The game designers seem to have intended that Ragnar can't fight. They don't tell us his mind points and we have no way in the game (yet) to restore those, but I bet that is the reason he can't fight somehow Just a theory. But if he's wounded, we should be able to heal him, how much is Zargon's call. We might not be able to give him a weapon but giving him a spare piece of armor seems reasonable (he's a "knight" not a wizard who can't wear it). Can we give him a potion to save himself in case he gets killed? Zargon gets to decide.
It would seem reasonable that we could heal him if he got hurt during the mission, but can we heal him before that? Again, you're the GM, you decide. I think generally speaking that's the rule, if the rules are ambiguous, you decide in those gray areas. And unless the Heroes are abusing it, why worry?
As for passing equipment, it does exist in the Game System, NA edition at least. Lair of the Orc Warlord specifically states when you find a Staff that you can give it to another Hero. Doesn't say the conditions under which you need to do that, but it says you can. When you find the Wizard's Cloak it says its of "special interest to the Wizard. Give him..." but it isn't explicit that the "him" is the Hero who killed the bad guy, or that the Wizard automatically gets it (unless he's dead, of course). Of course the NA doesn't have an equipment deck, it just refers to weapons, armor and tool kit found on the Armory board. The 2021 remake has no armory but an equipment deck (apparently which now includes potions and holy water too, so they'll probably clarify those rules).
I agree that it seems ridiculous if you have two weapons that you can't switch between them. The only question is whether a player will try to abuse it by saying he's always attacking with his battle axe and always defending with his shield ("switching" in the background, effectively subverting the rule that he can't use both at the same time).
Oftkilted is right. The Instructions do indeed say that character specific Artifacts "should" be given to the Hero who can use them. And the same page does indeed say you can give a potion to another Hero on your own turn. Does that mean giving someone a weapon (and let him use it) is off limits in the game system? I think it's unclear. But I don't see why you'd have a problem with it, again, unless its being abused.
Kellar's keep says you can give Artifacts to other Heroes on your turn (doesn't limit it to ones that you can't use but another Hero can).
We're dealing with the NA rules here, so obviously the EU may vary, but we did get the EQP (though I didn't personally own it, or the BQP which has the same info), it was officially released in our territory and it does indeed talk about "shock" (vs. 0 mind point heroes being rendered unconscious and taken out of the quest).
ROTWL says large amounts of gold should be "divided" among the Heroes to prevent conflict. It also explicitly allows you to divide other treasure finds, including when multiple artifacts are found. It also says weapon finds can be divided. You could be strict and say this only applies at the time of discovery, not later in the quest, but still...
EQP/BQP says:
Passing Items: A Hero can pass a potion, artifact, weapon or any other item to another Hero only if the 2 Heroes are in adjacent squares and neither Hero is adjacent to a monster.
Other than not being adjacent to a monster, we all pretty much assumed this was reasonably permissible. When we played as kids you could toss a potion across the corridor, but roll to see if it broke (butter fingers!), obviously that's a house rule, and we figured throwing a weapon was too dangerous (you caught it... with your face!).
That's more of an RPG thing... the player asks Zargon if he can perform some random, plausible feat, and rolls to see if it succeeds or fails (usually 50% chance). But it's not every turn. Homebrew, house rule.
Selling items is something we always knew about, even though we didn't buy the EQP (which explicitly explains how that works, as does the BQP). I'll keep looking (wanted to see for myself) where it states that. Seems like a pretty common game mechanic. Maybe a friend told me this and I just liked it and always played that way? [Edit: Japanese version of HQ explicitly states the sell back at 50% list price to the Armory rule]
Re-reading these rules due to these great discussions I often find little tidbits that I had forgotten. I often forget that Wandering Monster encounters don't (necessarily) end the heroes turn. You defend after the attack (and you already used your action, assuming you triggered him by searching) but you may still have your movement left, etc.
