Abolishing Teacher/Scholar

[Keller]

Hmm, there may be nothing for it, but what if the teacher, as well as the student, expended experience in order to train? All teachers could train to roughly the same skill level, but higher skill/stats reduced the experience cost for the teacher?

[Adabelle]

I would prefer if your skill level affected how high you can teach. It makes sense it rewards those who put in the time to get their skills up. It means that the people you learn from have to be good at what they are teaching and that seems imperative to me.

[Keller]

Agreed, obviously, I seem to have misspoke in my second post so let me clarify..

Your skill in the skill you're teaching should affect how high you can train someone else in it-maybe a grandmaster can train up to adept, master to journeyman, expert-adept to apprentice, journeyman-apprentice to novice, novice-amateur to inept.

However your skill in teaching would only affect the cost of teaching, so while an inept teacher might have a high experience cost when teaching, a grandmaster teacher might be able to do so for free, or relatively cheap.

Of course that's only if anyone likes the the idea, if not, my first post sums up my thoughts.

[Eltsac]

Hmm, there may be nothing for it, but what if the teacher, as well as the student, expended experience in order to train? All teachers could train to roughly the same skill level, but higher skill/stats reduced the experience cost for the teacher?

Student already pays for learning from PC, as he would with NPC.
About teacher expending xp, it was in before and it has been removed... and it's a pain... you are forced to grind mobs or whatever for xp to be able to do some rp and to help other teaching them....... (at higher level, available quests become rare to find to gather xp....). It's not really the point of teaching...

(Plus consider spellcasters already spend much more xp in their lifetime than non spellcasters when learning all their spells, thus leveling much slower... you multiply the xp penalty if you spend more xp to teach the spells)

El

[Briek]

Student already pays for learning from PC, as he would with NPC.

depends on the person.

another suggestion I'd like to make. What about a (small) skill increase for the teacher too? who's to say they don't learn anything from the
experience? be a nice little bonus for those that put the effort into teaching.

[Raona]

I appreciate the direction this conversation is going, in that folks are suggesting new ideas that take into account the potential pitfalls that the original system (flawed as it might be) was meant to protect against. Let me attempt a synthesis of the ideas proposed thus far, adding in an idea of my own:

• Eliminate the teacher and scholar feats
• Make teaching a trade or skill (I prefer trade, really)
• Add new feat(s) that work like those for mining/smithing: with them, you are much better ("natural teacher", possibly "scholar" as well)
• Make the TEACH process require experience - from both the teacher and the student
• Cause teaching to increase the skill level of the teacher (some) as well as of the student
• Scale the amount of learning and the amount of experience required with appropriate parameters

The new idea is the last, and there will no doubt be continuing debate about what those parameters should be. On this point I am biased as a teacher, but continue to hold that charisma makes one a more effective teacher, and it should play a key role. INT and WIS as well, but less so. Experience with what you are trying to teach, to some extent. Garumsh should certainly be able to teach the young orcs! But if he does it by yelling at them, slapping them around, and simply showing them what he does, it should be a slow and inefficient process. (I taught in Fiji, where I saw this approach at work.) But I don't see any sense in making the key attributes for a skill help you teach it - if anything, in fact, they should work against you. Geniuses make the worst teachers of the cerebral arts, as I can attest first-hand, and the strong often have trouble appreciating how the weak might do a physical task, let alone have tips borne of experience to offer them.

Left out of the above is the question of whether there should be a cap on to what level one can teach, and also whether there are any lower limits for introducing a skill that someone doesn't know. I think those are the real sticky wickets.

[Isaldur]

I like the idea of it being made a trade.. But the charisma requirement still turns me off to the whole thing. Back when I started training up Garumsh, I wanted him to be a teacher to the future Fighter orcs. I trained up almost all of his skills to GM (since that's what it used to require to teach) just in time for the new system to come into place. While I won't say it was a waste, it did frustrate me that I had sunk hundreds of hours into his skills, and the intended purpose could no longer come to fruition.

Instead of just having it go off of charisma/wisdom/whatever, perhaps your ability to teach a skill could be dependent on what that skill requires? For example:

dodge (Dex,Lck) grandmaster

For that skill, when you attempted to teach it to another, it would base the success of your teaching off of your dexterity, your luck, and your skill level. This way those of us who have a negative modifier to the standard "teaching" stats could still do our part.

