Yelm's Light

Try it. As a righty fencer, I can tell you it makes quite a bit of difference. And, as a matter of fact, I do have a modifier for a righty parrying a lefty or vice versa. Not surprisingly, it almost always occurs against dragonewts, and I've only ever had one PC that specifically was a lefty. It evens out, though, because he got the same modifier trying to parry right-handed attacks. When the case occurs running a game, you deal with it, and I did. Once again, try switching to fencing from the 'off' side and see how much difference it makes. All the knowledge in the world is no substitute for having repeatedly trained in that mode for hundreds or thousands of hours, even if you happen to be the rare person who is both ambidextrous and equally strong on both sides (not the same thing, btw). Even a club has weight and balance and must be learned to be used effectively. Granted, it's not as quick as a rapier, but it can also power through defenses that a rapier wielder would find difficult. Each weapon of whatever type has its own unique characteristics and pros and cons.

There's an intelligent otter in the Troubled Waters campaign in the AH River of Cradles, but no suggestion that it's a spellcaster. It communicates with the PC's via body language and has a boy with it who explains the situation in more readily understandable terms.

Twin Wheels of Fortune? I tend to think it was originally a construct made of the woman's hair and beads that got corrupted based on reinterpreting it from a statue. It reminds me quite a bit of Princess Leia's hairdo. And as a total derail, I like the sixth woman down; classic Catalonian features.

I'd have to totally disagree with this. Not only is the PC untrained with a shield's use in main hand, blows are coming from a different direction. As a matter of fact, I'd go to the other extreme; since the 'main' shield is untrained, I'd treat it exactly as if it were a weapon going main to off hand by halving the skill.

I'd deem that overpowered in my game. In reality, the 'off' weapon is almost always used for parrying; double attacks are pretty rare. The way I do it is to allow the player to attack twice or parry twice or do one of each. This still gives a tactical advantage without it being obviously so much better that everyone will do it instead of its being a RP thing.

Hmmm...there's a point of far too rare for there even to be a special case, and this is beyond it. I've never (in any RPG I've played, not just RQ2) had a player want to wield a shield in main hand and weapon in off hand, nor even had the case where somehow both were dropped in combat and the PC picked up the shield and used that as their main. Since all their training went into using the shield in offhand, I certainly wouldn't double their skill with it just because they used it in their stronger hand. As Morpheus said, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." Muscle memory and all that.

Metamagical Themas...

It also provides latitude for storytelling/scenario-making.

I always played that a crit ignores armor and an impale does not.

Hmm...Agony and Reload look a lot more than minor to me, at least inasmuch as enterprising players would exploit them.

Looking at it from a realist point of view, it's not inconceivable in the slightest that someone less than 10 yards away* could reach an archer before he could get an effective shot off (this based on simulation experience, having been an old-time member of the SCA and dealing with these types of things. He might be able to get a shot off, but the odds are that if he didn't stop to aim carefully it would glance off of the oncoming attacker's armor. * Sorry, I still think in the English system.

As far as multiple protections is concerned, to use your analogy, just because you can't tell the sound is there doesn't mean that it isn't.

Coming from a RQ2 perspective, version does matter; there are some slightly different answers. The rules state that you can't have two of the same spells stack (i.e. Prot 2 + Prot 2 = Prot 2, not Prot 4), Note also that certain battle magic spells are incompatible with each other; specifically listed as not working with Protection are Countermagic, Shimmer, and Spirit Shield. Stackable rune magic spells will have their effects stack up to 4 points, which pretty much covers all of those personal defense-type rune spells. There's a specific example of stacking of battle and rune magic under Shield (note that these personal-protection rune magic spells last for 15 minutes and cannot be knocked down): And since there is no sorcery in RQ2, that's moot, but the above should answer everything under question 1. As for question 2, back to the rules again: critical hits will penetrate Protection, and since Shield says it serves as a Protection and Countermagic in the rules, I'd go with the ruling that crits will ignore any magic protection. I can't come up with any other examples at this point, but I would think that would apply as a general rule. I can see arguments both pro and con on the natural armor, but in general I'd say crits ignore all protection of any type. 3a) According to the above example, you'd have Prot 5 (with the above-quoted proviso) and Countermagic 2, regardless of the order of casting. 3b & 3c) Protection is effectively RQ2's damage absorption spell, so that's academic. 4) No explicit mention, but the rules do say "Countermagic...will attempt to stop any other spell incoming against the protected person or object" so I'd have to go with Yes here. 5) Nope. Once the defensive spell is cast, that's the way it will stay.

Hmm...superlative with no face protection?

Book VIII (VII through X, actually), are Plato's critiques of the extant forms of government as he had classified them. As I said before, he does mention war explicitly there, but in the context of those forms of government waging it. As for Syse's analysis, there are some pretty tenuous connections there. He claims that because the Peloponnesian War happened during Plato's young life, war is always at the back of his mind. I'm pretty solid on my knowledge of Greek literature, and I can tell you there is no explicit mention of the Republic (not tyranny, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, or democracy, but the actual utopian state he defines) waging war. Syse is reading what he wants into it.

This isn't really the forum for a long debate on the Republic, but I'm curious where Plato suggests expansionism in terms of the utopia. He goes into it briefly when discussing the 'bad' or less just forms of government near the end of the book, but I can recall no references to the Republic doing so.

As for wood, at that level of technology, trees take years to grow large enough for planking and beams, without any kind of reforestation program. They would've been exhausted years ago unless they were unsuitable for those applications.

Nor do the Praxians know that. And they already have the example of Lunar incursion into Pent, driving Pentan tribes into their lands as well.

Exactly the attitude of American settlers (and pretty much the rest of the nation) towards Indians, who were being pushed out of their lands by invader forces and attacked not only the invaders but other tribes. Sound familiar?

Hmmm...if this is really more a Platonic utopian society (which, from all indications, it is, with the addition of the wizard caste), it would tend to be far more pacifistic and isolationistic than that. They wouldn't go looking for trouble, but would be ready to deal with it if it should insinuate itself into their national affairs.

Except for one factor, the survival imperative. Think of tribes as somewhat analogous to Amerindian tribes before the incursion of the white man. In general, the people of individual tribes got along together fairly well, even in a generally more hospitable environment. However, intertribal clashes could be bloody and incurring long-standing enmity.

I actually had some similar thoughts from a different direction, specifically regarding the nomad tribes but with a somewhat less dramatic scope. One of the activities for more experienced members of many clans in my game was to raid for and haul back a wagonload of lumber primarily for making weapons. A single good-sized tree trunk could supply a clan for years. I never gave much thought to Pavis, as I assumed that buildings there were mostly made of stone.

Being a native English speaker I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I always took Stormwalk Mts. to mean 'a place so high that you could walk in the storm.'

Sweet and a half...very nicely done.

I've played probably 30 or 40 different RPG's in my life. RQ wasn't the first, but it was definitely the class of the field. (Of course, this implies a certain willing suspension of disbelief anyway.) Personally, anthropomorphic ducks existing is a pretty shallow reason to come up with for not playing a game.