Tabletop with card based combat

[Philemonite]

I have an idea for a game that uses cards for combat.

There are five ability types Attack(Striker), Guard(Defender), Pressure(Control), Support(Leader) and Assist(Indirect, like DOT and Summoning).

Party gets 5 mana cards per turn(one of each type) plus 2 more for every member.
Basic Abilities cost any 2 cards.
Advanced Abilities cost 1 specific card plus 2 any.
Expert Abilities cost 2 specific cards plus 2 any.
Mastery Abilities cost 3 specific cards plus 2 any.

Using same type ability in a round gives penalty, so you are encouraged to use all types.

Also, "mana pool" is shared by the party, witch adds an element of strategy.


Ability Types:
Attack-Single, Multi, Area
Guard-Taunt, Stance, Shield
Pressure-Weak, Dull, Seal
Support-Heal, Protect, Power
Assist-Summon, Curse(DOT), Cleanse

There here are four spellbooks: Divine(Priest), Arcane(Mage), Primal(Druid) and Psonic(Psion).
Tech are weapon-based abilities, and Skills are everything that's not Tech or Magic.
Deck and hand size are different for each class. Warriors have more HP, but smaller hand and deck size.

Tech Schools:
School of the Sword(Warrior)
School of the Lance(Soldier)
School of the Bow(Archer)
School of the Mace(Knight)

Skill Paths:

Path of the Fist(Monk)
Path of the Shadow(Ninja)
Path of the Trickery(Rough)
Path of the Voice(Bard)

I was thinking of using something like paragon path/epic destiny or Fire Emblem promotions. You can choose a specialization that can give you new spellbook/school/path.

There will be no random draw. You can arrange your deck any way you want to and draw cards in that order. Discarded cards will be sent to the bottom of your deck. This will make things simpler. You will always have full hand, when you discard a card, you draw new one.

Comments?

[Philemonite]

I see there is no interest in this, but I would love to see some reactions.
I'm working on Classes and their abilities, it would be nice if someone wanted to check it out once it is finished and give some advice.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

My initial thought is that there isn't enough structure here to really analyze or judge the idea aside from saying "potential merit, dependent on implementation."

I'd want to see a more fleshed out concept, since right now I'm having a bit of trouble judging how combat play (let alone non-combat play, if this is meant to be a full RPG rather than a tabletop war game) is supposed to play out in this system.

Can you explain the idea with a bit more depth?

[Philemonite]

Basis idea is that your mana cards regenerate every round.
Attack abilities are used to deal damage. Area attacks deal one dmg to group of enemies, multi attacks deal one damage multiple times, and power attacks deal more then one damage to a single target.
Support abilities are used to heal and boost offense/defense.
Presurre abilities seal enemy's abilities(like silence) and drop offense/defense.
Guard abilities are used for self-defense, taunts, and covering an ally.
Assist abilities are indirect, summoning, DOT and removal of effects.

Each class has a focus, Mage uses area attacks and presurre, Knight is the master of defense, Priest is the best healer...
Penalty for using multiple attacks in one round force you to use other abilities.
That's the base idea, I'm working on the fluff for the classes.
My main question is can this work?
Making Basic abilities usefull for the whole game without limiting higher level abilities use per day.
Sounds nice, but I don't know if it can be balanced.

As for the non-combat, I'm still not working on it, but I was thinking of making every class usefull outside of combat.