AI aided combat system.
Basically a combat system inspired by Final Fantasy 13, the game comming to europe in 2 months or so time.
Instead of normal attacks, your charcter(s) attacks only using actions. These actions are of limited flexibility and so you have little control over what actions each unit does. Actions are executed at a rate dependent on action cost, stats and buffs/curses. The action a unit does depends on the unit AI setting and the unit type (available actions for AI to choose from). Actions do not chew mana, the only cost is time. On top of that the character(s) can use active abilities, these will inturupt any current actions and generally will be more expensive to use and be more powerful (they are beyond the AI camabilities and also are to stop the game taking an auto driving feel). These abilites will have long cooldown, casting delay / cooldown and can possibly chew mana to limit excessive use.
An example of such a system.
Hero - Priest
Specialities Healing, buffing, undead killing.
Abilities Revive, Divine protection
The priest will have 3 basic modes, attacker, buffer or healer.
If there are any heroes nearby below 25% health, the priest will always try and heal them next action no mater the mode it is in.
In attacker mode, it will use its damaging actions. In this case for example holly light on any undead nearby. If there are no valid undead, it then checks if the enemies nearby are stronger than the allies and if so buffs allies. In all other combat situations it reverts to just attacking. Outside of combat it reverts to buffing and healing (if that situation is applyable).
In buffer mode, it will primarily buff your team. Only once your whole team has been buffed does it check for any undead nearby, and if any is found it will primarilly focus on attacking them. If none are found it reverts to healing all allies below 50% hitpoints. If that does not apply it then trys to attack enemies normally. If outside of combat it buffs and heals.
In healer mode, it heals all allies below 75% hitpoints. If this does not apply it then buffs all allies. Once that does not apply it then will try and find all undead nearby and attack them. Finally it will attack every enemy nearby. It will heal and buff when not in combat.
These 3 distinct modes will give great flexiility with classes and reduce the repetitiveness of casting abilities which made characters often get if their attack sucks.
Its abilities are really powerful. The first one revives fallen allies with a 10 second action delay and moderate cost (no cooldown). The other has high cost and cooldown and makes all nearby allies invincible for 5-10 seconds.
This was an example of what a hero may be like.
So what can this system be used for. Single hero RPGs could use the above example as a hero class for each player to choose from. You could make a multi hero RPG where each player gets 2-3 heroes and has to battle armies of enemies (this probably would use a slightly reduced version of the above example so it is more specilized). You could also use simlar AI for taimer games like monster masters and a pokemon simulation, where you basically give the combat mode and the monster(s) will change their actions based on their AI settings and available actions.
The advantage of this is once the system is made, it can be applied to everything, even creeps due to its own combat AI so you can do away with the normal damage system. This means you could have more complex damage types like elements and you do not need annoying unit is damaged events for damage detection. Also it will be completly unique as I have not seen an RPG which does this. You could even make units able to attack wlile walking as the actions system need not be bound to stationary units.
The whole idea of this system is to make a map less boring by lowering the repetitivness of basic abilities so they become your attack equivently. All the player needs to do is move around so as to not be in an unsafe place and to issue big orders to units which makes each ability activation more worth it.
Posible implimentations could be you are taken to an aena for each battle and only after the battle returned to continue around. It could be real time like most RPGs.
You might just give somebody the perfect idea with something you thought wasn't all that good or you may inspire a HUGE project. Please add something!! 
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