I like rpgs for many reasons but the combat, which should be the most important part of the game is boring and repetitive. I want to try to make an rpg with interesting combat to go with the coolness in designing a character and playing through the story. There are two basic things that should are necessary to make combat fun: skill and strategy. There are already some rpgs that focus on skill in combat and are like a fighting games so I will focus on strategy. It should be easier to code that way too. What I have observed trying to think of a combat system is that games of strategy make something more important than the ultimate objective. In chess players tend to focus on taking their opponents pieces, not checking the king. In Magic: the Gathering card advantage is far more important than life, necropotence is proof of that. In Starcraft if you attack an enemies buildings and ignore their units, yours wont be their very long. In any of these games if you just go straight for the objective, against a skilled player you will lose. I want to achieve this in my game. Attacking your opponent for the most damage possible shouldnt be the best strategy. I cant think of a good system to achieve this though. A player should have the option of being a caster or fighter in this system. The simpler the system the better. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If you haven't played the Baldur's Gate games, play them. If you have, play them again. There is a ton of strategy involved in those games. It usually takes the form of striking the right balance between offense and defense given your enemy's strengths and weaknesses. If you just charge in with your fighters, you'll get waxed in some of the tougher encounters. But if you hang back with your fighters, use your archers wisely, and cast the right spells in the right order with your mages, you will win. Also, since many of the hardest encounters have groups of NPCs with widely varying abilities, you have to make sure you target the right guy at the right time, similar to your chess analogy. You should definitely take some influence from the BG games.

[edited by - ggoodwin37 on July 6, 2003 1:45:21 AM]