RPG's with STRONG character creation/stat customization process?

[foxdvd]

I guess it goes back to playing D&D as a kid, but part of my favorite thing about any RPG is the character creation (not the way they look but the stats) and the leveling up of characters. I love games that can take hours trying to roll the perfect team. I still pop in Icewind Dale from time to time and spend an hour or so creating characters. I also love when the game really diverges as you level up and you can spend countless hours stressing over paths you take in skill trees and trying to find a way to "break" the game.

I don't like games that leveling up and taking one path over another has very little impact on combat and your experience. I also don't like games that eventually you unlock everything so one character is not that much different than another.

So outside the obvious choices, I am looking for smaller, even independent hidden gems on steam that fit this.

I think a good example of a game like this, that I know got some bad press, was The Temple of Elemental Evil. Creating the characters and the customization was fun as hell...and even with the games problems, was easily worth the price for that part alone. It also obviously benefited from the strong D&D base...

 

[Deleted member 10629]

My memory is fuzzy but I think White Knight Chronicles for PS3 lets you do exactly that (at least the creation part).

 

[electricblue]

Divinity Original Sin 2 is pretty good. I like that you can respec at any time

 

[foxdvd]

Divinity Original Sin 2 is pretty good. I like that you can respec at any time

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Yes the Divinity games have been amazing for my itch..I even played the first one on both pc and ps4..and if and when Divinity 2 comes to ps4 I would double dip again...

 

[Haze]

If you've never played Pillars of Eternity it may scratch that itch. Although it doesn't take the D&D system and has its own type of system.

 

[Deleted member 11008]

Etrian's skill tree system is amazing. Your unit's chosen skills will determine if they survive or not the battles, and it will influence sometimes their stats, too.

 

[Apple_Prince]

Dragons Dogma.

 

[Hella]

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (the second expansion) is bananas because you're not only making your own character, but your entire party of four. NWN2, in general, has a huge wealth of possible characters available, which makes deciding on anything really tough. Then you get it done and your party collectively levels up to, IIRC, level 4, and the whole process begins anew... (And remember, in NWN2 you can multi-class for additional benefits! It's really complicated and deep.)

I never actually played the campaign because I spent all my time making themed parties.


Mask of the Betrayer, the first expansion and an extension of the original campaign, is exceptional and also highly worth playing.

 

[the_wart]

The old Fallout games fit the bill here for sure. Maybe the new ones too, though I haven't played them. Your skills and perks can pretty dramatically change what actions are available to you. The problem with them is that there are a bunch of "trap" skills that have basically no utility, or no utility beyond some low level of point investment that you have no way of ascertaining, and so attempting to build a non-conventional character can make the game dramatically harder and maybe uynbeatable.

Pillars of Eternity is more like Baldur's Gate than Fallout, but it has much more interesting advancement in that the synergy between your stats, your equipment, and the abilities you take on level up can have a dramatic effect on how you play. It is also designed such that it is very hard to accidentally stumble into a trap build, so you can focus on what kind of character you want to play instead of being forced to stick to a limited range of viable character types.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Etrian's skill tree system is amazing. Your unit's chosen skills will determine if they survive or not the battles, and it will influence sometimes their stats, too.

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Going to second this. Etrian Odyssey's skill system and customization is fantastic, and building teams with the right synergy is fun

 

[joecanada]

an oldie that I forgot about but was playing recently was ogre battle, I kind of like how you have all these random soldiers and they can turn into all sorts of things. you can look it all up of course but it was kind of cool to go back and play not really remembering any of it and then going "oh that dragon can become a black dragon or a white dragon" but I had no recollection what each class did so to just try it out was fun. I never did finish my new playthrough but I think I will go back to it eventually it works pretty well on tablets... I like the N64 version. maybe it's not as deep as I remember but it seems like there are a lot of class options / upgrades available in there.

Also I don't know if this would scratch the same itch but FF tactics was also fun to play with. all the classes were quite viable really, just fun in their own ways.

