THis may have been covered previously, but I couldn't find it.
Excelent Teacher Pedagogis has a teaching total 0f 17 plus bonus decides that he has met his brilliant student (int +4) but his patron (the baron) requires that he teach his son who is rather slow (int -2) or he's out. Pedagogis knows he's good and decides to teach them as a pair and he's motivated to do well by both.
According to the rules, one season of teaching will net both the brilliant student and the dimwitted lordling 20xp in the topic of interest. The concern I have is that the less intelligent student should get less. Has anyone house-ruled this? Say, by adding Intelligence as a modifier to study total? AM I missing something?
The brilliant student does learn faster! The dumb kid needs to spend a lot more time learning to get an equivalent amount of learning than the smart kid. After one season the dumb kid will need another 160xp (7 seasons) to reach the smart kids ability level.
(Okay, this doesn't quite hold since you can teach someone with a higher int+ability, than you for an int ability. 5th edition has simplified the learning process quite a bit since 4th.)
Lamech is right. After one season, the smart kid is rolling Int 4 + 2 = +6 on his Artes Liberales or Philosophiae rolls, while the slower kid (I'm a teacher, so I can't call any student dumb) is rolling -2 + 2 = 0 on the same rolls.
If you really want a kid to be a good student who learns faster than others, take Apt Student.
Ugh, yes. This one resulted in a large gap between those who has good Int+Conc and those who didn't. Mostly for Arts where the exp were used directly. remember that for Abilities your gain was (Int+Conc+Quality)/5 round up. So the gap meant less here.
Anyway, as mentioned in a later post that the one I'm quoting learning ability is in ArM5 not measured by Int but by the presence or absence of V/F like Apt Student or Slow Learner. For Teaching that is. For Practice use Independent Study (HoH:MC), and there may (serf's parma) also be a Flaw limiting this. For Training, nothing seems to help.
But it is also true that the final Int+Ability total reflects how well the pupil uses what he has learned, so the less intelligent one most likely fares worse. However given the normal scale of Characteristics and Abilities vs. the addition of even a Simple Die the random factor may be as much or even more than the Int+Ability. Also note that this only applies for Int based Abilities, has the teacher been teaching a Social Ability the low Int of one pupil is irrelevant.
Int isn't a direct measure of intelect in Ars Magica. I'd be prepared to argue it's more a direct measure of ability to think logically and rationally. It's not pure intelligence, it's closer to rationality, where social intelect is com, and per is a mix of reflexive observation and active intelectual information processing.
Thanks for the input. I can see how the gaps work. I guess the teacher will have to put in considerable extra effort for the dimwit to "test out" at the same level.
arguably, apt student could apply to training as well as teaching, since the primary difference between teaching and training is that training allows the instructor to also earn a living while providing instruction (and give up a lot of potential bonuses for this).