regarding turning a book into a faerie- this will depend on your SG. Generally faeries do not have human abilities, but pretenses. Exceptions do exist, but where those exist those abilities can also be trained in the normal human way- meaning that the book turned faerie could become a better teacher or more adept at it's subject. The SG may wish to disallow this, and wind up turning the ability into a pretense, which cannot be taught...
I think that it is also possible to have a faerie have a "real" ability which can be taught but which is also a pretense - if a faerie has the faerie trainer virtue and learns a real ability (which can be taught) it can convert that ability in to a pretense but continue to teach it, however the limit on the max level it can teach is based on the level of the ability when it became a pretense rather than the current value of the pretense:
"The faerie can develop these abilities further using human methods, or can convert them to Pretenses and increase them as a faerie would. Once an Ability has been advanced as a Pretense, the maximum level at which the faerie can train humans has been reached."
Personally I think it makes sense for a faerie made from a summa to have the relevant ability at the level of the summa, but that it can only be advanced as a pretense beyond that - the book faerie knows the real knowledge contained in itself, but anything beyond that is just a pretense.
For a faerie made from a tractatus it's not so easy. I'd maybe be inclined to say that it would have the same deal, except it only starts with a number of xp in the relevant ability equal to the tractatus quality. Not much use as a teacher then.
From a game balance perspective, I would be leery of allowing animated faerie books to be objectively better than reading the book itself. I see it as changing the format of the learning, not the overall information.
But this is one of those things you could implement in about a hundred different ways, really.
My wrong. I Crtl+F'ed the thread three times looking for the spell title.
But now that I reread you I remember having read it the first time and agreeing with it. Except for the slow rate of things going up, mostly because in the end probably the spell would end acting as a modifier to some lab activity, so making it slower than a lab improvement that would end doing something similar could make the magus coming with the idea discard it, which I think is wrong because that's the kind of thinking I love to see in the table. Also I have a soft spot for Merinita, my second favourite House.
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