Pretty sure they could actually. You're looking at it incorrectly.
Imagine if we combined a pure 47 BP Diagram + 47 BP Cultivation + 47 BP Binary build into one package. Such a character would effectively have 13 EFBs. Something greater than Chronomancy is organization. Three times the people equals three times the effort spent.
I guess the crux of my arguing is that it doesn't seem like that's what would result in Retinue's case.
Like, even assuming that each character has enough widely applicable stuff to be worth one whole magic system when used on everyone in the group, you'd effectively have 6 systems at 25% learning rate for a total of 1.5 systems at a normal learning rate.
...Actually, screw it, that's good enough for me. We'd probably not more than double the potency of Seven Seals via Forebearers's Blade, and a pessimistic 1.5 magic systems return power time invested kinda edges that out.
And I suppose it'd actually be a bit better than normal, assuming results can be shared, because you could have each Retinue member working on a different system and then just bootstrap each other with what they've learned.
I guess, in a perfect world, we'd effectively get a little less than 150% normal progression, assuming all training results could be shared.
And I suppose that if you assume that even 50% or less of the results were applicable to other people, as long as each member had an additional x2 growth rate stapled on everything would work out.
...Plus, it'd be possible to chuck all our companions into a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, as they wouldn't be affected by our Curses that make that kind of thing bad for us to do. That'd be an extraordinary way to powerlevel them and punch above our effective weight class. Would probably have to get Oaths of Loyalty though, so they don't squish us like a bug when they come out of there swole as heck.
Yeah, alright, I'm sold. Thanks to everyone who argued with me on this, and Rihaku for Devil's Advocating so well.
The Best Curse mitigation build is probably with Gisena + Retinue + Relinquishment. It pretty much in the long term make them manageable and ensures that we won't break under the strain.
Allow me to introduce myself, as even though I'm sold on Retinue I still really want Relinquishment.
[X] Plan: Vacation Days
-[X] The Sword That Ends the World
-[X] Seven Seals
-[X] Gisena Allria, the Nullity Sorceress
-[X] Retinue
-[X] Relinquishment
A Retinued Gisena is effectively a First Stage mitigation to all of our Curses at once, which immediately boosts the amount of time off we get with Relinquishment and lowers the recharge time. Finding four other people who can mitigate Curses like Gisena should offer even further amounts of mitigation, which again boosts the break offered by Relinquishment.
While Forebearer's Blade does boost Seals a fair amount, that only applies to us specifically, which doesn't really do much when we're relying on other people to come up with things to mitigate our Curses. Relinquishment is there because it offers the most mitigation possible for a Cursebearer. Seriously, even with no mitigation effort at all, over 1,000 years Relinquishment would offer 100 weeks of no Curses whatsoever, a little under two years worth of freedom. If we can gather a Retinue of mitigators, that number would shoot rapidly up.
And if my idea about chucking our retinue into a Hyperbolic Time Chamber plays out, they might eventually become so much more powerful than us that they could massively mitigate all of our Curses, granting us a whole bunch of vacation time via Relinquishment.
Although I'll probably switch to Forebearer's Blade if this doesn't gain traction, because massively mitigated is still massively mitigated, even if we don't have get to have vacation time.
