Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has the best combat system I've ever seen in an RPG. The customization is somewhat lacking (you can't customize anyone but Mario, unless you consider collecting items that generally increase the power of the partners you choose, and I don't like how you can only have 2 characters (Mario and a partner) when you're in battle.
The Avernum series has awesome customization. You have a party of 4, and you can choose their race, their traits (these give stat bonuses at the cost of making a character require more experience to gain a level) and stats (like proficiency in Mage spells/Priest spells/Thrown weapons/1-handed weapons/2-handed weapons, Health, Magic, Strength, Dexterity, etc.) The combat is grid-based, and the terrain often has a big impact on the battle. Sometimes you'll enter a dungeon and find goblins throwing rocks at you from atop a cliff that your melee guys can't get to without taking a long detour. Or sometimes you'll fight an enemy in a narrow corridor and have a warrior block his way so he can't get to your ranged fighters. Being adjacent to an enemy and trying to run away from them will take a good chunk of your Action Points (what you use to move, attack, etc.), so you can't play keep-away with your enemies (and vice versa)
www.spidweb.com
That site has demos for all 7 games in the Avernum series. If you just want to try the best one first, go with Avernum 6. There's also demos of other games as well. Geneforge is kind of similar to Avernum, except instead of a party of 4, you control 1 character who can summon monsters. Kind of reminds me of Pokemon, like if the trainers could use swords/magic and fight alongside their minions.
The Avernum series has awesome customization. You have a party of 4, and you can choose their race, their traits (these give stat bonuses at the cost of making a character require more experience to gain a level) and stats (like proficiency in Mage spells/Priest spells/Thrown weapons/1-handed weapons/2-handed weapons, Health, Magic, Strength, Dexterity, etc.) The combat is grid-based, and the terrain often has a big impact on the battle. Sometimes you'll enter a dungeon and find goblins throwing rocks at you from atop a cliff that your melee guys can't get to without taking a long detour. Or sometimes you'll fight an enemy in a narrow corridor and have a warrior block his way so he can't get to your ranged fighters. Being adjacent to an enemy and trying to run away from them will take a good chunk of your Action Points (what you use to move, attack, etc.), so you can't play keep-away with your enemies (and vice versa)
www.spidweb.com
That site has demos for all 7 games in the Avernum series. If you just want to try the best one first, go with Avernum 6. There's also demos of other games as well. Geneforge is kind of similar to Avernum, except instead of a party of 4, you control 1 character who can summon monsters. Kind of reminds me of Pokemon, like if the trainers could use swords/magic and fight alongside their minions.
