What should folks be picking up in the turn based RPG steam sale?

Silent Storm (and its expansion Sentinels, they're sold together as Silent Storm Gold Edition), an XCOM-style game set in WW2 (with some sci-fi elements, like dieselpunk mechs that show up later on), featuring awesome environmental destruction mechanics. It's got a lot of jank, but it's still really cool.

I greatly recommend Sea of Stars, it is on the shorter side and have some issues with the ending and some character arcs, but I still found it extremely endearing and made me very comfy during most most of it and made me felt as if I was playing some strange reflection of Chrono Trigger.

Extra recommended if you also enjoyed The Messenger, as it has direct connections.

I didn't bought anything in steam sales in ages, since they changed Poland regional pricing to same as Germany and UK (countries with 5 times more median wages). I love (/s) how the games with -50% sale still cost the same as new games before pricing change and sales are usually 10-35% now. But i guess that was deserved prize for successfully reducing most of piracy in Poland.

but looking there, some worth playing:

• Symphony of War, strategy not RPG, but damn good one in the old style, price is decent
• King Arthur: Knight's tale, also more strategy than RPG and also very good, price is ok-ish but i wouldn't buy
• Pathfinder WoR, was in Humble month ago or so, so the price isn't very appetizin, but i guess worth it if you missed
• Dragon Quest IX - would be great game but PC port have traditionally borked controls, like really frigging borked
• X-Com 2 -95% lol still best game in genre after 8 years
• Atom RPG - poor brother of Fallout, but if you want to shoot AK-47 and exorcise evil spirits with the name of CPSU, the price is good
• Encased - rather B-class but good rpg and for good price. Was free on Epic some time ago tho

If you liked the old Fallout CRPGs or the Wasteland sequels, I'd recommend Encased. It's on sale right now and provides a surprising range of ways solve the game's various problems.

It isn't on sale, but Fear & Hunger is only 8 dollars and I can provide a torrent (albeit only for the linux native version). I have never felt so disturbed, weak, and scared from a game as I have from Fear & Hunger. It's very rough around the edges and take each trigger warning with extreme heed, but is a wonderful game about failure and body horror. I love the way it explores erotophobia in a way that isn't titillating, but rather makes you want to shower in the dark for a week after playing it. It is a turn based RPG with amputation-based combat, no leveling system and a lot of struggling. The charecter designs and monsters are all top notch, I personally love how Le'garde and Ragnavaldr are drawn, Sylvian and Marriage both capture the cosmic horror vibes pretty well, and the Harvestmen and Uterus are great monster concepts.

Oh, and beware of the Crow Peckers.

Tactical Breach Wizards!

I really liked Symphony of War: The Nephelim Saga. The story is mid as hell but the gameplay scratched an itch that I didn't know I had (this was before Unicorn Overlord). It's Fire Emblem but your units are squads that have fun class dynamics that are cool without being so complex it needs player scripting. A few of their character designs are kinda , but not uncommonly so.

The devs literally edited my save file after a big patch broke my save and sent it back to me, so I'm partial to them.

You're already based so you don't need anything else to turn based

But if you haven't played it yet, get yourself Into The Breach, it's by far my favorite turn-based game of all time and it's not even close

XCOM and XCOM 2 are both pretty great turn-based tactics games with gradual progression, same for Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus. Seconding the rec for Shadowrun Dragonfall, it's solid. Returns isn't as good, and I own but haven't played Hong Kong so can't recommend it.

Haven't played it myself, but one of my friends quite liked Marvel Midnight Suns, and he's not even a marvel fan.

Just realized most of these aren't actually RPGs, but hey if Steam says they are then who am I to disagree?

seconding XCOM 2, its incredibly fun and the amount of community mods it has lets you play dress up with your soldiers, but you have to get the War of the Chosen DLC because it makes it way better

The Pathfinder games ($3.99, $11.99) and Shadowrun: Dragonfall ($3.74) are on sale for cheap.