 

[Goronmon]

Dragons Dogma.

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This is definitely a solid choice, especially if you are interesting in more of an action RPG.

 

[foxdvd]

thanks for the suggestions so far...Neverwinter 2 is a game I forgot about, I played the Neverwinter 1 and 2, but I have never played the expansions...now I got to figure out the best way to buy this..

 

[elyetis]

UnderRail which is pretty much a "new" old school fallout.

 

[Apple_Prince]

This is definitely a solid choice, especially if you are interesting in more of an action RPG.

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It popped to mind because, if you want to build up magic stats or gain new magic spells you need to play as a magic user, you want to get higher defense and stronger physical attacks you need to play as warrior type.

 

[2+2=5]

Have you ever played Might & Magic 6? Old rpg but still unrivaled in many aspects imo.
Skills other than the usual levels have normal, expert and master level of knowledge that grant bonuses, you can upgrade to an advanced classes only by doing certain advanced quests, to level up you need to pay a trainer and many other things.

 

[Chopchop]

If you don't mind roguelikes, Tales of Maj'Eyal has a ton of customization and variation with your character and playstyle. It's free, though there's also a paid Steam version. Not sure what the difference is.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

The Temple of Elemental Evil has a really good creator as you said, and seeing as you're into oldschool CRPGs (me too!) lemme gimme you more games:

TESII: Daggerfall (1996)

Seriously one of the best character customisation systems out there. You got your standard D&D health, stamina, magic, agility etc but you can also apply advantages/disadvantages to your character. These range from health regen, weak to poison, no magick regen, trained in swords, can't wear plate armour, etc. Very reminiscent of Realms of Arkania. The paper doll as you see above is great too, you individually apply and remove clothing and armour per limb and the game is clever enough to stack or hide certain clothing above or below armour. So a cloak will appear above your armour but if you wear a shirt, your armour will appear above that.

Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (1992)

Similar to Daggerfall but this goes nitty gritty into your character, offering much more than the standard D&D stats as it offers personal traits such as your character having arachnophobia, being quick tempered, claustrophobic, your superstition level and much more and you can probably imagine what each one does. There isn't a paper doll per se but you can equip limb armour, which is still nice.

 

[EatChildren]

I assume by "obvious choices" you're including Arcanum, yeah? My favourite RPG ever, made by Troika (also Temple of Elemental Evil), and one of the kings of absurdly huge character stat sheets of the isometric RPG era.

Allocating level points had you dig between:

8 core stats (eg: STR, END, INT, etc)
Health / Magic
16 skills across 4 categories, each with 5 steps in proficiency
16 schools of magic spells, 5 spells per school
8 schools of technology, 7 schematics to learn

In addition to
Learning hidden schematics
Balancing technology/magic meter to your favoured profiency
Good/Evil meter based on choices
Various curses/blesses to be imbued throughout the game
Factors of race and gender during character creation
Background applicable during character creator impacting stats and perks
All 16 skills have an additional three mastery perks awarded by "trainers" found in the game (eg 5/5 Bow [Master Training])

It's absurd.

 

[decoyplatypus]

EDIT: An EatChildren post on Arcanum's stat sheet is more or less what convinced me to play the game.

Love Temple of Elemental Evil. Even when not using D&D rules, Troika's games had the sweetest character sheets. Arcanum's and Bloodlines's are basically porn:

In both games, character creation choices could make for a radically different game. Stealth or action, magic or tech, range or melee, etc. Famously, playing Bloodlines as a Malkavian means you're half insane (with interesting consequences in dialogue). Nosferatu means staying in stealth, as your mere appearance breaks the masquerade, and fancy vampires (Ventrue?) can't feed on poor people without risking illness.