Charisma has to play a role somewhere and should not be ignored because people treat it as a dump stat. Should the ability to swing your sword not be dependent on your strength because my character never invested in that stat? Dependent stats are raw talent that aids in how you can perform the skill yourself, not on how well you teach it.

[Selveem]

Charisma has to play a role somewhere and should not be ignored because people treat it as a dump stat. Should the ability to swing your sword not be dependent on your strength because my character never invested in that stat? Dependent stats are raw talent that aids in how you can perform the skill yourself, not on how well you teach it.

The problem is that there is a huuuuuge gap between perceived stats on FK and what they actually are. As some examples of this: People with 16 Dex sometimes fail a Dex check just to pick a single "formation" used in Alchemy; 16's a lot! At 13 Int I was told Selveem is stupid; 13 is well above the average human (and most certainly not stupid). 13 Charisma to a Dwarf is damned near King. 13 Charisma to an Orc is simply unnecessary as Orcs cannot even be compared to humans in culture.

In fact, I would say to perspective classes, their primary statistic would make a valid substitute for Charisma altogether in amongst Orcs.

The problem I see is not that _some_ statistics are required, but that a _lot_ of some statistics are required. Asking 15 Charisma of a Dwarf just to be a really good Teacher is a pretty rough request, especially newer characters who didn't have the benefit of glory convert or those few extra statistics. Let's crunch some numbers here and we'll use a Dwarven Priest smith as an example:

Code: Select all

Players get 29 total statistic points to place from start to finish.
Of those, in order to cast level 9 spells they should have at least 18 natural Wisdom (as the likelihood of finding a +2 Wisdom item on FK is pretty low even today).
As a Priest who will need stamina (a lot of it) to mine often, they should have at least 16 natural Constitution.
As you need relatively decent skill to even teach people as well as Intelligence being the primary attribute of both weaponsmithing and armorsmithing, a natural 16 Intelligence is about what you'll need. You need 15 anyhow just for Scholar 2.
Dexterity is the secondary attribute for both of these and will reeeeally help out having to hold so many various types of ores, but full plate only grants a +1 Dex bonus to AC, so leave that at 12.
A Charisma score of 15 is needed for Teacher 2; to become a real teacher.

Let's tally it up!

Str: 10
Dex: 10 (+2)
Con: 12 (+4)
Wis: 10 (+8)
Int: 10 (+6)
Cha: 8 (+7)

Totaling all these stats equals 27. 27 of your total 29 stats you are able to accumulate over the entire lifetime of your character puts you in a real position to be able to teach mining and smelting (won't get into smithing, as that matter is being discussed elsewhere). That leaves you 2 stats to decide whether you want to: increase your skill levels a little faster by pumping into Int; increase your total stamina (Con) so you have to revive less per mining attempts; or increase your success rate with smelting/mining by pumping into the primary attribute (Str).

This will leave you with a somewhat manageable (though probably never very powerful) Dwarven Priest who can teach Dwarven crafts beyond ale brewing/drinking. If you're an Orc, you drew the short straw and your last 2 points will already be spent just to obtain the statistics above.

This is my main concern when statistics are suggested to be required. It leaves little room for flexibility and stunts the character in most other aspects of the game (such as just carrying a simple suit of armor when your max carry weight is only 100 [don't expect to get under heavy load, either]).

Maybe the statistics can help improve your success rate at teaching (such as making Cha, Wis the trade teaching's primary and secondary attributes)? There could be a failure clause, too, where if you failed to teach you might need to go get some air before your character is willing to try to help their student become better? Allow checks such as 'must be at least 2 (full) skill levels above student's proficiency'?

[Xryon]

I personally abhor the charisma stat, in general, so perhaps I am a bit biased.. if we're going to have it as part of teaching, however, i'd like to see the minimum required be very low. Perhaps anything above that could simply act as a bonus to your success; a bit more learned, less experience taken away from the teacher, etc. Just something that doesnt make having a ludicrously high charisma as a fighter, or one of the races previously mentioned, an absolute requirement.

[Harroghty]

I believe that being good at teaching should be a choice that a PC makes like anything else. You will not be great at mounted combat and at dual wielding, most likely, because you had to pick one route and follow it with your limited number of feat choices.

For this reason I favor a system where teaching is driven primarily by acquired feats (similar to what Raona suggested) and where you may trade feats at level 50 for teaching feats at a glory cost. This would allow older PCs to transition from superior adventurer to wise sage for the younger ones. It would also allow you to begin at level 1 and make a smith if that was your druthers.

