma to teach children (plural); while you only need it at 1 to shield another from the effects of the gift, you need it significantly higher (Serf's Parma as to the specifics) to shield more than one. Thus, you'd need a relatively high parma to successfully shield even a small group of (3 or so) apprentices.
If one persone is doing a task that interfere with multiple gifted people the task will be hindered in total if is based in multiple one on one interactions that affect the whole task. If the task is not based on a whole interaction, then the total is not hindered. We are just talking to stack for teaching pourpose not in all cases, becaue all cases are not equals. But it is not the same to see one dragon than a convention of dragons, in this case the cuantity make a new quality.
Ah.
Yes, a Parma would have to be 3 or more to shield apprentices. I doubt this would be much trouble, depending on whether you think a mage of 20 or 30 years experience would have a 3 Parma, and how large the class is. An covenant of six magi is not likely to have more than three apprentices, I suspect. A school of apprentices might have class bodies of a dozen or so.
A visiting lecturer, with a Magic Theory of 5 (high, but a visiting lecturer would have to be justifiably expert and reputed), Teaching 3, and a Parma of 3 may attract a class of four or five. With some forethought, the class is one young mage (who cannot help with shielding the apprentices) one older mage (MT 4, PM 3) and a group of four or so apprentices. I'll assume none of the apprentices have the Gentle Gift. The lecturer shields three, the older mage shields three, and they have room to spare in the class. This takes only forethought and good judgement.
Alternately, a mage with a sufficiently high MT (say, 7) and otherwise decent scores invites apprentices and masters to attend his lecture 'Fundamentals and Implications of Hermetic Theory' for an honorarium of three pawns of vis, with a discount for those magi willing and able to shield the apprentices.
Note that the PM issue is only an issue because the Order contrives it to be so, requiring that apprentices not be taught the Parma until Gauntlet. It simply forces a teacher to have a developed Parma Magica, which leads to the odd circumstance that bookish lecturers have magical defenses that a Flambeau archmage might envy.
Scene: In the assault on the covenant of Academy by non-Hermetic wizards, the dragon-riding hedge magi were wiped out by the school's faculty. When asked how they had survived the onslaught, the headmaster replied 'Dragonfire is nothing compared to Hermetic apprentices.'
I am too familiar with it. I consider it a giant typo. (i think I mentioned that earlier in the thread.) I know that I'm ignoring canon, but I have deep problems with the Bonisagus and especially the Guernicus writeups.So yeah, I agree that a spell using that guideline would causetrust, but would do nothing at all to alter the effect of the Gift. And the stuff about the spell not being scrying... Ugh.
Anyway,
Ken
Ah. I understand now. The spell does seem more like PeMe to me, probably Pe(Re)Me or something like that, to remove the disconcerting feelings arising only from the Gift. Still, it's been in canon for quite a while.
Hi,
Yeah, it has been in canon for quite a while. 
Anyway,
Ken