rravenwood

This is pretty much what "Skill Rolls Based On Alternate Characteristics" (6E1 55-56) suggests.  If a particular situation calls for a different Characteristic to come into play than the normal one used for the Skill Roll, then do a quick recalc of the character's Skill Roll based on the different Characteristic.  Makes a lot of sense to me.  (Not that I've actually played in multiple dog's ages, but...)

This is pretty much what "Skill Rolls Based On Alternate Characteristics" (6E1 55-56) suggests.  If a particular situation calls for a different Characteristic to come into play than the normal one used for the Skill Roll, then do a quick recalc of the character's Skill Roll based on the different Characteristic.  Makes a lot of sense to me.  (Not that I've actually played in multiple dog's ages, but...)

I think there's a "chicken and the egg" issue here.  If the game is built around combat, players build combat-capable characters.  If the game were focused on athletics, social interaction or courtroom drama, players would build characters that can contribute to such areas.  I'm not sure track & field would make for a great game - single-person sports would not be conducive to a game group.  But fencing, judo and wrestling are "combat sports" we can better simulate with combat rules and we avoid one-on-one combats for the same reason.
 
 
The physical combat system does not require players to demonstrate exactly how they aim their bow, swing their sword or shoot fire from their eyes, nor how they will tough out that arrow in their shoulder, block that sharp metal with their shield or shrug off those flames. 
 
Most issues I see with social conflict "players aren't good at" comes from GM's who are fine with Big Barney, who needs two rest stops to haul his obese body up a flight of stairs, doing Kirk shoulder rolls as he nimby weaves through mook enemies to backflip over the Big Bad for an attack from behind with his rapier - stiletto combined attack, but insist on Walter Wallflower "role playing" his Casanova-level seduction skills in "social combat" with the Femme Fatale.  Once we accept that the characters have skills that the players do not, so we should not base success or failure on the player's skills, that issue goes away.

We had to say goodbye to our cat tonight.  We're all pretty wrecked.
 
2008 - October 22, 2023.  ❤️

Off to listen to Rush, now.

Your guess that it's like a Haymaker is correct: maneuvers listed as 1+1 "require a Full Phase plus one Segment and land at the end of the Segment after they’re begun."  (HSMA p.6).

"Ralph?  Could I have a word with you?"

 
"I would beg to differ as well."

 
"Yeah, what are we?  Chopped liver?"

 
"You wouldn't say that bound by the Lasso of Truth."

"RRRAAAUUGGHHH!!!"

 
"Nuff Said!"

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Your guess that it's like a Haymaker is correct: maneuvers listed as 1+1 "require a Full Phase plus one Segment and land at the end of the Segment after they’re begun."  (HSMA p.6).

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."
 
~ Will Rogers

Cranky old man. I already have the costume.

I fall in between Gauntlet and GD Shore. Magical healing -- assuming it's available to the masses, and not just to the wealthy/privileged -- could certainly lower the child death rate. However, pre-industrial and early industrial societies also had a high birth rate, in part to counter the losses of children to disease and mishap. Historical experience shows that when child mortality declines, the birth rate also tends to decline, so that would not be the defining factor. GD Shore is correct, the ultimate determinant for how large a population can grow in an area is the available food and water. Most civilizations collapse at the point when their population exceeds those resources. For cities to grow, they have to build sufficient infrastructure to bring those resources to the masses and distribute them effectively. It's why the earliest urban civilizations arose in river valleys, with fertile land and convenient transportation. And it's why pre-industrial cities with the highest populations were those in locations with abundant supplies of those things, or with the means to bring them in as needed, incentivized by the economic and political advantages to building a large city in certain places.
 
The demand for laborers in the Industrial Age led to unprecedented concentrations of people in cities, which had to build more elaborate and efficient infrastructure, aided by new technologies. If magical healing could significantly impact the death rate, it would be reasonable to assume that magical environmental control could also parallel the tech innovations improving access to and delivery of food and water.
 
And since the Flanaess of Greyhawk has all those kinds of magic, they tend to support my contention that its population should be higher in at least some cases.