Indeed it would be simple if Althea had no MT (she has MT 2) and that isnt legacy, since she had not that in 2nd ed. (just checked).
I'm not saying it does help the magus, just saying that, as it is writtend, the character does raise questions, btw, that was exactly what I pointed firsthand.
Just to be clear, I hate to throw napalm into fire, I would rather use PeIg on it... I tried to bring more data to help ppl develop ideas, since it is my interest as well to understand that... But enough justification, obviously ppl here have more Hubris than the whole Verditius house... lol
I have always thought that familiars are supposed to be able to Help In The Lab, but maybe they aren't, or shouldn't be. It would make sense to me if they were considered to be beneficial features rather than apprentice-like assistants, since they typically don't have The Gift, and the rules for Helping In The Lab seem to be intended for Gifted characters only.
Non-magi can have Magic Theory, and in fact it's good if your laboratory assistant does as then she can Create a Laboratory. She probably should have 3 rather than 2 (is her specialty something like setting up a lab?), but maybe she's lost some of her knowledge over time.
Artes Liberales 4 (mathematics)
Concentration 4 (writing)
Latin 5 (reading)
Local Language 5 (academia)
Magic Lore 3 (creatures)
Magic Theory 2 (writing)
Order of Hermes Lore 2 (labs)
Profession: Scribe 6 (Hermetic books)
It does point out that she, at least, does copy books on hermetic magic... thats what can be said by her abilities.
Althea is not the only one. Horst from Fengheld (GotF) is a redcap and famous writer on MT. And he is not a left-over from another millenium of Ars Magica.
My suggestion:
Obviously the letters in a book about MT do not vanish if they are read by an unGifted person. So, unGifted persons can read about and therefore learn MT.
This doesn't mean they can apply it. Compare it to blind people: Using Braille, they can read about red, but they still can't see/apply it.
You might argue that a blind person might be able to assist a painter, but I am not convinced.
Besides, most labs seem to be lonely places and most magi whose numbers we have seem to have rather low lab leadership skills. This would be different if anybody could assist in the lab (because then everybody would use several assistants).
[quote="Xavi"]
I never thought about having a mundane set up the lab!! Nice one here.
[/quote]
Depending on your world-view, it would be unusual, if not rare, to find a mundane who would be that interested in Magic Theory - it's [u]theory[/u], pure dry academia, in a world that isn't that excited about academics to begin with.
Then, to find such an academician who also would be willing to bust their but doing grunt work for no personal reasons. Remember, they'll never cast a spell, never spend a season in that lab unless they're polishing glass or stirring nasty compounds.
It would be like studying theoretical radio-astrophysics for the questionable reward of setting up some experimental observatory, but never having seen a picture of any planet or getting to look thru the telescope, nor certainly getting any larger, public recognition for anything but "spending all his time with space stuff".
Huh? As I've mentioned in a few threads, I think it's a very good idea for a magus to have his own scribed trained well in Magic Theory (not just to 1). Give the scribe a really good living and a longevity ritual. Aren''t living the good life plus having a longevity ritual a pretty good set of personal reasons to do it? People do seem to do work for a lot less. And, yes, you can find people in the real world who spend much of their time polishing glass and stirring compounds for others to use.
No, that´s backwards.
Players automatically think about cost vs benefits, people dont mostly. There´s also the question about finding multiple people(or ANY at all) that the magi trusts to have in their lab.
And the high probability that an assistant doesnt require MT & Gift, that´s not the same as "anyone can do it".
Then there´s the question of finding people that actually WILL do it, even if Cuch overstates it a lot, not everyone will be interested, even with nice perks.
And then of course, a lot of magi wont get high leadership scores simply because "it´s not them", preferring to spend their time with other things and so what if their labwork is a little less efficient...
I used to play in a very over-powered game (4th ed, plus house rules). If the SG allows anyone with MT to be lab assistant, then players will use (abuse?) that. My magus summoned spirits of magic theory (the amount of MT each had was based on the level of the summoning spell). Even ritual spells to get long durations were worthwhile, as was learning lots of leadership. (I summoned spirits of Leadership as teachers...yes, it was that over-powered).
Getting 5 spirits, each with MT+Int of over 10 gave +50 to all lab totals. With that +50, inventing better summoning spells to get spirits with higher MT leads to a nasty snowball effect. It might take a few years, but you can easily end up with over 200 added to the lab total....I stopped when even I thought it was getting silly. In that game, I still had a lower lab total than either Verditius in the covenant.
