How much training to use a Refined Lab? If you were an Apprentice and worked in a Lab that was Refined 8 levels, would you be able to just step into the lab and take over if you inherited it, or would there be a learning curve?
I dislike the rules for taking over labs in Covenants.
If a lab isn't designed for transient use, and it has a positive lab score, then the new user of the lab is supposed to spend a season becoming familiar and it sets the Refinement score to the lesser of the old Refinement score or the "new owner's" Magic Theory -3 score.
My feeling is that an apprentice to a master, who has worked in that lab should be able to take over that lab if they've worked in the lab with the master for a certain number of seasons. How many? No clue. I will also say, that beyond that, there's enough of a penalty that the apprentice will never be able to improve anything else about that lab until they have a Magic Theory score of 12, which may prove to be a huge challenge, too.
I'd say a number of seasons equal to the refinement score, same as being able to raise the refinement, and they have to have spent those seasons at the current refinement level- coming back to a masters lab after you have been gone 25 years and he has refined it twice more is simply not the same.
Same as raising refinement? Uhh, refinement limit should always be Magic Theory-3. And if you want to be able to change the lab, you need to accept that you have to do the season of refining, which means you gain flaws if your MT is less than the original lab owner.
I was referring to the line that the magus must have worked in a lab a number of years equal to the current refinement score in order to raise that score- so an apprentice who works with a master for 7 years in the lab before that master leaves the lab to them should be able to keep a refinement of up to 7, but not of 8. My opinion, not anywhere in the rules...
Well, I can see how that rule can make some sense, taking over a lab with a refinement of say 6 should take time to acclimate to understand how they can improve the lab. a lab with a high refinement score has many virtues added to it, and represents a significant investment of time. a new owner of such a lab can reap the rewards of using the lab for all those years. When one of my characters took over a developed lab, I just removed and added virtues, as I recall.