Starting my very first FF6 hack and had some basic questions.

It sounds like something that wouldn't be too ambitious as long as you stick to battle mechanics that are generally implemented already (of course, with twists like using Ragnarok as discussed above, but the mechanics can already accomplish this). The event editing should be doable and many things that you are probably looking to do can be altered with the ME. As long as you keep your scope small enough it should be quite doable to complete this hack if you have the time.