 

[Nameless Hero]

Wasteland 2 does is a pretty good job here. Not only do you created a party of 4 characters from the start but you get a lot of different customization option from (obviously) weapon types to hacking, explosives, different charisma options, machine knowledge, camping etc.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Xenoblade X is stat customization and experimentation the game, which gets even more crazy once you get mechs

 

[anthraxus]

Playing Temple of Elemental Evil right now with the Circle of 8 and Temple+ modpacks and it's really good in terms of depth of character builds AND actual combat also. (where as a lot of these suggestions aren't on the same level concerning the actual combat)

Also Arcanum has some really cool character creation/builds.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Some franchises you should check out:
- Might & Magic
- Neverwinter Nights
- Wizardry
- Path of Exils
- Dragon's Dogma
- The Elder Scrolls
- Fallout
- Arcanum
- Pillars of Eternity
- Wasteland

 

[GameShrink]

I love Dragon's Dogma, but it's a weird recommendation here because of how little control the player actually has over stat allocation, and how inconsistent gains are during different level ranges.

Still one of the best games ever, but not exactly what TC is looking for in my opinion.

 

[anthraxus]

I love Dragon's Dogma, but it's a weird recommendation here because of how little control the player actually has over stat allocation, and how inconsistent gains are during different level ranges.

Still one of the best games ever, but not exactly what TC is looking for in my opinion.

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And you also only have ONE character to build in these single player RPGs, as opposed to an entire party.

OP should also look into a Wizardry 6-8 run. It's def got what you're looking for and you can import a party from one game to the next.

 

[Apple_Prince]

And you also only have ONE character to build in these single player RPGs, as opposed to an entire party.

OP should also look into a Wizardry 6-8 run. It's def got what you're looking for and you can import a party from one game to the next.

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You level a second character (your pawn) as well.

 

[moustascheman]

Aside from the mentions of Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Fallout etc., Dragon Age Origins has a pretty large variety of builds you can work with. You can manually allocate stat points which you gain each level. Furthermore you have three classes with 4 specializations each that grant unique stat bonuses and talent trees. There's plenty of variety to work with, especially with mages and their many spell schools.

I love Dragon's Dogma, but it's a weird recommendation here because of how little control the player actually has over stat allocation, and how inconsistent gains are during different level ranges.

Still one of the best games ever, but not exactly what TC is looking for in my opinion.

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Dragon's Dogma is an especially weird choice because levels are kind of inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Gear is significantly more important since stat gains are generally low. Really, the only time level actually matters is for the level requirements of tier 3 BBI gear.

 

[anthraxus]

You level a second character (your pawn) as well.

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That's cool. Didn't know you had full control of your pawns leveling/abilities in that game.

I have Dark Arisen but haven't got around to it yet. I'm more of a cRPG guy, but I can get down with action RPGs which actually have decent combat (like this supposedly does, the souls games do..unfortunately this isn't the case with most all of them though)

For me, traditional RPG conventions such as crits, hit points, etc...work better in traditional RPG combat, not in real time action combat where such abstractions are no longer needed and often lead to bad gameplay. RPG mechanics should instead be handled via new moves and techniques that the player can learn as they advance.

 

[Taruranto]

DOS1 is really good, not a fan of most of the chances in DOS2, but it still is solid compared to most RPG systems nowadays.

 

[Apple_Prince]

That's cool. Didn't know you had full control of your pawns leveling/abilities in that game.

I have Dark Arisen but haven't got around to it yet. I'm more of a cRPG guy, but I can get down with action RPGs which actually have decent combat (like this supposedly does, the souls games do..unfortunately this isn't the case with most all of them though)

For me, traditional RPG conventions such as crits, hit points, etc...work better in traditional RPG combat, not in real time action combat where such abstractions are no longer needed and often lead to bad gameplay. RPG mechanics should instead be handled via new moves and techniques that the player can learn as they advance.

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I think their is a deep numbers game to Dragon's Dogma, you just have to want to do it.

But you can also just play that game and just be like "I like being the sword guy." And that's relatively serviceable as well.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

souls games

salt and sanctuary

 

[Deleted member 24118]

New Vegas with the J. Sawyer mod is good about this.