Buildfag RPGs (aside from Diablo clones)

[Eisen]

Games where building your character is deep?

 

[Chuck Norris]

Any MMORPG worth its salt.

And Dark Souls and the whole Soulsborne genre. Just look at these build guides for DS1.

 

[Butter]

Underrail, Pathfinder games, Troubleshooter Abandoned Children, Knights of the Chalice 2.

 

[buffalo bill]

Caves of Qud
TOME

 

[Disciple]

Daggerfall.

 

[Tyranicon]

Credit where credit is due, if you can tolerate Owlcat games, I hear that build enthusiasts really enjoy them.

I'm not sure if "deep" is the right term for their games, more like "exploit broken shit."

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The Pathfinder games are more capable of buildfagging without resorting to broken stuff

The fact that optimization ceiling is very hard and you can do silly stuff with it doesn't mean you need to "exploit"

it's just problem with 3.5e based games

 

[agris]

Games where building your character is deep?

what's deep for you? builds are like optimization problems? lots and lots of viable options? easy to gimp yourself?

 

[Filthy Sauce]

More of a rts/rpg hybrid, but the character building in warlords battlecry 2 is deeper than most RPGs, old or new.

 

[Eisen]

builds are like optimization problems? lots and lots of viable options?

Yeah, both

 

[notpl]

You could actually achieve a surprising degree of this in that King Arthur tactics game we were all playing a couple years ago.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

More of a rts/rpg hybrid, but the character building in warlords battlecry 2 is deeper than most RPGs, old or new.

I really enjoyed the heroes in Warlord's Battlecry 2. All of them were extremely satisfying, especially the archmage. The spell list was better than what most modern RPGs have in them. You could even staff the mines with summoned zombies, or mutate your units into more powerful ones with illusion magic. I will say that the game is an RTS first, but the heroes are good enough to embarrass a lot of current year RPGs.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Minecraft. You can literally build anything.

 

[behold_a_man]

Heroes of Might & Magic IV is pretty much an RPG/Strategy hybrid (much heavier on RPG elements than earlier installments), and had more depth in terms of character building than almost all RPGs I saw. I could develop a hero to scout the area, to help me with management, to give boosts to my troops, or to physically assault enemies; and there were 5 schools of magic, much harder to master than in previous entries and way more rewarding. I could do way more insane things on the battlefield than before with the bigger variety of spells and the ability to choose between an additional hero or an additional unit. I could blend any group of five of those nine sets of skills as I saw fit; each offered unique advantages, and their combinations gave me a specialization (which could also dramatically change the proficiency of a character on the battlefield).

The quality of those elements might be more obvious in campaigns made by users, though. The main campaigns were uneven (albeit some were great - especially the Necropolis), and those from the add-ons were abysmal.

 

[Cohesion]

Heroes of Might & Magic IV is pretty much an RPG/Strategy hybrid (much heavier on RPG elements than earlier installments), and had more depth in terms of character building than almost all RPGs I saw. I could develop a hero to scout the area, to help me with management, to give boosts to my troops, or to physically assault enemies; and there were 5 schools of magic, much harder to master than in previous entries and way more rewarding. I could do way more insane things on the battlefield than before with the bigger variety of spells and the ability to choose between an additional hero or an additional unit. I could blend any group of five of those nine sets of skills as I saw fit; each offered unique advantages, and their combinations gave me a specialization (which could also dramatically change the proficiency of a character on the battlefield).

The quality of those elements might be more obvious in campaigns made by users, though. The main campaigns were uneven (albeit some were great - especially the Necropolis), and those from the add-ons were abysmal.

Homm V was made by nival (owlcat).
Heresy, but YMMV. I mean if you're into IV you may as well try V.

 

[Kabas]

Path of Achra is a Buildfag: the game.
Erannorth Reborn and Chronicles, if you're not allergic to cards.
Voidspire Tactics and all the other Tactics games by Rad Codex.

 

[Eisen]

Erannorth Reborn and Chronicles, if you're not allergic to cards.

I usually hate cards, but this one seems interesting

 

[ind33d]

starfield has one of the best skill trees in a video game and I mean that completely unironically

d&d 3.5 is just broken

 

[Late Bloomer]

Siralim Ultimate (creature based, has a lot of depth)
Gedonia (can get quite creative)
Skyrim with Ordinator Perk mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1137)
Fallout 4 (vanilla, no mods needed)
Pillars of Eternity (not bad and it is almost worth playing, unlike kingmaker)