I came here and registered just to join this conversation.
While I would, as an old school fan, prefer RTwP overall, I recognise that it will likely never happen. OK. Having said that, however, I have to speak out against party-based turns/initiative.
First of all, D&D doesn't use party turns. So if you're trying to make something that is true to D&D, use individual initiative.
Second, and this point is more important, party turns are an unbalanced mess. They lead to situations where one character gets mobbed and downed all at once before the player can react. Not only does it feel terrible when this happens, it's also completely unrealistic. No one is going to stand around in combat while enemies pound on them for 6 seconds.
I also don't really understand why they would take a system that uses individual initiative (D:OS2) and then spend the time and effort to strip out that superior system to give us this terrible alternative.
I can handle RTwP not being a part of this game. It's been 17 years since BG 2 came out, I'm happy for the genre to change. But I definitely will not be happy when I get into combat and party wipe because I didn't get a chance to react to what was going on before my characters got downed. That is serious rage quit territory. That is like uninstall and refund territory.
