To me, battle should not be about who has the fastest computer or manual dexterity. Sure, this makes sense in a console game, but the internet removes all manner of fairness. This is why muds and mmorpgs tend to let players initiate battle but carry it out in automated scripting on the server. This is the idea behind my work on a battle system in COW. What I hope to see and help with and learn from is a way for cowizens to train all manners of attacks and defenses and choose them, but let the battle system produce the effects in a controlled manner.
Something I've been pondering is death and dismemberment of the character. Imagine the character joenewbie: he carries objects for each body area (the standard parts: head, neck, torso, back, arm, etc). On each part, he wears something, a helmet, gloves, etc. During battle, a critical cut removes his arm, so the arm and hand are dropped into the room, including what they were wearing or wielding. He grabs them and runs away to a hospital, where for a modest fee a doctor mends the limb. Or perhaps, he didn't get the limb and for a more expensive fee the doctor regenerates a new one.
I know this sounds like a lot of code, a lot of objects, and a lot of challenge. What good is it? Well, imagine if each object could be enchanted or inscribed with magical runes that enhance their abilities. Imagine forging and enchanting skills. It's all about the grind of crafting to gain experience in order to craft more powerful things, and the prestige of those who do this well. But to do this, one needs materials, mining skills to get them, or battle skills to take them from the denizens of the deep.
And when someone dies, imagine they are transported as a ghost to a shrine where they receive a new body. Back in the arena, a corpse of them lies, perhaps to be picked up by a necromancer who embalms it and animates it onto something depending on his skill and the level of the corpse: skeleton, zombie, mummy, vampire, dark knight, lich, demi-lich, draco-lich. These become pets that can guard objects (even exits) or can be brought into battle. Other pets could be summoned or crafted to do similar tasks. And traps could be crafted or summoned as well to guard one's treasure or lure the enemy towards.
The possibilities are almost as endless as the challenge...