Apprentices (CShaH)

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Sorcerers are respected and feared throughout the Land of Fate, their reputations far preceding them in their travels. They occupy every strata of society, often rising from the ranks of beggars to become trusted advisers to a caliph. Because of this, they are often sought out by would-be students yearning for magical knowledge.
Of course, not all sorcerers are going to want to deal with a sudden line of apprentices at the door and may simply never enter into the teaching side of sorcery. Others, however, realize the convenience of having a number of young, strong backs at their command. Apprentices spend a good deal of their time performing back-breaking labor in exchange for a minor spell. Unscrupulous sorcerers may even go so far as to string apprentices along, always promising power yet never delivering.
Despite their hard lot, there are still plenty of young men and women who seek out a powerful sorcerer to study with. Eventually, player characters become such sorcerers and eager students may begin seeking them out.
Characters who do not wish to be tied down with a number of dependent students can simply turn away those who come to them. After turning away enough students, word will spread and the mage will be bothered no more.
Accepting an apprentice, though, will bring even more students the sorcerer must deal with. This section covers the acquisition and training of sorcerous apprentices as well as their practical and not-sopractical uses.
When a sorcerer reaches 9th level, the first apprentices will begin to approach him. The location of the character and the number of impressive deeds performed by the character in that vicinity will determine the initial number of applicants.
The initial apprentices-to-be will always be the least promising. Most will come from the poorer population, hoping to rise in wealth and power as a mysterious sorcerer.
If the sorcerer has a permanent base of operations, such as a particular city, he will naturally attract more potential apprentices than a mage who spends her time wandering from place to place, or keeps her location well hidden.
Sorcerers with an established base of operations will be approached by 1d4 0-level apprentices within 1d6 weeks of attaining 9th level. The apprentices do not arrive en masse, but arrive singly or in pairs over the course of a few weeks. They are of low station (1d4+1) and will bring nothing but the clothes on their backs and a desire to learn magic. Therefore, they will require food and shelter and any special clothing the sorcerer wants them to wear. Basic upkeep for an apprentice will cost the sorcerer approximately 3 sp per month. This provides simple meals and other basic necessities for the apprentice, but nothing else. If the sorcerer doesn't have room for all his apprentices, he will have to build onto his abode or put them up in a nearby inn.
Sorcerers who wander about or who keep their location hidden from the general populace will initially have but a single applicant for apprenticeship. The apprentice will arrive within 1d4 months of the character's attaining 9th level, and, like those above, arrives with nothing save the clothes on his or her back. Costs for maintaining this apprentice are the same as those listed above.
Apprentices will only leave the sorcerer if they are treated very poorly. As long as they are fed and sheltered, they will put up with whatever abuse the sorcerer heaps upon them. The exception to this is execution—any mage who knowingly kills off an apprentice will find all of his apprentices leaving him. The offending sorcerer should also receive some sort of severe experience penalty for committing such a craven act. A change to an evil alignment (if the character is not already evil aligned) is in order as well. In addition to the above penalties, other sorcerers are likely to take umbrage over the killing of an apprentice. After all, it damages the reputation of all sorcerers, and such actions are not to be tolerated.
Once the apprentices have arrived and settled in, they will expect their mentor to begin teaching them magical knowledge. Most sorcerers will hold classes once a month, allowing their apprentices time off from their chores to attend. (Basic chores like cleaning and cooking must still be taken care of.)
Classes may last from one day to one week. And, if they study hard enough and are magically adept, the apprentices may gain experience for every day of class.
At the end of every day of teaching, there is a base 20 percent chance that each apprentice has learned something. This chance is modified by the apprentice's "chance to learn spell" as determined by their Intelligence score. Thus, an apprentice with an Intelligence of 9 (the minimum possible for a sorcerer) will have a 55 percent chance to learn something at a given class. If an apprentice does learn something, he gains a number of experience points equal to of the teacher's "chance to learn spell" percentage rounded down. Experience gained in class is modified by -5 XP for each student in the class after the first.
As an example, consider a class being taught by one Akbar ibn Aziz. Akbar is a 9th-level sorcerer with an Intelligence of 17. His base "chance to learn spell" percentage is 75 percent. His students are Farida, Anwar, and Fatima. Respectively, their "chance to learn spell" percentages (as determined by their Intelligence) are 40 percent, 70 percent, and 85 percent.
