Humanoid Pretenders are too expensive

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
Perhaps an easy solution would be to have either A.) Human pretenders give a total nationwide research bonus. B.) A Provincial Research Bonus or C.) Always count as researching even when doing other activities.

I don't see it inconcievable for mages of the highest order are constantly studying even while on the road or forging.

I rather like this idea. It seems very appropriate for, say, the Great Sage, rather than his mere "research bonus", which seems rather small relative to everything else. That way, a Rainbow pretender wouldn't have to suffer the huge opportunity costs of multipath SCs, since he could be simultaneously studying and doing things.

If others had different related abilities, you'd perhaps see more people taking them for their abilities. Given that they are fairly easily killed, and otherwise mostly useless, these abilities would have to be fairly neat anyway to compare to, say, a proper asswhailer and/or blessing effect. If the potency of the ability were then tied to the number and perhaps type of magic paths taken, you could cut down the abuse of somebody taking purely the chassis for an ability which is front-loaded into the chassis itself, and not actually building a rainbow mage out of it.