Seriously, I thought we could use Game Maker, and have the battle system be position-oriented turn based, where possible actions are determined by where the player is relative to the target, certain things bring you closer, while others bring you further away, and all but one character is controlled by the AI, but you can switch character control at any time.
For example: Lyn, the fighter, is too far away for a melee attack, but is near enough to the healer, Secar, to push him out of the way of the soldiers, saving him and pushing her close enough to attack, while sacrificing a turn to the opponents. Alternately, the control could be switched to Secar, so he has an opportunity to cast a protective spell, though remaining in the same position, and if he is not fast enough of a caster, having an unfinished spell, due to the soldier's attack...
Certain things could take longer to initiate, like a high end curing spell being longer than an attack. Certain things could also be set to last longer, and anything interrupted in mid initiation has a lesser or unexpected effect...
You can immediately choose your next command after everyone has taken a turn, but a certain amount of movement could count as skipping a turn, focusing on fast paced action selection...
The game will wait for you, but since your commands will happen later, they will most likely initiate last. Decision speed is crucial because of the dynamic commands...
The computer will wait some time, depending on the enemy's speed, to select their commands. The fastest command should be movement, and should happen dynamically during action selection, allowing one to reposition to get a better move, at the cost of initiation speed. Next is melee attacks, counters, and low-end ranged attacks. After this is dash attacks (attacks that involve dashing forward and attacking simultaneously, can be used to knock back the target) and low-end spells. Coming as fourth priority are high-end, aimed ranged attacks, and AOE spells. Last, of course, are the most powerful of magic. This is not always true, if an extremely fast player is fighting a ridiculously slow foe. These are simply modifiers for command speed.
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