In which game did you have the most fun just thinking about character builds

[Gregz]

Daggerfall, Darklands, Wizardry 8, Wasteland, ToEE and all the other DnDs, Arcanum, Might & Magic 7, Fallouts, The Bard's Tale, Diablo II and Diablo II Median XL Mod.

 

[visions]

Why waste time clicking the reroll button when you can just give all your characters 18 in all stats POR style?

Good stats have to be attained with luck or effort, giving everyone 18 in everything feels too cheap.

I like rolling stats in D&D games only though, having to roll them in something like Fallout or Arcanum would be weird. But I dislike point buy in D&D, D&D characters made like that end up too balanced and boring. It's the greater variance I like, the possibility of getting better stats with perseverance, or settling with something less optimal and making the best out of that, when out of patience.

And more on topic, Arcanum. All the possibilities were quite impressive when I was an impressionable teenager and it was the first game for which I planned and thought about how to allocate my skillpoints on paper, even when away from computer.

 

[Rivmusique]

Arcanum and ToEE.

 

[DakaSha]

Incursion Roguelike

 

[skyst]

IWD 1 & 2, ToEE and NWN2: SoZ. I get more enjoyment out of crafting a believable, competent party with little back stories, a unifying theme and still having the unit be combat effective that actually playing through the game. Which likely explains why the majority of my replays go unfinished.

 

[catfood]

visions

I was being sarcastic when I made that remark.

Good stats have to be attained with luck or effort, giving everyone 18 in everything feels too cheap

Rolling for stats in a CRPG is an autistic endeavour and a waste of time. If the game allows me to reroll ad nauseam then why shouldn't it let me get max stats from the beginning? It would save me some valuable time. If I wanted to have all 18's in BG2 I could just use Shadowkeep to edit my char. Is it cheating? Yes. But in the end it gets you exactly where you want to, just in less time.

I like rolling stats in D&D games only though, having to roll them in something like Fallout or Arcanum would be weird. But I dislike point buy in D&D, D&D characters made like that end up too balanced and boring. It's the greater variance I like, the possibility of getting better stats with perseverance, or settling with something less optimal and making the best out of that, when out of patience.

I get what you're saying. I too think that using point buy system makes he characters very samey. But when you think about it, if you're constantly rolling for that perfect score won't the characters look samey anyway? For instance a wizard in D&D wants high score in int primarily, and some in con and dex for defense. If wizard #1 has 16+ in all of them but a 8 in cha, whereas wizard #2 has +16 in them as well but his cha is 12, can you really say that there is much difference between them? What I'm saying is that in a computer D&D game all you need to worry about are some primary stats because that is what the game is programmed to care about.

And more on topic, Arcanum. All the possibilities were quite impressive when I was an impressionable teenager and it was the first game for which I planned and thought about how to allocate my skillpoints on paper, even when away from computer.

Wich is why I vastly prefer point buy. Because it makes you think about the choices you make at the start of character creation isntead of just clicking the reroll button over and over again.

As some have already mentioned, rerolling is good for P&P, roguelikes and such where the randomness factor is already very high. This method of getting stats is an anachronism from ye olde days of D&D where it made sense, except then the GM would only let you roll so many times. Personally I always use rolling when I'm GM'ing because I too hate seeing carbon copies at my gaming table.

Fun fact: I believe that the 4E PHB doesn't mention dice rolling as a method of generating stats anymore. I think they used point buy exclusively whuch further proves the fact that this edition was heaviliy inspired by computer games. It also makes the GM's life easier since everyone is on a level field, but it's more boring to play as a result.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I always felt that random stat rolling needs some sort of supervision (just like the GM would do when you're playing pen&paper), otherwise you really might as well just hex edit your dream values in. I know the "fruit machine" aspect is appealing, and I did spend some time in BG1/2 just rolling for the numbers but when you look back at it it really is a kinda dumb thing to do. Ultimately I feel that point buy is the better option to go when the game is mostly computer-moderated.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm surprised that no-one ever made a point buy mod for BG.