I believe that Charisma should be involved, along with Wisdom and Intelligence, because that represents the choice to be a good teacher. You all have probably heard the saying that if teachers were better at what they were teaching, they would be doing it, not teaching it.

[Llanthyr]

Mundane teachers are what the everyday NPCs should be about. Does someone want to RP a mundane teacher? That's fine with me. But, the realms are filled with the following roles: Master and apprentice. Do masters trade off their prowess just so they can apprentice effectively? No, they don't. They are good, very good at what they do. That is what makes them sought after. Most masters are still at their prime, very few are considered "sages". Some may be considered veterans, but with regards to most sages, they are either: 1. wizards, 2. clerics. Therefore, the wis/int/cha stats will not severely hinder their character (since they have primary stats in that selection). In D&D, characters gain wisdom and intelligence with age as well. Guess what, that makes wizards and clerics even more powerful at old age than at a young age.

For the mentioned reasons, I would vote for not having wis/int/cha as PRIME stats that make it a requirement, but I wouldn't mind seeing these stats used for how many "teach" attempts will be required to raise a skill level, similar to how wisdom is currently employed right now.

[Eltsac]

I believe that being good at teaching should be a choice that a PC makes like anything else. You will not be great at mounted combat and at dual wielding, most likely, because you had to pick one route and follow it with your limited number of feat choices.

For this reason I favor a system where teaching is driven primarily by acquired feats (similar to what Raona suggested) and where you may trade feats at level 50 for teaching feats at a glory cost. This would allow older PCs to transition from superior adventurer to wise sage for the younger ones. It would also allow you to begin at level 1 and make a smith if that was your druthers.

I believe that Charisma should be involved, along with Wisdom and Intelligence, because that represents the choice to be a good teacher. You all have probably heard the saying that if teachers were better at what they were teaching, they would be doing it, not teaching it.

But if the decision is to keep it feats :

• maybe 4 feats is a little to much ?

• I'm up for feats that make you a better teacher (teaching up to journeyman instead of amateur and the like) but not feats that locks / unlocks the teaching of certain spells / skills (whatever your teaching method, whip of good teaching, you can teach the basics, some will simply not be able to teach more)

El

[Selveem]

If we're going to have feats, I feel stats shouldn't play a role. And, vice-versa. A feat is meant to do something extraordinary. It's a feat: A specialized skill; a knack. A character's statistics are their individual abilities. Things they have gained through pedigree and possibly devoted great amounts of time to that they might increase upon them.

I feel that right now it's far too costly and because of that it rejects most viable teachers. It's an RP Mud and yet it's being treated as if one should take things it makes no sense to take. I just don't see any proper reasons as to why the simple act of teaching should be treated in such a manner.

I've seen teachers who have 'taken the feat' IRL (completed college and became a college professor) and they ended up being an absolutely horrible teacher such as my college biology.

At the same time, I've had teachers who had great knowledge and college who were also the same, such as my high school history teacher (who, by the way, got paid to just hang out with all of us every day, pretty much).

I don't think it is innate statistics NOR feats that allow people to be good teachers. I feel it's something that neither can capture: motivation.

[Raona]

I don't think it is innate statistics NOR feats that allow people to be good teachers. I feel it's something that neither can capture: motivation.

Heh, you've got something there, Selveem, but it's rather hard to code. But even people who desperately want to be good at teaching often aren't - there's more to it that just motivation, but I'll agree that motivation is essential. That argues for leaving a skill/trade component to teaching.

It would make a lot of sense for one or more of the available feats to de-leverage the stat requirements. With the "natural teacher" feat, you might teach as though the required stats were all +4, or something like that.

I think I need to be blunter on one point: the game management is not going to support a change to teaching (or trades) that allows one PC to be a master of all things. We believe that the game should offer you choices in how you develop your PC, and that those choices should involve trade-offs. Someone so naturally talented at combat that it comes easily will not understand the challenges a more mortal combatant faces, and will not be a great teacher thereof. Yes, there are annoying exceptions out there, folks who are masters of both, and yes, fantasy roleplay is about exceptional characters - but in this aspect, we believe exceptionality should not be applied freely to every axis; just as we wouldn't support mages with natural 20 INT and 20 STR; we make you pick where you sink those stat points.

