Synth's hyperbole about being able to indie train in 5-10 minutes is questionable at best. Especially at higher levels.
Would you rather be a no-name indie hunter who can kill bahamets and dies stupidly in obscurity, or would you rather build relationships and tell stories?
If you're having problems recruiting people or training them up to your level I feel bad for you son, but that's the role you chose and you can work on fixing at least part of that.
It's not hyperbole.
All you need to skill up is being able to fail a single time. I don't know exactly how the timer, %gain, %chance-to-gain things work, exactly, but as long as you can at least get a fail, eventually you will get a skillgain.
The plateau phase is all about
not being able to generate that single fail that you need. I find it highly questionable whether you'd be able to generate those fails at advanced or above on a non-magick-buffed human, even at the highest levels of base D.
Once your base O/D gets insanely high, then yes...even the most uber critters around Allanak you'll need to kill three or four of them to generate a single failure, even with a weapon that you have zero skill in, which means it will take you longer than 5-10 minutes. However, to get one weapon skill to master...you'll still be getting "easy" fails, so you can pop out, get your fail, then go back home.
I'm going to tell you all how to train in a clan to maximum effect, since everyone is confused.
You -cannot- simply bang away at each other.
You have to set it up so that one person plays defense, and maximizes everything about their gear, encumbrance, status, etc. so that their defense is absolutely the best it can possibly be. This usually means stripping down to very light encumbrance and etwo'ing the weapon that you're the most skilled with. Use disengage as soon as the fight starts and -only- defend against the attacker.
Then one person has to play offense (this person will be the one getting trained). This person has to make sure that their offensive capability is absolutely the worst it can possibly be (without getting into the realm of code prohibiting you from generating a skillgain at all). Get your encumbrance to "heavy, but manageable." If you only want to train your weapon skill, ep it and don't use a secondary weapon. If you want to train etwo, etwo a weapon that you have zero skill in. If you want to train dual wield, 'es' a weapon and use no primary weapon (or ep a shield).
This works best if you're training while the black moon is up.
Even under those circumstances, I seriously doubt you'll be able to get to master training only on non-magick-buffed humanoids. PC agility + base D doesn't seem to get high enough to ever reliably counter PC weapon skill + base O at high levels. I am almost certain that parries and blocks do not count as skill failures for your weapon/style skill. Only a dodge will count. If you aren't getting dodges, you aren't failing.