 

[catfood]

I'm pretty sure stuff like that is hardcoded and impossible to simply mod in.

 

[bloodlover]

Path of Exile comes to mind. Morrowind and Nwn 2.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Starting an Arcanum playthrough now and it's been 3 days of vacillation. I've done half of Shrouded Hills now while only putting points in Dodge, Persuasion, first of Herbs, and now can't choose whether to go for a Melee Tech, Thiefy Tech (poisons/arachnids), Gun Tech or even Bow Tech. After several playthroughs, Arcanum's the best at promising all the cool things I can do and making me hesitate from that point of view.

Techy diplomat (using self-crafted guns, grenades and contraptions when combat is necessary) is probably the best way to have fun in Arcanum. Magic and melee are too cookie-cutter and broken to really play around with. Oh yeah, and some thievery is needed too for some quests IIRC.

 

[Tigranes]

Stuff

Yeah, but I've already played through at least twice each with Electric/Time mages, Techy diplomat, and no-nonsense gun-toters. It's always a huge temptation to go for the techy diplomat, but this time I wanted a new build and went for a halfling melee-backstab thief with tech. Apparently backstab is OP, but I've never tried, and I'll just not put many points in it early on.

Of course, if only the Arcanum Savegame Editor would work, I really want to give myself Teleport (fuck that shit, I've finished the game 6+ times I ain't running all over). Entering in charname seems to give bogus stats and hex editor doesn't find the right values either, maybe it's the UAP that does it.

Edit: yes, 4 pages is enough talking about the main topic, there hasn't been enough Arcanumtalk on the Codex recently

 

[Stygian Lurker]

NWN2 + Expansions and maybe Arcanum

 

[fuzz]

Short-term memory takes it toll, so most recently Path of Exile's builds for 3h hardcore races.

 

[drexciya]

Apart from the already mentioned titles (Wiz series, NWN, GoldBox, RoA), I really liked the Drakensang 1/2 character generation as well. Unfortunately, you can only create one character, but I did try and create lots of them and started several games with different builds. It's got enough variety in spells, skills and build options for a modern RPG.

 

[Harpsichord]

Arcanum and Morrowind, at least as far as computer games go. Which, are honestly quite lacking in the realm of character building in almost all cases.

Come to think of it, Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre both had amazing systems. I wish the whole 'job' convention was more heavily capitalized on in games, it's a great alternative to xp/skill based systems.

Actually, I had more fun building characters than playing Morrowind, so anytime I played a game and felt to reroll my character often, I referred to it as 'Morrowind Syndrome.'

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Arcanum, TOEE, Wizardry 8.

 

[dr.krap]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

 

[visions]

I tried Oblivion once, when hanging out at a friend's place with bros in 2006 (obviously, the friend in question had pirated it). We tried to create the ugliest, most malformed character possible in the face generator, and managed to crash the game in the process.

Spoiler

The race for my char was the politically incorrect one.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

What? A Jewzian?

 

[octavius]

I tried Oblivion once, when hanging out at a friend's place with bros in 2006 (obviously, the friend in question had pirated it). We tried to create the ugliest, most malformed character possible in the face generator, and managed to crash the game in the process.

The face generator in Oblivion was broken. Every time I tried to make a character that looked like myself I ended up with someone who looked like Mr. Bean.

 

[DraQ]

I tried Oblivion once, when hanging out at a friend's place with bros in 2006 (obviously, the friend in question had pirated it). We tried to create the ugliest, most malformed character possible in the face generator, and managed to crash the game in the process.

The face generator in Oblivion was broken. Every time I tried to make a character that looked like myself I ended up with someone who looked like Mr. Bean.

http://theminttu.deviantart.com/gallery/1069127?offset=24#/d13dhlr

 

[Freelance Henchman]

This thread is now about LOLblivion.

 

[Raghar]

ROA2, Lionheart.