There is a recurring theme in some replies here that implies the notion that PC's have a right to be good at everything (provided their players try hard enough / twink it to the max / beg and whine / what have you). I am quite certain it is not a notion the staff will get behind. I think if teaching is going to remain, it will have to be as something that requires (significant) trade-offs of some sort. I really like the teaching concept, hence my spending a lot of time on this discussion.

[Selveem]

I can get behind a feat requirement. It hurts a Cleric, but it's fair if it's just one. Maybe another feat that allows you to teach to a higher level, even, but does not require you take the first feat if you meet stat requirements. That means our Orcs can still teach with their crummy-ass Charisma and Intellect score, but have to give up two feats to do it.

I'm not saying a single character SHOULD be good at everything, but in the end it's just a trade. It's not a coded combat advantage and they will have had to earn getting better at these trades, regardless (which, as per another thread I've reported the issue, is no small task as it requires a LOT of time investment AND a frustrating amount of inherent failures).

In D&D you don't have to choose whether your wizard is good at his fireball spell or his "craft magical arms and armor," he's inherently good at casting fireballs and is inherently good at crafting magical arms and armor if he takes the feat for it. There's not even a skill check; you just expend the exp, coin, and time investment.

In D&D, your Cleric doesn't have to trade his strength score to be able to craft mundane, masterwork mithral armor. All he needs is skill points in it, the coin to obtain the raw materials (pending location availability, subject to DM), the tools, and the time to do it. It doesn't even cost experience. You can be the weakest, puniest cleric in all the realms and still be great at crafting as it only requires Int check.

I've said it before, but I guess it's relevant to this subject as well: I don't understand the reasoning by wanting to make things difficult for the sake of making them difficult. It doesn't make people appreciate them more, but, rather avoid bothering with them. It should be fairly simple to create your own armor, but understandably time- and slightly coin-consuming.

[Briek]

When we get right down to it, it's not really that bad I guess:

Briek has one feat in the teacher selection, he can teach:

15 skills/spells/weapons - to apprentice level
16 skills/spells/weapons - from levels inept to novice

Considering I took just one of the four feats I think that's all right. I'd still like to see the suggestion I made earlier about a little
bit more for the teachers though

[Llanthyr]

Revisiting an old thread/topic/bugbear here. This seemed to have gained some traction for a while but died down and nothing seems to have been resolved from this. There have been many good ideas raised in this thread that would be good to see implemented in place of a 4 feat + stat system. The points raised then are still as valid now.

Additional posts:
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=14254&p=92301&hilit=scholar#p92301
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=15284&p=98074&hilit=scholar#p98074

[Yemin]

I'm in support for repealing schollar entirely and reducing the teacher mechanic not feat charisma requirement to 10 instead of 12.
The teacher Feat can still stay as high as it is.

Plenty of teachers with 10 (average) charisma teach perhaps not fantastically but satisfactorily according to most of the world.

It would be nice to fully emerse the Wizard's master apprentice relationship if the master could teach the apprentice to inept. Or the Qabal of wizards teaching each other advanced techniques to empower the organisation.

My only concern is what Raona has outlined above. The game isn't designed to make it possible for a char to be good at everything and even teaching someone a topic to inept with regard of an investment of time is the same as teaching them to apprentice.

It would lesson the need to go out and find things which I am against as the catch'em all pokemon style hunt for skills and spells is one of the game's best features.

What about a mechanic to encourage a more in depth teaching experience? Instead of the command being immediate and the associated help file asking for 10 minutes which Icly 2 hours is still too short to teach some concepts like gate in my oppinion. There is some code like heroic feast that encourages everyone involved in the teaching process to stay put in the same room for 20 - 30 rl minutes while the roleplay takes place or its wasted, then depending on the level of the skill / spell is learnt, ie. 21 for level 5 spells you might have to repeat this process 2 - 4 times before the first rank at inept is gained.

Having the teacher feat and so the requisit charisma / int / wis will then prove immensively useful to shorten the process to 1 - 2 sessions at the most.

This makes the pokemon hunt still far more attractive for soloists, but for those who want the teacher / student relationship they are encouraged to be honest with the roleplay surrounding it. I remember with some teaching roleplay i had last year even though my character couldn't mechanically teach, each session was at least 45 minutes long without planning.

[Gwain]

I'm all for changing it to one feat for teaching and one for scholar instead of two. Scholar for being able to teach higher level spells and to a higher degree, teaching to be able to teach lesser things to a lower degree.

[hasryn]

I concur!