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Exhibit A: Sore loser.

Mad salty.

*raises eyebrow*

It's only bad roleplaying if you can't make it interesting. Distance between you and your opponent doesn't make something "bad" or "good" or even "impractical".

Your ability as a roleplayer deals with all of that.

Lets use my own character as an example. He's used everything from a gladius/shield combo to matched cutlasses to paired daggers to a really out there rapier that could basically do what Sigil Warden's axes could do.... yet quite a bit more limited.

He does not have all the knowledge of grapples, pins, punches, etc.... not because I can't go and look it up and give it to Zantara but because it's just not how my character is like, mentally at least.

The very act of getting within grapple range (not on his terms) is in no small way a terror to him. It's a built in flaw that I've always enjoyed.

I'm not saying that all that a swordsman should do is dodge all grapple attempts. I'm saying that as a intermediate swordsman, your number one focus is keeping on the pressure at all times.

You want to keep them in that specific range because that is where you can do the most damage and put your skills to work. Is there a possibility that your roleplay will be nothing more than the swordsman constantly backing up?

If your not that comfortable with your style yet, yes.

Or going up against Tres/Feirach/Heita/Lucid or any of the other dozen or so grapplers I could name off the top of my head who will go straight for the throat and will take a small or even large wound so they can pull off some epic move.

If your going up against any of them, your mainly going to have to fall back on A)Waiting for that one moment where they ******** themselves up and you can force them to fall on your blade or B)use an ability that doesn't have to do with your swordsmanship. Yes, there are other ways of dealing with them but frankly....I'd just be asking to get my a** handed to me in such a situation.

*Thinks on it for a moment*

s**t...I lost my train of thought there for a second.

In short, you make the roleplay what you will. I think my advice on otimal ranges was correct, as long as you can roleplay it interestingly enough. At least at first. Do that for a while, get into the understanding of what people will and won't let you get away with and only THEN, say ******** the range and do what you want with florishes etc... but that range is always going to be there.

I'm not even a grappler.

James leans toward striking and impact throws, and well as body checks, shoulder checks, hip checks of all kinds.

Nah, just feel sorry for my spirit brother as he suffers.

@Tres/Darth - I got slammed for violation of profile because apparently a forcefield doesn't repulse contact (?) which, alone, would have tied me across the board (actually, technically I would have been winning 2/3), but I also got punished for actually accepting damage, got yelled at for using the dumpster shield (Zantara thought it was out of character and Vin claimed I should have been thrown back and the thing disintegrated even though I absorbed it through two separate shields), you know, god forbid I use the stage in a creative manner, the shock! and then to top it off I got docked in my roleplaying because my sadistic, murder-happy character was going KILL MAIM DESTROY for a big part of the fight, instead of... I guess having elaborate flashbacks to her days as a call-girl in Icecrown. Oh and then, for good measure, Vin threw in a minus one in conciseness without explanation, because apparently clarity and characterization is secondary to "I punch it in the d**k", even though I got penalized for doing that.

At the end of the day, I can't even really get myself worked up about it, just sarcastic. I knew the fight was lost when the Chains was smacked down, because that was the only time I might have been able to hit my space-time bending opponent.

*thinks about it*

I don't know if I used it being Out of Character because that isn't quite exactly what it was.... even if it is close to that. Same ball park.

What I was trying to say ( if I didn't make it come across as such I apologize) was that it just seemed to be a very odd decision. You make a shield, giving Feirach enough time to power up an attack to break said shield.

The punch by him, the throw by you, the landing....all of it was so damn perfectly coreographed and written between the two, for a good while there, I wondered if the two of you had just set that up so you could strut your stuff a bit.

As to the Profile Violation.... yeah, I'm going to have to admit, I'm not sure what that was about. I think what Vintrict was getting at was that as written, your forcefield follows the contores of your body correct?

If this is so, then obviously in certain places, there would be angles however minute they may be, especially on the face and over the armor in general.

And if there are angles, then there are places for Feirach to get a grip.

It wasn't so much replusing contact as much as saying it was "too slippery" for him to get a hold on in any fashion.

At least as I read the Profile Violation notification that was put out.

You would be right Zan, were it not for the fact that friction does not apply to a repulsive surface. You know, like a Mag-Lev train? It's slippery because there is no actual surface to hold onto, his grip is simply not allowed to make contact with anything.

Ha, say that to my tomb raiding archer. The moment I enter her into a contest where bows are allowed, she'll hit. I guarantee it.

A physical ability Tres uses a lot.

Throw Anything

Tres never liked the idea of using a firearm as he felt that not enough of his body was doing the work of attacking with the weapon in order to feel confident or even rewarded by using it. To fill the void of long range attacks, Tres studied the art of throwing objects. Tres's ability to aim is increased due to his developed senses and body control. Tres can accurately utilize any throwing weapon within its maximum effective range, dependent upon the weight and design of the weapon.