During their first day of instruction, Akbar introduces the apprentices to the basics of spellcraft. After a grueling session with the irritable mentor, the DM rolls to see which apprentices learned something that day. Farida rolls a 33, Anwar a 71, and Fatima a 27. Farida and Fatima both succeed, rolling lower than their respective "chance to learn spell" percentages of 40 percent and 85 percent. They earn a total of 27 XPs each. That's half of Akbar's "chance to learn spells" (75 ÷ 2 = 37 rounded down) modified by -10 for two extra pupils (37 - 10 = 27).
Anwar, on the other hand, was not paying close attention to his mentor; he failed his roll and learned nothing that day. Akbar won't be happy to have his time wasted.
Anwar's failure raises an important factor that can easily limit the number of apprentices a sorcerer may have. Any apprentice who fails to learn anything three days in a row lacks the necessary ability to become a sorcerer. The sorcerer teaching such an apprentice will sense this lack of ability in his pupil and may decide to eject the dullard from his domicile. Or, hard-hearted sorcerers may string the poor fool along to wring out a bit more labor. Apprentices tricked in this way will recognize their lack of ability in 1d6 weeks and leave of their own volition.
Apprentices need 2,500 XP to achieve 1st level. Upon reaching this, an apprentice may continue his studies or leave and take his chances in the world of adventuring. Those apprentices who stay on must choose to study the same elemental provinces as their mentor, though they may opt to switch primary and secondary provinces. Apprentices who study the same primary and secondary provinces as their mentor can learn from that mentor until they reach half of their teacher's level (round down). Those who decide that they would rather reverse their primary and secondary provinces may only learn from their mentor until they reach a level that is (rounded down) of the teacher's level.
For instance, Fatima (from the example above) achieves 1st level after arduous study and long hours of shoveling manure in Akbar's stables. She chooses to stay on and study under Akbar rather than strike out on her own. Akbar's primary province is flame and his secondary is sand. Fatima may either take flame as her primary and sand as her secondary, or she could reverse them and take sand as the primary. If she does change sand to her primary province, she will only be able to rise to 3rd level under Akbar's tutelage. If Akbar rises in level, Fatima will be able to learn more from him.
Once a sorcerer's apprentices attain 1st level and become sorcerers in their own right, a new batch of applicants will arrive for teaching. For every apprentice at 1st level, a new student will seek the mage out. This will occur within 1d4 weeks of the apprentice gaining 1st level. The new student will be of 1st to 3rd level and will always have the same primary and secondary provinces as the teacher. These new apprentices start with a station of 1d6+4.
The new student is not only of better quality than the first apprentices, but will also arrive bearing gifts. In exchange for being accepted as an apprentice, the student will bring a tribute equal to 100 gp per level of the student. The gift may be actual money but more often will be a minor magic item, hard to find spell components, or other such gifts.
The new students require upkeep just as the first apprentices did, and cost the same to maintain (around 3 sp per month). They follow the same procedure for studying under the master but may learn spells in addition to the normal course material of magical theory.
Every apprentice of 1st level or higher can learn spells. The time required to learn a spell is one day for every two levels of the spell. Thus, a 4th-level spell requires two days of study to learn. A mentor may only instruct one apprentice at a time when teaching spells due to the complicated nature of such instruction. Because it can be so time consuming, spell teaching is rarely done, and apprentices vie among themselves for the right to learn another spell.
What does a sorcerer gain for all the time he spends teaching his apprentices? First, he gains a number of followers who will come to his defense if he so needs. Also, the sorcerer may require his apprentices to take a part-time job and give him the money. Apprentices can also aid in spell research and may be sent out to retrieve spell components. In short, for the time he spends instructing his pupils the sorcerer gains a small number of loyal servants and allies.
Apprentices will not be every character's cup of tea, and some sorcerers may choose to have no apprentices to tie them down. But for those that do, this system is very easy to use and requires little paperwork. It also gives the DM a handy number of NPCs, which can be used as adventure hooks ("Akbar, Fatima has been captured by the yak-men!") or as interesting background.
DMs are encouraged to allow the players of sorcerer characters to make the apprentices, fleshing them out to whatever degree they desire. If properly supervised, this can help build an attachment to the apprentice characters, which makes them that much more real to the player. Overall, apprentices add variety to a campaign and have many role-playing uses.
Sorcerers do not attract followers other than apprentices. They may hire NPCs to act as guards or other specialized sorts of servitors (masons, tailors, cooks, etc.), but these are not gained by virtue of level advancement.