Need help with Skill acquisition system for my dark fantasy game...

Hi again yall,

So I've been working on my game more and have run into a wall with regard to how the system should work for players acquiring skills.

See my other threads to know more about it. But in brief, the game is a dark fantasy rpg inspired one where players each control their own character. There is a safe central area they move out from and there are 5 bosses that must be defeated at the end of each region in order to win.

Gameplay is divided into two segments in game: exploration on the "Overworld" (the board and it's locations) and the second being combat handled in a turn based system similar to rpgs (but more simplified).

Each player starts the game with a Specialization/"class". It is similar to Demon's Souls where you have a class to start but it's more about the origin of your character and determines what gear and stats you start with rather than a strict hard limit as far as what you can do in game.

The 5 bosses in game (Archons) correspond to 5 Alignments in the game. Each player has a character card that shows their stats. They also have cards for their equipment and skills in front of them. It is similar to a mix between Descent Journeys into the Dark and Dragon's Crown with regard to abilities (skills) they have in front of them.

Players track how strongly aligned they are with each Alignment in game because that affects how certain skill cards work for them. I am aiming to have about 5 or 6 different types of cards in game for players, but only a certain amount of the types are skill cards. Concerning the types of skill card types players can choose here are some:

- Sorceries
- Miracles (Sorceries and Miracles are two separate spell types, there may be a third type as well)
- Melee abilities
- Passive buffs/enhancements
- Noncombat abilities
- Common skills (a mix of all types, these can be purchased at the central safe area and are always available cards comparable to common skills in Dragon's Crown for ps3 or to Ascension card game)

Each skill card is divided into two sections: the top half is the basic ability/buff the card gives, the bottom half is the enhanced version of the card that can be used provided that your Alignment is high enough for that card (each individual card corresponds to an Alignment). Some Alignments have more of certain types of card types more so than others but they have at least a few in each type (similar to how, for example, Blue in Magic the Gathering has more sorceries and instants than it does Creature cards, but it still has all types). For example, here's an example of a Fireball spell:

Basic: 4 points fire damage
Enchanced: 7 points fire damage (Enchanced usable if level 3 in Chaos Alignment)

Also, the reason why players have Specializations as (besides determining starting gear/stats) is because I picture each card costing a certain amount of "Demonic Essence" (DE for short) to acquire; each card has two associated costs such as "Fireball: Sorcery: 300/500 DE" where the cheaper cost on the left is how much it costs if you have a Specialization in Sorcery, but any character could acquire it for the more expensive cost. Skills/Spells will also have stat requirements necessary to use them.

The block that I've run into though concerning the game is exactly how the cards should be presented on board and how players acquire them.
I picture the common skills (they have no enhanced Alignment section) available to look through and purchase at all times in the center. Each type of skill card has its own corresponding deck regardless of Alignment (so there should be a deck each for melee abilities, buffs, sorceries, etc...) that is shuffled during setup to form its deck. Players can acquire skills through defeating enemies as well as through exploring locations on the Overworld as well as by purchasing them at different locations.

So does anyone have any idea on how they should be presented though? One idea I was thinking of was having each deck display a few cards (depending upon the number of players) into a store type area (similar to Dominion) and when a player defeats an enemy or at the beginning of each round a certain number of cards are added from each deck into face up piles in the store area. I definitely want there to be that aspect of the game where DE cost for cards is dependent upon Specialization.

I'm worried about running into a situation in the game, for example, where the player kills a monster and is given ability to get a spell card but then end up not having enough DE to get any of the ones that are presented (so say there is a store of cards presented Dominion style and when you kill a monster you put two more cards into the corresponding faceup pile from the deck of spell cards and then you can choose to purchase one from it; or perhaps if they can't afford any of them they can opt to acquire a random one instead?).

Any ideas/help on how to handle this would be appreciated and sorry for my long winded post I have a hard time putting my thoughts/question into concise form sometimes lol