Apprentice NPC's

[Tio Silver]

Currently it's a bit awkward for mage PC who want to RP teaching an NPC apprentice since personal NPCs can't hold magic, but mage mentor NPCs require permissions to use. With the release of the rare new Schism spark into the world, which will require the PCs who earned it to pass it on in order to spread it about the world, I was wondering if now might be a good time to consider making magic apprentice class NPCs with their own rules to govern them.

[Pegasus]

Hmmm. I really hadn't considered that at all. I mean. It makes total sense, but equally, hadn't considered it. I think for the moment I'm going to say that we'd have them as City NPCs, but you negotiate with your city mod to make sure that you're both on the same page? THat seems to me to make most sense. What do you think?

[Tio Silver]

Sorry I must have missed the reply to this.

Making them city NPC's work to an extend, but it makes it difficult to show their progression without constantly poking the local mod to update their skill levels every season.

Could there not be a way to make them a sub-type of personal NPC, putting the onus on the player to keep track of their growth, but with special rules in place to prevent them from being used as consequence-free magic batteries? For example that they can't have a higher magic level than the player? Or that mods decide their mutations and can award seriously problematic ones for players who abuse this system?

[Pegasus]

And I totally missed this! I'm putting this up for discussion.

[Maltruism]

Maybe I'm just a Sith Lord at heart, pining for the ol' "Rule of Two" dynamic.
I can see that the apprentice could overtake the mentor if it was consistently played and made justifiable advancements IC.

So obviously, it should take some time, even for a player that truly devotes the time to do it.

I can see not wanting to leave it up to the mod to stay on top of the apprentice's advancement, as the mod may step down.
Frankly, while understanding why it was ruled so, I did not really agree with personal NPCs being denied magic.
I know it was fear of power-gamer exploitation that motivated this decision, and I usually agree with that concern.
(*cough* Alistair's revenant NPCs *cough*)
But I guess I always kind of figured this would come up eventually.

I'm not up on Schism, so I'm not sure if there is some dynamic of that particular domain that really connects with this question, but I am generally in favor of personal NPCs being able to encompass this role.

So....how to keep it under control......hmmmm. I'm sort of insulting myself here....lol....but I don't think it can be left up to mods alone, because I tend to be more permissive than others and would undoubtedly set a precedent that would annoy someone else. a PSF ticket approach, perhaps?The same as advancing a magic to its next tier?

I will say though that once the apprentice overtakes the master, he WILL become a city NPC.

[Praetorum]

I would say just make them personal NPCs, and say that they have to be of a lower skill rank than the player, not just lower skill level. Awakenings have to be superficial, and corruption mutations can be given by mods and peer reviewers if it seems a player is abusing the NPC.

I'd also suggest that unless an apprentice is awarded by a mod, they have to take up one of the PCs 6 initiation slots. If you want to limit them further, say that they have to be NPCs bought with either PBP or renown rewards.

[Pig Boy]

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