That is one aspect...
Also, Rigwyn missed the point of the "everything"...
a single weapon category, and maybe a corresponding armor category "maxed" - yes, "possible", but it should be "exceptional" and not every Tom, Dick and Harry.
And THEN... some people additionally have maxed one (or even multiple) ways of magic, maybe even crafting, etc...?
This is where realism completely leaves the stage imho.
And for the worst part... Stats...
In the NPC-refactor-Thread, people were asked to describe their fights with NPCs, and were also asked for their stats...
how often have I read "stats all 200"?
Heck why?
"becauise it is possible"?
This is an RP after all, so a char imnsho should fit his ROLE, and not be a collection of (as high as possible) numbers.

"possible" for a bluesuit character is equal to "impossible" for a realistic character...

Strange what one gets to read here...

especially, regarding that "Weißwurst" comment up there...
are there also courses/teachers that are called "german" in the states that do talk about GERMANY and not about BAVARIA?

(For those who do not know that germany has provinces as well... well...
Bavaria is - at least for the rest of the germans - treated similar like the rest of the US treat Texas (and its inhabitants). No offense here, but actually, there are so many parallels... When I was dealing with americans who came to Germany (Essen Game Fair) for their first time, I really encountered dialogues like this:
"Why isn't anyone wearing Lederhosen?"
"Well, Rick, why aren't you wearing a cowboy hat? Are you from Texas?"
"No, I am from Arizona..."
"See? And this is not Bavaria...")

except for the last 9-10 "clues" in Lhaa's big post, I could sign those...

...and now, get playing and stop arguing, howszat?

actually I think the opposite would fit far better - the PP are a great thing to stop grinders in their "tracks" - this is an RP, so...
what I would like to drop is the sometimes outright insane pricing for training, as in comparison too few tria get "dropped/looted/earned in quests... so either lower training prices, or raise "income"...

the theory/practice system is something that IMHO makes PS stand out; one could, if at all, maximally argue which skills are theory/practice to which part, but most I see so far seem to be classified "correctly" here.

I know which quest you mean, I had the same issue...

following hints (not spoilers, just helping along, as you did it right so far):
1. Brado might want to hear a different detail (where you got the cloak info, some other feature was described as well);
2. if that fails to work as well, there is another NPC in Oja that can actually tell you more anyways. Just try your luck...

hm, so far, I had always a blacked-out Mana-bar when cursed...

Black effect on Laanx temple (both sides) and Library (when exiting);
"HoM"-effect at:
- BD area
- as texture of various items (mostly signposts, but also the tent at Jeyarp etc.)