[@ELGainsborough]
I can understand why your might want to go with some more realism; it's not for everyone (myself included) but it has its merits in the right circumstances. Admittedly, my work is definitely a lot more in the off-the-scale territory (far beyond the example you just listed), mostly because I specialize in abstract concepts and I often integrate them into my characters' skill sets; in my defence though it's usually handled in a far more complex and intricate, dare I say even believable or at least justified, way than the pissing matches you're talking about (I know the type you mean). This is one of the several reasons I hinted at in my precious post for why I don't intend on involving myself in free-form role-playing on this site; the characters I work with are frankly too "broken" for most people to handle due to the complex nature of my project, so I tend to just stay out of Arena forums unless the site is one of my own.

I'll take a look into the guide you mentioned if spare time ends up presenting itself to me. The only experience I have with dice-based mechanics in terms of text-based role-play is the advanced Final Fantasy role-playing RP forum where I got my beginnings as a play-by-post role-player, a little over ten years ago. While it was using the Final Fantasy system in terms of classes and skills, the combat system seemed to have been pulled directly from D&D, and I actually worked as a moderator occasionally on that site; I was even involved in a complete rebuilding of that system in the staff room before the forum essentially died like so many role-play sites tend to do.

Would there be specific classes that you would be aiming to have involved in the role-play? I'm unfamiliar with D&D, as I've previously said, but I assume there's the standard list of knight and mage archetypes, and then expansions or variants of them? That's probably the only question I can immediately think of.