Shattered Alliance

[Skullduggery Studios]

48 isn't so bad. I mean mostly you're just going to be editing between the 6 you have. So what's 12 more? I'd recommend you go ahead with it rather than doing 'add-ons".

True, except that my plan is to that the group and dynamics are different depending on which of the 36 combinations the player chooses. A male human rogue, for example, would get a different group than a male elven rogue, who would get a far different group than a female orcish mage. So adding another 12 combinations becomes a little larger than it seems at first. I do appreciate the suggestion, though.

[Baconlabs]

clerics

Not really necessary when there's already a generic Mage class, which I assume covers all kinds of magic; offensive, defensive, healing, support, etc.
This does raise the question of how characters are going to heal themselves. The most obvious answer would be Potions and other items, but I'm sure J_Taylor has some more interesting options planned. I'll just go ahead and throw out random ideas while it's on my mind:

• -Mages will of course probably have access to some kind of White Magic
  -Rogues may end up being "Item Specialists" and be able to use better items, or take normal ones and enhance their effects
  -Warriors may be able to focus their power into some kind of self-heal, a la the Monk's Chakra ability from Final Fantasy Tactics
  -Trolls from various mythologies are renowned for having enhanced regeneration healing
  -Dark Elves have occasionally been compared to vampires, so you could incorporate a racial health draining ability

[Skullduggery Studios]

^^^ only one I hadn't considered was the warrior one. I'm still not SURE how I'm going to implement healing, as I want every member of the team to be individually useful, so I don't want all members to be able to heal. I mean, obviously, the characters will heal slowly naturally, as that would happen in reality. But as for hyper-healing, I'm thinking I'm going to stick to mages and potions.

This brings up a point I'd like to offer, too. I don't want the normal battles (Yeah, I know. I'm practically re-making EVERYTHING from the default...). Right now, the concept is in-game walkaround battles. But that could be somewhat unwieldy. I've discarded a few dozen re-imaginings of the current battle system, but none seem to work. Any ideas?

[Baconlabs]

In-game walkaround battles? I'm not sure I follow. Are you talking about battles that are initiated by coming in contact with enemy NPCs, as seen in the Mother and Mario RPG series?

Unfortunately I haven't the foggiest idea on feasible ways to rework the OHR battle system. You'll probably have to fabricate a new battle style yourself with plotscripting. The best advice on this matter I have is to play other OHR games with unique battle systems and ask the author if it would be okay to peek at the code and learn / borrow from it.
Only one I can think of that's sortakinda relevant to your situation is Mogri's Do You Want to be a Hero?

[Skullduggery Studios]

I'm not familiar with Mother or Mario RPG, so I'll reference OHR games. Walkabout battles would be like those from TimTim's Tower or The Crypt of Baconthulhu. I think you had the right idea before.

I've though of a couple ways to redo the battle system that I'd like to use, but none seem appropriate for Shattered Alliance.

[Baconlabs]

Oh! Well, that's completely different from what I was thinking of.
But with those kinds of battles, there's always been just one character doing the fighting. You've been talking about forming a whole party of people. I can't think of a game that's done battles like this, aside from maybe Gauntlet, but that relies on your allies being human-controlled.

[Mogri]

Final Fantasy Adventure had AI-controlled allies.

[Skullduggery Studios]

I'd be yet another complex script, but hey, this game is gonna go into my portfolio when it's done, so the better it is, the... well, the better it is!