[member="Coryn Raxis"]
Coci Heavenshield said:
This is generally subjective depending on who promotes you. So I can only go on what I look for when considering promoting a Padawan to Knighthood, and Knight to Master.
What [member="Coci Heavenshield"] said.
I try to tie it to what my characters would expect or demand, since I try to keep promotions connected to IC events. To date, Siobhan and Kaida have trained and promoted three apprentices to knight: Tempest, Natoline Kerrigan and Elayne Saedaris. The reasoning and what the girls did to earn the promotion varied, as did their post counts and stories, but in all three cases we had clear character development, Force progression and field work that showed they earned it. Both my Master chars are focused on practical work, so that'll count the most.
As for Master, yep activity is vital. Personally I don't think training someone else to Knight is a prerequisite. Siobhan never trained anyone until she had been a Master for a long time, same with Kaida (who ICly is very averse to teaching). If someone wants to be a Master, I'd ask what are they a Master of? If a Knight has a long list of threads, but most of them are just random posts, there's little development and/or personality, then I'd say that candidate is not ready, compared to someone who's got less threads but actual development.
A word on training threads, strictly speaking training does not necessarily have to consist of 'I go to Master X to learn Force Power Y'. I've had fun writing those threads, once the awkwardness of 'lift random rock for X minutes' is overcome, but training can easily consist of a mission. E.g. Let's say you have a character who's focused on lightsabre combat, telekinesis or similar offensive stuff.
So you to explore some ancient Sith tomb, kill lots of beasties in the process, something you're good at. Then you encounter an ancient spirit who decides it would be fun to mind rape you. In other words you have to deal with something you've got little training for, and must use ingenuity to survive. Perhaps you overcome the challenge but emerge very scarred and damaged...but you've gained XP! And have incentive to better yourself. Or things go very badly...in which case you have XP as well. School of hard knocks builds character.