Spell / Skill teaching

[Eltsac]

I really think there should be some changes in how the teaching works.
I see two major problems in the current system in which teaching is limited to grand masters (mainly for spells, but then teaching concern both skills and spells) :

- One is spell exclusive : when the teaching is limited to when you are grand-master, you can teach a spell to anyone at inept scribing a scroll and giving the scroll to the other mage to scribe in his spellbook. Kindy unbalance.

- The other is a more generic problem to me : the current system does not really favor PC teaching. Not many people can claim to have much spell / skill grandmaster he can teach others, and and if someone would love to become a teacher, he has to power train his skill for it. And for mages it's worse as you can't raise the spell level of your high level spells high enough to teach them even with the teacher feat.

I would rather see more apprenticeship relation in the game, rather than an old player telling to another "you can learn that skill there, take this few coins so you can pay the trainer".

The idea (i think Dalvyn already gave an idea like this one somewhere), would be to allow people to train other earlier, but the level he could train to other would depend on your own level.
For exemple at apprentice, you could teach the skill / spell to someone else to inept. If you are Grand-Master, you could teach it to apprentice or adept. (it's an exemple, levels can be changed).

That i hope would bring more PC / PC teaching, rather than some NPC / PC training. Of course PC / PC teaching is cheaper than NPC / PC, but it takes more interesting time than simple type the "train" command.

Eltsac

[Meekir]

Hear hear.

I have a lot of fun training /being trained by PCs. The roleplay is fun! Even if it's just a few levels of swim, or gnomish, it's some nice RP that actually has a code benefit. Even if it's a rare spell or prayer, people *hoard* those special skills and don't hand them out to just anyone. How much better to have to prove yourself to be taught by a PC than to merely be directed to (or randomly stumble upon... grrr) an NPC?

It really encourages RP to be able to teach each other. I think this is a pretty important idea for this game. I wish we could teach up to or the level below what we have in a skill or spell. Even if I only know a few words of French I can teach those few words. You have to make friends or alliances to gain skills... you can demand RP costs in exchange for teaching people... for every two people who "twink", there's the other bazillion people here who like to roleplay and will get tangible rewards for interacting with people... Let's do it!

Changes to teaching to encourage and reward roleplay! Vote YES!

-----
Meekir Friendshield, Priest of Garl

What is "pour quoi"? Do or not do? I wish I had spent as much time in the tongues as I had in fencing, drinking and bear-baiting... Had I but followed the arts! - 12th Night

[Scylere]

I whole heartedly agree with Meekir here. Teaching or being taught is really fun and adds exciting/interesting rp. I would love to see it more easy to teach skills. Honestly, I never spend the time to grand master my skills/spells, unless it happens during rp, but I have had characters who would have like to become teachers, but couldn't.

Being able to teach at a lower skill level would be great, as well realistic. I'm a teacher. I haven't grandmastered anything I teach:D

[Duranamir]

I would also like to support this change. Being able to teach skills/spells at a lower level would be a great thing for RP. Then all classes would be able to take on apprentice type relationships which would actually have an in game advantage.

Maybe the exact level you can teach at should be tied to the teach feat as well. i.e. drop the bar to allow and teaching by anyone from GM to Adept or there abouts and then teach would drop it even further i.e. 1 level = Journeyman 2 levels down to apprentice. which would be the lowest skill level that anyone would be allowed to teach another.

Duranamir

[Cret]

I agree with all of this. However..

Teacher Feat
============
This feat allows you to use the teach to other people a skill you
have not yet fully mastered. The more slots devoted to this feat,
the earlier you may teach the skill.

This feat has no pre-requisites.

See Also: TEACH

You can take up too 2 levels in it. (Im not sure the mud is set up yet for the 2nd point to be taken in it)

[Duranamir]

It is my understanding that the teacher feat only drops the level down 1 from GM to master. Apart from languages it is still an incredibly high bar to reach before you can teach anyone anything.

And as far as the second point of teacher i have tried to learn it but the trainer would not train a second point. I dont know if there is one who might train a second point somewhere in the game but i still think the starting level to train should be a lot lower than GM.

IC should you be the best warrior in the world before you teach someone the basics of using a sword ? Compotent at using a sword for sure but Grand master ?

Duranamir

[Eltsac]

Teacher could be changed to either teach more at a time or maybe reduce the teacher xp cost (if there is still an xp cost for teacher).

Or maybe something else?

Eltsac

[Ceara]

Actually I agree with the level remaining at master in order to teach. A person should be a master of what they wish to teach for example in martial arts one must be a 'master' before taking on students. At least here they do. If you haven't perfected the skill or spell yourself how can you hope to teach it properly to anyone else?

