[quote=@Takashi]
[@Narcotic Dollie][@MyCatGinger] Well, you could always [i]play [/i]a combat novice, that way you can find a character to mentor you. Or, a support character that doesn't fight but has some kind of special ability. Also, I'd be happy to personally help you along so you can join in.
[/quote]

[@Narcotic Dollie][@MyCatGinger] That and there's been discussion of non-combatant roles. If we were to take to a guild-like setting, you could play as a variety of non-combat character types :P

Now, as for the RP...

I've had quite a bit of experience with party and quest-based RPs. They're by no means perfect, of course, but for the duration of the RP, the characters seem to progress in strength overtime. Of course, when you have a death lord and crazy fairy on your team, it can get a little difficult to balance things out when compared to "the smartest Orc" or a simple bowman.  But it still works. People tend to get better at things over time, and I believe exploring this factor could be quite beneficial to both the flow and the power issue of the RP. In regards to the general setting, the guild with the western/eastern setting sounds nice. 

Now, on the topic of combat, I'm going to admit to something that I utterly [i]hate[/i] about myself: a lot of the time, I forget the opponent's actions. Basically, I forget to take damage when writing ;-; The strange thing is, when I write my response, I'll often be taking some form of damage into account, however I simply forget to put at the beginning that so-and-so was hit by a sledgehammer. I forget to actually put in that my character got hit, yet their actions afterwards are effected by the hit, still. That's my biggest problem with PvP, because I know it's going to happen at some point XD That aside, my characters are generally pretty nice for bad people, so they won't pick on anyone who's "weaker" than them. Also, I'm all for that named system ma-doo-hicky that you've mentioned - I often use it myself!

The scale of the world is something I generally don't consider in a fantasy RP. I've had characters go to entirely new continents in their lifetime, and others who stay in a city only. Basically, the world just sort of creates itself depending on the player's actions. It just sort of happens. 

Races aren't exactly my specialty, especially eastern ones. I think other people would do better at this than me. Basically my rule of thumb is: if it's humanoid, it's generally OK. 

Ah, and yes, the forbidden arts. Some might call them the "OP bullshit" arts. I don't often delve into stuff like that, though the last time I did was with Maryvale. To cut things short, Maryvale was a dark knight who could channel dark energy through her blade to create precise and powerful slashes of energy, however she could also channel it through her body. These powers were destructive and powerful, so in order to counter this, I made them damaging towards Maryvale herself - basically, they were slowly killing her. In order to make her at least able to survive longer than two fights, I gave her a very weak regeneration ability. It could heal all types of wounds, however doing so required her to be either completely still or at a walking pace, a certain amount of time (10 minutes) had to pass before it could activate, and the healing rate was quite slow. I think for a small cut it took something like 45 minutes to fully heal. The healing factor could put a pause on the effects of poisons, however only when sleeping or drinking a potion could those be fully nullified. Basically, if you're going to do the dark arts, they need to be debilitating. If it won't kill you from overuse (be it from your character being paralysed or them sacrificing their life force like I did) then it's overpowered IMO.