My point is simply that Lab Assistants need to be restricted: having the general rule of needing Gift + MT makes sense; exceptions to this should be very rare.
(At least this topic has got back towards useful discussions rather than logic/semantics...not wanting to cause offence, but those really put me off!)
I mean that it still be possible retricting to the Magi with the Bond the lab help, but the Familiars could be good teachers/trainers on Abilities to anybody/everybody; but only Lab Assitants to their magus, just like they are outside of the Leadership to take Lab helpers, then they are a few out of the regular rules in that, just a few.
The Gift requeriment is clear, but the Familiars of others or Un-Gifted Characters could help on some very specific ways: granting Boons to the Lab o specialities, or only on some no totally hermetic magic, like with the Verditius.
Correction (unless i misread it badly at least), they´re outside of the leadership rule while assisting their bonded magi.
Yes i understood that, but the point i was making is that RAW suggests that familiars are indeed NOT limited to being assistants only to their bonded magi.
Sorry for not writing it out properly.
As have already been covered repeatedly, not clear at all. Based on text and examples given i rather have to say that the opposite is a good deal more likely. But it also is far from clear.
Uargh... Damned that´s horribly munchkin. Spirits of leadership and MT... Thats not even munchkin, that´s just outright abuse of the game i think.
I´m not sure what SGs here would have done if anyone actually tried such a stunt, but they sure as hell would NOT have allowed it. Personally i would consider having a really nasty demon appear instead.
On the basis of misreading the rule originally, we played without needing the Gift for assistants. Was never a problem. A few PCs upped their leadership and got several assistants together, but the efforts of doing that, usually meant that while they could get a higher lab total in general(ie for more sorts of projects or Art totals), a mage who used the same time to study could often still beat them in getting a few specialty scores higher.
As i said above, i think it´s fine allowing it in potential, but it shouldnt be easy to find and recruit all those assistants. And, since you CAN find potential apprentices with spells, but someone lacking the gift but who may be suitable for lab work, you cant find so easily, means its still easier to recruit the former, especially since they have a big reward coming, in the form fo becoming magi themself eventually.
Personally, now that I am a SG, I wouldn't allow that munkinisming . It worked in that game because every mage was horribly over-powered (previous PC magi had, for example stolen Wales, moved it into the Atlantic and then returned it when they were bored with it. The Vatican had become an open pathway directly to Hell - I have no idea how or why. The Palace of Versailles was full of time-traveling magi stealing furniture from one another - they had wrecked the causality of time and effectively turned the whole Palace into a Black Hole that no-one could leave. Again, why?!! My magus was comparatively weak...albeit capable of taking out any published magus from the official books. Penetration total of 1400 on instant death spells? Wasn't enough in that game!).
I gave it as an example of what can happen if a SG permits too many, apparently separate things to come together: a) conceptual spirits (spirits that represent ideas); b) only needing MT to be a lab assistant; c) very high level arts, abilities, and therefore magi being able to combine those.
This I agree with.
To return to the original question, I'd allow one magus' familiar to help another magus in the lab, but there would have to be a very good in character reason for it being willing to do so unless its own magus was helping too. And it would need a point of leadership from the lead researcher. A familiar would only be 'free' to its own magus.
Penetration of 1400??? I´m not even sure i can figure out HOW you managed that.
The most extreme Penetration specialist i´ve seen in play could fairly easily manage 140 and a good bit more, but yikes...
a) horrible idea, b) not that bad but together with "a", yeah i can see it becoming a serious problem then, c) meh that just means they spend a lot of time studying instead of doing something else, and even a magi with all Arts at 50 can die very quickly and easily if they screw up or gets smacked down by someone focused enough on taking them out.
Would you like to know how it was done? 1) assume the game is not going to be sane in any way at all. 2) 4th ed rules, so vis gives +5 per pawn to casting total and you don't subtract the spell level from your casting total. 3) Arts touching 80 (each). 4) A lot of vis - 160 pawns therefore +800 to the casting total. 5) Life-linked spellcasting (I think that was its name, anyway) so each fatigue and body level spent on the casting gave +10 penetration, and over 20 fatigue and body levels available to burn on the casting...oh, and stat boosting spells so all relevant stats were +20...insane, but fun. As I said before, my magus was not particularly powerful in that setting. Parma was impossible to get high enough to be worthwhile against this sort of insanity, but it was a lot of fun!
Thats not even munchkin, that´s just outright abuse of the game i think.
. It worked in that game because