[Duranamir]

Actually I agree with the level remaining at master in order to teach. A person should be a master of what they wish to teach for example in martial arts one must be a 'master' before taking on students. At least here they do. If you haven't perfected the skill or spell yourself how can you hope to teach it properly to anyone else?

I have to say i disagree for the following reason in game Grand master the only level you can actually teach at (without feats) is way beyond the skill level of an average proponent of a skill in karate terms it is the little old man in tibet rather than the teacher in the karate club down the street.

I think the issue is what level is compotent to teach a skill my current gut reaction is Adept which reflects knowing a skill well and is not trivial to attain.

Most of the mobs that teach skills in the game are certainly not GM's of the skills they teach so why should players have to be grand masters ?.

Duranamir

[Eltsac]

It's why you would not teach it to more than inept if you are only apprentice or such in it.

Is it so difficult to teach the bases of some things to someone when you are decent in it?
I don't think so...

learning to inept a spell is just like copying from a scroll in a spellbook, not a big deal and does not require to master the spell to teach that...

it's the same for the others skills to me, for exemple :
to me, train to inept at a weapon would be to show to the student how to handle the weapon and how to swing it, everyone who can use that weapon can teach that, but won't teach more
an apprentice won't teach the student to be good at that weapon, he won't teach special attacks or where to strike to deal good damage, he just gives the basics and let the student learn by himself.

On another hand, i find it more ic to be able to train more and more things depending on your own skill level, than not being able to show someone even the basics, and then, at a certain moment, you become master, and you are able to teach how to become quite good at that skill

Eltsac

[Raona]

I would argue that, realistically, one can teach another provided that they have much to learn from you. However, the efficiency of the teaching may be much less if you are not well very well versed in the field.

Perhaps only one training "session" could be performed per day, and that session's chance of success, or amount of advancement, could hinge on a variety of relevant factors including intelligence, the teacher and student's relative levels of mastery, the teacher's level of mastery, the amount of teaching experience (perhaps make teaching a skill? that would make more sense to me!), etc. The teacher feat could be an innate knack for teaching.

[Eltsac]

I think the issue is what level is compotent to teach a skill my current gut reaction is Adept which reflects knowing a skill well and is not trivial to attain.

Adept is ok to me, apprentice were more an exemple.
I tend to see the teaching starting at low level simply because of the scroll thing which in fact make any inept being able to be a teacher, but it's spells only

Eltsac

edit : spelling

[Eltsac]

Perhaps only one training "session" could be performed per day

It seems IC to me to limit training sessions to one or two a day.
But then maybe training from NPC should be limited the same way?

Or allow PC to train more at a time than a NPC

[Eltsac]

As a last note, the system as proposed might not be the closest one to what it would be in real, and might be improved, but then the system in which you go see an NPC (probably not a master either) and train to apprentice in a few seconds is worse.

My only aim is to improve PC / PC teaching (making it as real as possible) so we could see more of it than NPC / PC teaching, simply because it brings more fun and rp.

[Glim]

I agree with this whole heartedly. Even knowing something averagely well, you can still teach the basics to someone. I like that you could teach someone at lower levels.

Concerning the teacher feat, even taking it twice, you still have to train the skill to expert or master to teach it. Maybe a way that could solve the problem, Eltsac, is if, with the teacher feat, it would lower the skill level that you could teach at even more? Perhaps if say, you had it once, you could teach it at expert, if you had it twice, at journeyman?

Would that be an easy solution to the problem?

Forgive me if I made any mistakes in my points, not had sleep yet and kinda skimmed over the posts. >.< Sorry!
Feedback is always welcome,
Thanks,

[Kelemvor]

My first reaction to this thread was 'well of course you need to be GM to teach, stands to reason.. how can you teach someone something you dont know about yourself'

But there are some good arguments here for making training a more accessible alternative to NPC training. (Also some good arguments for making someone who is inept in a spell more likely to write a useless scroll I think But that should go in another thread)

Teach as a feat allows someone to train another person as early as Expert (if two notches are taken) and in purely dictionary meanings that sounds logical enough - you need to be an expert to teach something.

I do like the idea that anyone can teach anyone else something though, be it ever so slightly. I'd envisage a system which worked on the difference between the skill levels of the tutorer and the tutored. I'd want there to be some aspect of failur in the mix and I'd hope for it to be limited in the number of times it can be done during an IC day.

What I would want to avoid is someone walking out of the font with amateur level knowledge (perhaps because of their race or hometown) in say polearms. They then go off and train some level 50 fighter who hasn't bothered or been able to find an NPC trainer. Who then goes away happy in the knowledge that with his Inept level and five attacks he'll soon get it up to a decent level.

