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Some ideas for the battle system

This is a few months old and I refined it a bit, but didn't write it down here.
All these are very unorganized, random thoughts.

2 Phases(so far)
movement phase(real time)
attack phase(time stops, right before the action happens)

The battle system for this game isnt exactly standard like other RPGs.
Attacks are entered and then all combatants execute them simultaneously. The movement phase is subject to real time disturbances and perhaps the monster reacting if the player is slow however the attack phase is assumed to happen in a split second(right before a rush or magic attack is executed). This phase allows the player a bit more time to decide his final strategy.
After all commands are entered the player characters attack and the enemies execute their turns at the same time in an attempt to make it look cool. After this the player starts his turn again, with partial stamina.
If play is relatively conservative, the stamina bar will regenerate fully, however dangerously violent maneuvers slows the regeneration(yep pretty common sense).

Rush Attacks
A Rush attack is one of the options available in the move phase of the battle
When rushing a character receives a few benefits

Benefits of rushing
-rushing characters get a damage and speed bonus therefore
enemies that have greater defense or may evade attacks easier are more likely to be hit or damaged
-rushers can close a great distance in the rush depending on the character's skill/abilities
-if multiple characters rush, the player may decide whether or not to coordinate the attack into a combo using 2 or more characters, in addition rushers may be assisted by a magic user to drive home the attack with even greater force
-depending on your character you may even be able to rush through an enemy to get to another.

Why rushing may be Bad
-Rushing is tiring so the character loses an amount of stamina proportional to a few things. First, the distance the rush took, 
secondly, the amount of power and speed the player specified. for instance, specifying a rush at max speed and power from a relatively far distance will drain the bar fully, if the rusher can even make the charge from such a distance. Note that some monsters are damn fast so varying the amount of speed and power ratio of the rush is a good idea if you want to hit some of these things.
-A powerful adversary may attempt to dodge one or more rushing characters, if a monster is fast enough he may be able to scoot out of the way, leaving a rusher way out of range by blowing past him, so adjust for speed.
-Other monsters may be so strong that they can swat the rusher with enough force that he/she flies backwards, hurting other party members and taking damage as well, in this case either a good combination of power and speed is needed to confuse him and/or resist his blow.
-Rushers dont have unlimited range, and the distance isnt revealed to the player, so a poorly judged rush will end up short of the target, with some bad consequences, if any rush fails the character loses all his stamina and is unlikely to defend himself.

So rushing can be dangerous if it is abused but if used right should be the more interesting part of the battle system.

For normal attacks you can move your character to the enemy and the character will begin to hustle over there.
Magic attacks are called in the move phase like rushes but are defined in the attack phase along with rushes.
A magic system hasnt been worked out yet, but id expect to have them either support the attackers or damage the enemy directly or cause some other problem for everyone.

I dont think we should have cure magic, its too easy, and i dont want any memo's just hammering on the keyboard to win the battles.

Ive been tossing a few other ideas around.

Blitzes- These are a lot like rushes but of course a lot more powerful, probably used as a last resort or a limit break type thing
-Since its more or less a special attack then the speed and power should be absolute and the distance should be unlimited.
-Not sure what builds these up yet, but maybe they could be story driven to be more dramatic.
-They could also be a combination of magic and physical attacks, since rushes are usually just physical, unless a magic user assists.
-Get all the characters in their blitz mode at the same time and bad things will probably happen to the enemies.

Of course we need to be able to increase your character's abilities and customize their physical speed/strength and magic so some sort of experience system needs to be made, but remember we dont want the game to be a random battle fest. I suggest something like training from all those sages are whatever scott has been raving about in between his beatings by evan in his sleep and what not. seriously.

