If you invent a separate spell for every single person you intend to apply this to..... In which case....wow.
Anyway, I've hated permanent stat boosting spells since long before I started playing Ars Magica (which was 15 years ago), so they don't happen in my sagas regardless.
Yeah, I agree. It's the painful "fair vs. realistic" dilemma that any RP games face. I remember some older RPG's where one d100% roll could make or break the character, HUGE differences in the initial outcome.
So, the answer is a rationalization - of course it varies, and of course it happens - but the PC's are not part of it (until they make it so, as yours has). NPC's that are better or worse should be out there - how embarrassing for a Magus gauntletted several winters ago to witness an apprentice who is his equal, or better! Or consider the varied reactions when the NPC Spring covenant that the PC's have finally found as an ally turns out to be a complete disaster in the apprentice department.
The Order would, as a policy, be all in favor of it - but jealous and competitive magis and covenants might choose to be less supportive, or even actively subversive of the effort that they perceive as more of a personal threat than collective progress.
It would make sense for a covenant to seek out a incredibly talented communications child and recruit him. THey then raise him up and train him as a tutor. Together they find him the best books and teachers they can, get him a longevity potion when time comes and after 20 or 30 years, he is suddenly the master tutor for teaching all apprentices in academics and arcane skills.
Until you have this though, start your math with the number of scholars and knowledge trained folks in the city. This should not be a huge number, then figure how many of them have good communication (should only be a couple) and hope that they are not part of the church or hostile to mages. Then consider that other covenants could be after them. Your pool of potential tutors is real small. The number of them with a high skill to train a person higher than a 3-4 is rarer unless they are already old.
It is potentially possible to with the right skils get the super apprentice but you are talking a lot of work for it and probably a bad reputation in the order for someone that spends all their time and effort on apprentices rather than developing magical power or other research.
Apprentices are a commodity. They could be traded for anything a teaching maga might want.
It would make sense, but the question remains of how to do it. Also, whether characteristics like Com and Pre are fully "developed" in childhood - some quiet children grow up to be quite dynamic, and some of the more outspoken never develop anything more than a loud voice. Likewise some Virtues - how does one spot Puissant Teacher before a child learns to Teach? It (perhaps) can be done, but some SG's/Troupes might not be interested in the process - but it's another potential side-thread for any who want to make it such.
(Imo, any such benefit is always more appreciated if it takes in-game effort to achieve it, but every troupe differs in what it finds "fun", and that's the most important consideration.)
Once found, there's always the problem of acquiring the (prospective) tutor - unlike some trades, an uncooperative, unwilling or uncomfortable target would hardly make the best candidate, tho' there are always magical ways around any such obstacle. The prospect of working daily around The Gift would not make for the most attractive work environment.
Speaking of which, I guess it's never too often to trot this old pony out:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm
The author has put together an "average" population requirement for supporting the most common/necessary medieval/fantasy world occupations, and includes many that one often does not think of. All this is averaged from "medieval Europe", and, of course, is not reliably accurate for any one locale or time period - but it's better than faking it if you want to be close to historical accuracy.
If you aren't of a mind to read the "whole" page (it's good, do it!), the chart in the middle shows the SV - "Support Value" - for any trade. That many citizens will support 1 of that trade, and if the town/village/burg/hamlet has less, then that can be used to calculate the % chance for that Trade to be represented; if more, that shows the chance for more than one. A separate paragraph below that deals with "institutions of higher learning".
Bottom line, that research implies that tutors would be rare as hens teeth.
My apprentice just has part of the character predefined, and gains a fixed number of xp per year. I give her a skilled parens by allowing book access one additional season every year. This will make a playable character in a while, especially since she will be a mercurian mage and won't have formulaic spells, ideal for companion play...
Sure most of the educated, literate folks were clergy in one way or another, but most of the educated, literate folks the Magi know might be their servants children. Think about it, covenfolk have a lot of kids, what with the whole "not dying in childbirth" that's half the reason the maids signed up*. Some of these kids are pretty bright and willing to learn. or at least more willing to learn than they are willing to be stuck doing the dishes for the rest of their life.
Why trek all over Christendom to find a stuck-up ex-priest who couldn't make it in the Vatican or got caught fiddling the books or whatever? Simply train him in Latin, teaching and Artes Liberales. He only needs the basics of A.L. and Teaching and Latin of 4 before he can start teaching the apprentices. That's 60xp, some of which they already had (children learn languages fast). If Latin is used in the covenant regularly he's had 40 potential seasons of exposure to it by age 10. Even assuming in only a fifth does he learn that's still 16 xp. If you can persuade their parents to teach their kids while they're growing up you can assume at least a season of one-on-one training as well. If every parents has Teaching 1 (teaching children) then that's at least 10 xp (assuming no less than -1 parents Com) for a total of 26xp in Latin. Hire a teacher for a year with at least +1 Com, Latin 4 and Teaching skill of 3 (1+3+3 base bonus + 6 one-on-one =13*3 =52). If you can find a trustworthy boarding school you don't even have to persuade the teacher to come to the covenant (although then it's two years, big deal you lose the services of a servant boy for an extra year).
Now you've got an 11 year old with a Com of +1, Teaching 2, specialized teaching one-on-one +1, +3 base bonus, +6 bonus one-on-one quality 13. In three seasons he can get your apprentices up to Latin 3 and A.L. 1. And you're still paying him apprentice teachers wages. Best of all the covenfolk will love the fact that their kids get an education and higher wages (you won't have to pay him decent wages until at least age 15 and not good ones till he's 18 or 21). When he dies of old age at 60 you'll still have his grandkids teaching your latest apprentice).
The more I've thought about this in recent days, the more I think it's not a problem, as long as characters get balanced at the end of apprenticeship. So, at gauntlet, an apprentice's XP expenditure is compared to the standard amount allowed in character creation, and levels of Skilled Parens (and possibly the other XP-boosting virtues) are taken to equalize the character. If this takes the character over their allowed 10 points of virtues, either other virtues have to be lost, or even more flaws have to be taken to compensate. (In my saga, apprentices start as grog characters to ensure that they have plenty of room to add virtues and flaws during/at the end of apprenticeship that make sense given their life during that period, so it looks like it would work pretty well for us.)
You can in-world-hand-wave this a number of ways. It's all those seasons working in a laboratory practically that lead apprentices to find their talents. Day after day of staring at pretty text in a book leaves them with strong theoretical foundations, but practical weaknesses. (Insert other hand-wave-y explanation here.)
Ther eis an oficial cannon one, in fact: too young magi cause problems because they do not have the character stregth to understand tha tpower cannot be used stupidly. Bonisagus himself marched his last apprentice. he was trained in just 5 years, IIRC, and was a teenager when he was gauntleted. Theoretically he was a perfectñly valid magus, but mentally he was not responsible enough and caused BIG trouble.
Cheers,
Xavi