I asked my friend who seems to know everything about everything and this is what he said…

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Balancing the combat system in a JRPG-like game can be challenging, but there are several approaches you can take to address the issue of unlimited healing through action points:

• Action Point Cap: Instead of allowing characters to accumulate an unlimited number of action points, you can implement a cap on the maximum number of action points a character can have. This cap should be set at a level that prevents players from using healing abilities indefinitely. It forces players to strategize and use their healing abilities wisely.
  
  
• Diminishing Returns: Introduce diminishing returns on healing abilities based on the number of action points spent. For instance, the first few uses of the healing ability might be highly effective, but as more action points are invested, the healing amount decreases. This discourages players from spamming the ability too frequently.
  
  
• Cooldowns: Implement cooldowns on healing abilities. Once a character uses their healing ability, they cannot use it again for a certain number of turns. This encourages players to use healing abilities strategically and rely on other means of healing when the ability is on cooldown.
  
  
• Enemy Scaling: Scale the difficulty of enemies based on the player's level and/or the number of turns taken in battle. If players spend too many turns in a battle (trying to heal excessively), the enemies become stronger, making it more challenging for the player to succeed without using healing items.
  
  
• Limited Resources: Make healing items scarce or expensive, so players must use them wisely and consider other healing options, such as healing abilities, only when necessary. This way, players will have to rely on a combination of healing items and abilities throughout the game.
  
  
• Status Effects and Debuffs: Introduce enemies with status effects that cannot be cured by healing abilities, forcing players to use specific items or abilities to counter those effects. This creates a need for diverse strategies and resource management.
  
  
• Varying Enemy Threats: Design enemies that pose different types of threats. Some may deal heavy damage, while others may have crowd control abilities or debuffs that make healing less effective. This requires players to adapt their approach and use healing resources more judiciously.
  
  
• Boss Battles and Endurance Fights: Design certain boss battles or optional encounters as endurance fights where players face multiple challenging opponents in a row without a chance to rest or heal between battles. This forces players to conserve their resources throughout the entire series of battles.

By combining these approaches, you can create a more balanced and engaging combat system, where players need to think strategically and make meaningful decisions about when and how to use healing abilities and items.

Of course accumulating “infinite” action points doesn't make sense.

The action points cap should be slightly more than the cost of the most expensive action + the maximum number of action points that can be earned in a turn + a small multiple of the expected accumulated APs of a turn with cheap or no actions, so that the player can save for an expensive action without wasting earned action points, can wait for a few turns before doing something for tactical reasons, but at some point they get punished for stalling.

Regarding the balance of healing actions and healing items, I'd try making both cost a significant number of action points, enough to limit and delay the following actions (i.e. a significant tactical choice: taking a break from the normal routine), with items healing much more (because, in addition to action points, a valuable resource is spent).