[Homerule?] Half Magic as Skill bonus?

[kosmit]

I thought about something.
Imagine 6th Circle Weaponsmith with Craft Armor on Rank 3 from Half Magic. This Weaponsmith decides "Hey! I want to specialize in Armor Crafting" and here is my problem.
Should he relearn Craft Armor Skill from the basics? This is illogical because he want to specialize in knowledge he already posses( from HM on Rank 3). I think that he should be able to allign this HM Rank and learn skill on Rank 4 (of course for LP costs for Rank 4).

Second thing that I thought about is situation when this Weaponsmith have chosen Craft Armor during character creation at Rank 3. Until 6th Circle it is ok but what after that when HM becomes more advantageous? Skill become useless. I don't want this to happen I would like to compensate to player who had chosen it, but don't have idea how
Weaponsmith already possesed knowledge about Crafting Armor when he was initiated to Discipline so he won't be learning crafting from the begining, so I thought about giving him HM bonus to skill which he already posses, and not to roll karma on it. So 4th Circle Weaponsmith would have 3 Craft Armor starting Rank and + 2 (circle/2) to skill Rank because while he was advancing he studied more advanced techniques to what he already had known.

[thezombiekat]

The same issue occurred to me.

My solution was to rule that there would be no benefit to have both the skill and half magic and advise my players not to take overlapping skills. I was not totally happy with this but everything else that occurred to me was too complex.

[Telarus_KSC]

I've been considering giving an Adpet a +1 Result Bonus on Half-Magic Tests for every 3 ranks in the skill, rounded up (this mirrors the Questor Powers which improve steps for every 3 ranks in the Questor Talent).

[Meat Puzzle]

I have noticed this issue too especially looking at the pre-made characters in the back of The Player's Guide. A lot of them chose skills they can do as half-magic tests like the Nethermancers Alchemy or the Warriors Military History. To solve this I decided to use the Aligning Talents and Skills on pg. 240 of The Palyer's Guide and just use it towards the Half-Magic test.