So...

1 )High rate of failure for anyone less than Journeyman in a skill, since journeyman is a historical term for the point at which you stopped being an apprentice yourself in most trades. Perhaps even create a cut-off point and say that you need to be Journeyman/Adept etc to even use the Teach command with a skill or spell

2 )The greater the difference in skill level between the tutor and the tutored the greater the value of the training. Also a reducing chance of failure to impart the knowledge.
A Journeyman swordsman might take a student only a few notches into inept whereas a Grandmaster could take them much further.

3 )No repeatedly hammering 'Train character X skill Y'. Logically, you would spend an amount of time teaching, most probably a lot more than that roleplayed. So restrict the use of the command to once every X game days, real-life hours etc. If you fail, you dont get to do it again, you have to wait and roleplay the failure

The biggest danger with teaching is that once a player is even inept in a skill or spell or trade they can use it and benefit from it and never have to return to the roleplay again. I have seen this happen on more than one occasion.

*forgets the rest of what he was about to say and wanders off distractedly, mumbling about an idea for a roleplay on teaching*

[Eltsac]

Those limitations seem ok to me.

And for one limiting himself to inept, well, i have often had to limit myself to inept training with NPC by lack of money / xp. And i would rather go train more when i can as your skill / spell is so not much useful at inept, and to train more with a teacher is faster than training alone (but maybe for weapons?), so i hope it would be the same for PC / PC

Eltsac

[Dalvyn]

Teach as a feat allows someone to train another person as early as Expert (if two notches are taken) and in purely dictionary meanings that sounds logical enough - you need to be an expert to teach something.

I am really not that sure about that.

Skill levels are coded on 26 levels (from 0 = unknown to 25 = grandmaster), with each in-between values being grouped by three (1-3 = inept, 22-24 = master, 18-20 = expert, and so on).

I would not be surprised at all to see that the "teacher" feat allows you to teach "earlier" in the sense of "1 skill level earlier". Even after taking this feat twice, you would still need to be master (skill level 23).

And even then... if spending TWO feat points on this would allow you to train from expert and up (which is still high in skill level), how is it fine that TWO feat points are required for an option that would only lead to more roleplay?

[Tortus]

Just felt I needed to comment on this bit:

1 )High rate of failure for anyone less than Journeyman in a skill, since journeyman is a historical term for the point at which you stopped being an apprentice yourself in most trades. Perhaps even create a cut-off point and say that you need to be Journeyman/Adept etc to even use the Teach command with a skill or spell

I'm not really sure I like this suggestion, considering that nowadays not that many trainers train anything higher than apprentice, and if they do, it's as far as I know only to journeyman.
While this is ICly reasonable, it has made improving in skills slower, especially for high-level characters.
Certain skills, for instance, have a high level requirement, and when you reach the required level to train the skill, you find that you can't really practice it.
Combine that with a high rate of failure for anything less than journeyman, and you have a high-level char with a high-level skill that will often fail, and seldom improve.


EDIT: Actually, I think I misunderstood that whole bit. I thought it regarded skill usage, and not teaching to others.
Never mind me, people, there's nothing to see here.

[Duranamir]

Just felt I needed to comment on this bit:

1 )High rate of failure for anyone less than Journeyman in a skill, since journeyman is a historical term for the point at which you stopped being an apprentice yourself in most trades. Perhaps even create a cut-off point and say that you need to be Journeyman/Adept etc to even use the Teach command with a skill or spell

I'm not really sure I like this suggestion, considering that nowadays not that many trainers train anything higher than apprentice, and if they do, it's as far as I know only to journeyman.
While this is ICly reasonable, it has made improving in skills slower, especially for high-level characters.
Certain skills, for instance, have a high level requirement, and when you reach the required level to train the skill, you find that you can't really practice it.
Combine that with a high rate of failure for anything less than journeyman, and you have a high-level char with a high-level skill that will often fail, and seldom improve.

I actually thing that this is about right. You should be of at least a reasonable level to train someone at all. And you should not be able to teach more than you yourself know. For high level characters you will have to find another player who does know the skill to high level (master or Grand master) to teach you any new tricks. This sounds about right to me. Mid level skill characters can teach low level characters so you can have apprentice/master relationships. High skill level characters will need to seek out the few really skilled characters to learn any new tricks.

I am also coming round to the idea that level of skill or spell might have to have some bearing on teaching a skill/spell so that for example armour would be easier to teach than fireball. Though i am thinking the spells may be self limiting by the new guild based systems because only specialists of the relavant schools can learn spells of there schools to high levels . So to get good training on fireball go look for an Invoker !.

Duranamir