I was thinking also, why dont we just throw the hit point system out the window too since im sure we could do better.
HitPoints are really simple representation of how much you can take on the battle field, but that is kind of uninteresting.
I propose that we use the characters Strength, stamina/vitality and defense to calculate whether or not he is rendered unconcious for a few turns. Alright dont get up and start running around ripping your genitals out as you are wont to do, just listen up. Lets say one of those demons does a really nasty attack on forten, and he is just totally overwhelmed and knocked out, now either you can get other members of the party to try to revive him or you can carry on and hope he can get it together before the end of the battle to lend some more help. 
You may want to revive him, but you may not have the power to do it,, since you have to physically move the character to care for him. In this case just ignore it and hope fortan isnt a bitch and will wake up, which will happen if you take long enough. Now this is kind of like hitpoints but again, its kind of random, and so you really cant predict when you will get knocked out as easily as with a bar that drops to zero or something. Its all a combo of your current status and whether or not a monster can really pull a critical move on you at a bad time.
If you stay relatively healthy during the whole fight you will take a lot of damage and shrug it off, but if one character is repeatedly sent rushing out and taking beatings, expect him to go down. I guess to program this, the character will have a hidden thresh-hold, that is decided by his current str,def,stam, etc, during that moment in the battle, so it fluctuates with his status and is different according to how you treat your characters. So with a lower thresh-hold the character is probably tired, and a good hit will be above his threshhold and he'll get knocked out. Keeping one character completely fresh may be a good idea to defend others and soak up hits.

Miscellaneous stuff on defense formations.
So we have rushes for the offense but what about defense, here are some of my ideas.
Since Rushing is a pretty good way to get around the battle field i think it would make sense to use something similar to give ground instead of gaining ground for tactical maneuvers, these moves are non offensive so a lot of the negatives and positives of rushing dont apply but a few things are constant. You get around to where you want fast, but you lose stamina and someone may step in and get in your way.
So for a defensive formation you can rush to the aid of a fallen party member and or defend someone that looks like he's about to get stomped and take the blow with a fresh character instead.
Using these tactics would hopefully add some interest.

Magic attacks
Magic attacks i havnt worked out much yet but you declare that you will do a magic attack in the move phase, and in the attack phase you specify which spell and how to implement it on whom. Magic and rushes are worked out like this so the comp knows how many rushes and magic users you decided to declare and can tell you the type of combos and such you can use.

Enemy AI
Well obviously this may be complicated. But generally speaking the enemies are either stupid/average/smart and either weak/average/strong, slow to fast, etc. So they act within their abilities. Enemies basically assess the attackers and decide whether to defend or counter or attack. I think the smarter enemies should be able to do some coordination,, like getting in your way to protect the leader or getting in your way to stop you from saving your friends. Plus i think it would be funny if the monsters killed their underlings sometimes. So a smart enemy will use his stupid slow ass friends as a meat shield or something, which is fair in my opinion, id do it to you. 

Characters shouldn't be able to run away from a fight.

Anyway, thats most of what i have right now, i dont think it is too complicated, and i think if we do anything we should do it well. Unless of course you want to just use the quintessence of the modern battl engine, memo battle engine, or just any turn based crap.

So summarily, it goes
Move Phase - move the characters, declare rushers/retreaters, magic users or normal attacks
Attack Phase - Decide any combos, specific magic attacks, defensive moves

after the attack phase everyone fights and then it goes back to player control.


Variables to be used to decide how long you stay up in battle and your abilities.
Strength
Stamina
Spirit

and another variable Speed for your movement ability.

Strength and stamina are very much dependent on how you play your character so their sum will rise and fall in accordance to predictable things like you attacking a lot or getting beat up, however spirit has nothing to do with that. The third variable in the sum, is spirit, and it rises and falls in accordance to less obvious circumstances. A character may feel a great need to protect a comrade, or feel a need for revenge, but in any case spirit plays a large role. If your character is physically exhausted and on the verge of collapse, his spirit may still be huge because of his will to keep going, and that will keep a seemingly pulverized character from going down just then, however, as soon as the spirit falls after the character is "satisfied" that his duty was accomplished in battle he will then plummet to physical levels and depending on his state,