Wizard population dynamics

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The most interesting question in TFT is why are starting PC wizards age 20?

(bold emphasis mine.)
Please explain in what way you feel this is the most interesting question in TFT.

Originally Posted by hcobb

Their lack of muggle skills indicates they were shipped off to Hogwarts at age 6 or so and later it takes them about four years to learn their spells at one a quarter.

Does it? I thought that wizards just weren't inclined to non-wizardly talents, kind of like so many real-world biographical stories of famously talented people whose parents tried to make them get into accountancy or something, only hopefully in Cidri your parents will encourage wizard kids to just do magic, so they do.

Originally Posted by hcobb

That gives the lifepath of a wizard to be:

Age 6: Anakin and Tom Riddle are spotted by the Jedi council and shipped off to the academy where they spend the next ten years isolated from the world (and people skills) while they learn the basics of the force.

Age 16: With the literacy talent, basic chakra control, the Aid spell, and the ability to identify spells by their casting (page 142), young miss Poppins is then put under a Sorcerer's supervision for her apprenticeship. She can cast from books, but has very few spells actually memorized.

At age 20 these new journeymen are now ready to duel each other to the death in the arena or do whatever else it is that young independent people do these days.

It is an interesting question at what age can wizards have learned how many spells.

To me, there is an issue with the new ITL in that it gives PC-minded rules for learning talents and spells, and for characters gaining XP, (and for starting characters), which (unlike original ITL), leaves us without clear guidelines for what NPCs should be like, and what it should take for them to improve themselves.

Originally Posted by hcobb

Also note the following:

Page 60: "If the wizard has an apprentice who can cast the spell you want, he may have the apprentice do it for practice (unless you’re in a hurry)."

Page 141: "In order to cast a spell from a book, a wizard must have the book, right there. It must be in a language he can read. (An illiterate wizard is handicapped!) The wizard must also be in a fully-equipped laboratory, or have his magician’s chest with him."

Page 142: "A lab may be attuned to any number of wizards" ... "A wizard’s chest is attuned to him and him only."

I.e. the apprentice is book casting and attuned to the lab, which is sensible enough.

I don't think it needs to imply book casting. "Hurry" may just refer to the time to call the apprentice over and explain the chore to be done, and possibly for the apprentice to fail their DX roll (modifier for an unfamiliar spell, per the part annoyingly dropped from Advanced Wizard). "Practice" may refer either to the need to familiarize with unfamiliar spells, or just the general notion that the reality of the world may include details which don't have specific mechanics, such that it's helpful for less learned casters to cast spells for practice, even if the game rules don't have a specific mechanic to model that effect in detail.

In any case, since as you pointed out, a lab is attuned to one wizard, presumably a book-casting apprentice would not be using a $10,000 lab, but instead a $2,500 wizard's chest, but even that seems unlikely since PC starting total wealth is $1000... though it could also be that some wizards (and/or guild chapters) invest in chests for their students which they have to repay eventually, either in coin or in kind. Or maybe they don't need to repay them, because when they leave the apprenticeship, if they can't (or don't opt to) buy the chest, the wizard and/or guild can re-purpose it or its components for other apprentices.

Originally Posted by hcobb

The big problem is that The Wizard's Guild is not making anywhere near enough money to pay for the $25k in base wizard training each student gets. Wizard academy charges $25 a week ($50 if boarding) for each child between the ages of six and sixteen fifty weeks a year with two weeks off. Each new wizard PC needs an explanation for where this money came from. Perhaps they'll all geased to pay off their student loans?

What are you talking about?

What "$25k in base wizard training"? Oh, this rate you're making up?

Even if that were the rate, what do you mean "The Wizard[s'] Guild is not making anywhere near enough money to pay for the $25k"? Regardless of what the WG makes, why would it be on the hook to itself for its own tuition fees? It would be paying them to itself, having no effect anyway?

Certainly there is a real cost of room & board during training, but that can be less than adult normal cost of living assuming a guild hall has apprentice dorms and food halls.

Again, the nice section from Advanced Wizard lists the first method of learning spells as apprenticeship, where the apprentice serves the wizard and gradually picks up spells as a matter of course. No tuition is involved. Again, the only expense could be room and board, and the apprentice is useful, especially once he knows the Aid spell. It seems to me that such an arrangement has an a positive impact on the guild, and doesn't really cost anyone anything since the help the apprentice gives is no doubt more valuable than giving him some sort of room and board.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Again, the nice section from Advanced Wizard lists the first method of learning spells as apprenticeship, where the apprentice serves the wizard and gradually picks up spells as a matter of course. No tuition is involved. Again, the only expense could be room and board, and the apprentice is useful, especially once he knows the Aid spell. It seems to me that such an arrangement has an a positive impact on the guild, and doesn't really cost anyone anything since the help the apprentice gives is no doubt more valuable than giving him some sort of room and board.

That's also in the new rules.

Page 13: "Apprentice: Many wizards begin thus, aiding a more experienced practitioner in exchange for bed, board, training, and maybe a little silver."

Page 144: "The GM may instead require wizards to find a teacher for each new spell, or at least the high-IQ ones. The teacher may ask for payment, or a quest or service, or a period of apprenticeship, or for the PC to teach them a spell."

Page 154: "The Guild regulates apprentices, just as it does other wizardly affairs. A wizard must pay his apprentices Guild scale ($25/week), and is obliged to train them – see Learning New Spells."

At one skill point per quarter this is four years of apprenticeship. Backtracking from age 20 gives us a 16 year old kid who is qualified to be an apprentice.

