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Am I missing something with chosen follower 2 free Spells a year

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Senko

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« on: <08-07-17/0311:02> »
I'm reading through forbidden arcana and the chosen follower allows you to pick a number of different instruction types from your mentor spirit with limits on how often it can be used. The best of these as a general benefit is the 2 free spells a year. Sure most game campaigns are only likely to run long enough in game time for you to use it once or twice. However with no normal need for someone to actually teach you a spell (in the finding a specific tutor sense) you'd only need to be able to use it twice to save more karma than you spent on the quality not counting the other benefits and as a general mage benefit over 40+ years in real world terms  it's incredibly potent. So I'm just wondering am I missing something again?

Beta

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« Reply #1 on: <08-07-17/1003:41> »
It doesn't say one way or another, but I assume you still have to pay karma, just don't have to chase down formula, spend time, have contacts that can teach things, etc.

Sphinx

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« Reply #2 on: <08-07-17/1007:48> »
You do have to follow a Mentor Spirit first, which imposes restrictions on your behavior. You can only claim a benefit on solstices and equinoxes. And as you pointed out, most campaigns tend not to run longer than a few months in game time. But yeah, for a long-term campaign, the return on your karma investment is enormous.

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #3 on: <08-07-17/1112:00> »
You save on time and money, but not on Karma as far as I can tell from the text.

As GM I usually don't enforce the training time rules, so this quality isn't that strong in my games, but for long running games with all rules active and where everyone plays a magic elf this becomes invaluable
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Beta

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« Reply #4 on: <08-07-17/1446:50> »
Also great for character background.  In an online game I'm playing an elf born in 2013 who just got parole after serving forty years of a life sentence for murders  -- how did she learn what bits of magic she has?  This quality  made the character make a lot more sense.  Gave up a couple of spells for it with no regrets.

Senko

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« Reply #5 on: <08-07-17/1918:25> »
Oh I know in most games the return is more roleplay than mechanical but in a longer term game or for a "real" mage the return as written could be enourmous. If you do rule no karma cost since it does specify it for other things then you can pretty much instantly get the 10 karma for the trait back by taking 2 spells that year then everything else is just a bonus. Which for the longer lived ones could by immense.

Overbyte

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« Reply #6 on: <09-23-17/1520:06> »
Yes. I read this and thought it is easy to interpret as taking no Karma, but that really would be HUGELY OP.
Only the first two really read like that might even be possible. The second two are "Reduce the time..."
It is only 10 karma. As the previous poster said you'd get that back instantly if you used the first option (Learn two spells) and then save 10 more from boosting a magic skill from 1-3.
I think you have to read them all as just reducing times.

Perhaps a clarification in the errata is in order here.
Nothing is foolproof. Fools are so ingenious.