I want to second Grey’s recommendation of Icewind Dale. I like the 1st one the best – personally I really don’t like games that use the revised “3rd edition” D&D rules because there are way too many parameters for designing and advancing characters. But the Infinity engine used in that series of games (the same one used in the Baldur’s gate games) is absolutely brilliant for combat, allowing just enough stragegization to make combat really rewarding without getting you bogged down. You have to admit that Diablo-style ‘mad clicking -> hide behind pillar -> more mad clicking’ gets a little tiresome?
Really, Icewind Dale is a blast. Tons of combat and much more rewarding than Diablo-style games. Which is obviously just my opinion…
For one thing, I think I am inspired to reinstall Baldurs Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2. I was originally thinking “Diablo Style” is what I want, but the more these were mentioned, the more I got the itch to play them…
But also, I downloaded “Fate” last night. It’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for! And the randomly generated dungeons and quests are a nice touch, as well. (I wish there was some more complexity to the character development parameters, though.)
One problem with Fate is this, though. My system is a couple of years old, but it’s way beyond the minimum requirements for Fate. Yet I have to turn all graphics settings down to their lowest option or else I get a laggy mouse. That’s kind of disappointing. But then I’m generally happy to play good games even if the graphics aren’t that great.