Hence they can already (at age 16)

• Learn the Staff spell
• Cast spells from books
• Read scrolls
• Attune a chest or lab
• identify any spell in the book from the casting ritual
• Research new spells (if IQ 12+)
• Use wizard only magic items
• And learn additional spells with a third the effort a hero takes

And that is what a decade's training at $25/week provides. Hence $25k (including a reasonable standard of living for a middle class child.)

And this means that one out of every 25 adult wizards is a classroom teacher.

[Skarg]

Looks to me like page 13 differs from page 154 about how often apprentices get more than bed, board and training. Apparently it depends on whether the guild standard is in effect in the specific example, which no doubt actually varies from place to place.

Looking more closely... I think those are two different contexts for the word "apprentice":

Since page 154 is in the context of apprentices used for creating magic items, I would say that the pay requirements listed there are for trained professional (probably adult) people serving in that role, casting Aid and helping work on a magic item enchantment, and probably don't apply to apprentices in the context of how people (especially kids) get trained in magic through apprenticeship. (Especially if they haven't even learned the Aid spell yet, so certainly including everyone not yet at IQ 9.)

Originally Posted by hcobb

At one skill point per quarter this is four years of apprenticeship.

Isn't the training time actually the number of spells taught multiplied by the time it takes an apprentice to be taught a spell?

Where are you getting one skill point per quarter?

And are you really assuming typical apprentices are IQ 16?

I am not finding any surviving reference to learning rates in new ITL.

In Advanced Wizard, on the other hand, there are four methods nicely laid out on AW page 10. The expected rate listed for an apprentice is one spell (of up to IQ 12) per four months, with a one-month unfamiliarity period following that, where casting the spell is at -2 DX.

So 3 spells per year.

Originally Posted by hcobb

And that is what a decade's training at $25/week provides. Hence $25k (including a reasonable standard of living for a middle class child.)

A decade? How did you go from 4 years to 10 years?

$25 is what they make you pay room and board for the adult professional apprentices helping you enchant magic items.

Even if that is what you spend for apprentices, $25 comes to $1300 per year, or $5200 for 4 years, or $13,000 for ten years. Or, say, for an IQ 9 apprentice being taught 9 spells at the Advanced Wizard rate, three years, or $3900.

Originally Posted by hcobb

And this means that one out of every 25 adult wizards is a classroom teacher.

How do you figure that?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Where are you getting one skill point per quarter?

All the specific learning times mentioned in the new rules, i.e. Thieves Guild.

Originally Posted by Skarg

A decade? How did you go from 4 years to 10 years?

It's ten years to grow from an ordinary child to a wizard with one spell under a guild teacher then four years as an apprentice to learn the starting allotment of spells.

Originally Posted by Skarg

Even if that is what you spend for apprentices, $25 comes to $1300 per year, or $5200 for 4 years, or $13,000 for ten years.

My calculation has $25/wk for housing the child in Guild standard "sub-wizard" conditions plus another $25/wk in teacher salaries. Halve the cost if the parents house and feed the critter.

1. My classroom model has one teacher per ten students.
2. There are two kinds of students in the classrooms.
3. Pre-wizard kids taking ten years of training to become spell-less wizards
4. And one in fifty (page 134) heroes taking a year to learn 1.33 spells
5. Assume teachers average fourty year carrers.
6. The math works out to one in 25 adult wizards being an active teacher.

Every detail short of a campus map here: http://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Maps

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

It's ten years to grow from an ordinary child to a wizard with one spell under a guild teacher then four years as an apprentice to learn the starting allotment of spells.

That's an interesting house rule, to have becoming a wizard be a 10-year process. I agree that something is missing in the details of the original concept where some people just are a wizard (and so as you point out, can do several things that would seem to want some learning), but if you make it so a 10-year training is needed, it would tend to mean every wizard really needs to be trained by someone (for a decade in this version).

Originally Posted by hcobb

My calculation has $25/wk for housing the child in Guild standard "sub-wizard" conditions plus another $25/wk in teacher salaries. Halve the cost if the parents house and feed the critter.

1. My classroom model has one teacher per ten students.
2. There are two kinds of students in the classrooms.
3. Pre-wizard kids taking ten years of training to become spell-less wizards
4. And one in fifty (page 134) heroes taking a year to learn 1.33 spells
5. Assume teachers average fourty year carrers.
6. The math works out to one in 25 adult wizards being an active teacher.

Every detail short of a campus map here: http://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Maps

So your guild pays its teachers on a per-student basis?

What's wrong with the book-standard of apprenticeship being a trade in-kind between the wizard and the apprentices, with no salary involved?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

That's an interesting house rule, to have becoming a wizard be a 10-year process. I agree that something is missing in the details of the original concept where some people just are a wizard (and so as you point out, can do several things that would seem to want some learning), but if you make it so a 10-year training is needed, it would tend to mean every wizard really needs to be trained by someone (for a decade in this version).

Shaped by a traumatic event in their childhood: Wizard Academy.

Originally Posted by Skarg

So your guild pays its teachers on a per-student basis?

What's wrong with the book-standard of apprenticeship being a trade in-kind between the wizard and the apprentices, with no salary involved?

These aren't qualified to be apprentices yet. Once they are full wizards they zip through a standard apprenticeship in just four years.

The teachers are paid as per their IQ. It just averages out to $25 in total school costs per student per week.

If you barge into a random classroom roll 3d6 for the number of students there.

On a roll of 18 you've hit Introduction to basic magical theory first year.

On a roll of 3 you've reached Advanced Demonology.

Remember that these kids will be able to recognize 171 different spells on sight after this decade of training so they spend less than a month on the vast majority of those.