Which combat system would best suit a 2D open world party-based RPG focused on exploration?

You want to be able to plough through small mobs quickly sometimes, so having real time and just nuking the screen in a second in late game would save alot of mindless grinding when attacked by small mobs.

I should be like Baldurs Gate ie pause on hit, set the moves, then unpause and wait again to hit or be hit. I like that system.

as a side note, I still think the best turn based tactical game ever is Silent Storm.

I havent played all turn based tactical to say that with authority but I have played the likes of XCom

I like how older school approaches to turn based is like how Slient Storm does things.

It is very clear, the path the person will take, exactly how many AP points it will take, exactly how many AP points are left and exactly how many AP points are required to do things like reload.

I like that.

Right now I think real-time with pause would be the best fit for a singleplayer party-based open world 2d rpg focused on exploration. Also taking into account keyboard and mouse, and controller controls, ui, menu and combat designs. Like Dragon Age Inquisition did but with improvements, especially on the keyboard and mouse side of things, like the tactical camera and the "hold R" to attack issues. I feel like it's the best balance to not delay and discourage players from exploring, with combat taking too long.

However, it could be done turn-based as well, with less combat, as to not discourage exploration, but also to have more meaningful and tactical combat with more interesting enemies from a gameplay point of view, like enemy tactics, etc.

As for real-time, that would make it nearly impossible to manage a party. However, that aspect can be handled by AI and having the player set different behaviours with different conditions for each character in the party, and also allowing the player to switch to controlling any other character in the party, but without forcing the player to issue commands to party members individually during combat. However, this would take away quite a bit of strategy from combat, I think. Also the real-time with pause combat could be tuned to a more action style so as to make pausing unncessary. Which would essentially make combat real-time, like in ARPGs. This could be a setting in the options or a difficulty setting in the game.