Hard West is only $2 and it's pretty good, X-COM style but with named characters and more story focused and a kinda quirky luck system where shots automatically miss if you have enough but it lowers your luck, getting hit gives you luck back, and you can also spend luck on abilities, so if you're behind cover and just get grazed it can work to your advantage. There's also a sequel ($8.99) that I haven't played.

X-COM 2 ($3.99) and Darkest Dungeon ($3.74) are cheap, but if you're interested in those you've probably already played them. Into the Breach ($7.49) is also good.

Wildermyth ($17.49) is an interesting little indie game. You start out with three characters who are random people who rose to the occasion to become adventures, and encounter random events that can develop them in different ways. The stories are pretty well-written, but they are self-contained, which allows them to be incorporated into your own random characters' stories, but they don't like tie together into a larger story. It's kind of a unique approach and works... ok. The combat system works well, easy to understand, but with more choices available as you level up.

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark ($4.49) is heavily inspired by FF Tactics but the story is forgettable and you're playing as a fantasy cop, on the plus side the gameplay is less janky and the classes are better balanced compared to FFT, imo.

Super Lesbian Animal RPG ($9.74) I haven't played but I vaguely remember hearing something good about somewhere and am thinking of picking it up.

Is BattleTech on sale? I enjoy that one a lot

If you want something modern but traditional, Dragon Quest 11.

Does Baldur's Gate 3 count as a turn based RPG?

I got four recommendations, all great and only one of them on sale lol

1. MARDEK: Late 2000's flash game classic RPG, updated semi recently. A solid nostalgia trip for those who played it back in the day and overall a great RPG with a deeper than average story and a fantastic engine that makes me wish it was open source

2. OMORI : Psychological "horror" that's more tragic than scary. One of those games best headed into blind so I will say little but it's the most "objectively" good on the list, in general consensus

3. GRIFTLANDS: Not really what comes to mind with turn based RPGs but it's a great little deckbuilder rougelite that I've spent an ungodly amount of hours on for what amount of content is in it, complete with some rich characters and decent story and worldbuilding for what it's worth

4. EPIC BATTLE FANTASY 5: Silly, tongue in cheek, juvenile humor next to one of the most in depth turn based battle games I've ever seen. It's silly veneer and charming graphics hide some real deep turn based combat gameplay, and it's the only game on this list that's actually on sale right now

I'm really into vaguely- or extremely-Earthbound-like games. Since Omori was already mentioned (and it's the best of that subgenre along with grandpa OFF and Undertale), I'll mention the Endless Empty, which is a giant CW for suicide and drug abuse, and also admittedly kind of buggy. Also I don't see it currently on sale despite it mechanically being very much a conventional RPG, so I guess that defeats the point of the comment, but it might go on sale on a later day! On a related note, Nepenthe (which is like if Undertale was written by Toby Fox's dad), is also not on sale.

Let's see . . . there's LISA and its offshoots, with basically every content warning short of snuff being applicable to those, and also it's full price right now . . . West of Loathing is cool and I assume the sequel is too, and those are actually on sale. Suits: Absolute Power is pretty good and also on sale. In Stars and Time is on sale and I really recommend playing the demo first because a) it is a better game and b) it doesn't have the same impact if you know what you learn in the full game. Neither Hylics 1 or 2 are currently on sale, which is unfortunate, because those are up there.

Moonring is free but also more of a CRPG I guess and also not Earthbound-like (which, to be clear, all the previous games are). Virgo and the Zodiac isn't substantially Earthbound-like but it's a good rpg on sale. "Get in the Car, Loser!" could only be more of a Hexbear sim if it was a) actually Bolshevik or b) framed around a trainride instead of a roadtrip, but as-is you're still a gang of transbians/cisbians fighting industrial demons and doing dumb quips, and it's also not on sale yet (I got it when it was free).

Uh, Franzen and Grimm's Hollow are both pretty good and they are free last I checked.

I don't know, I think this mostly wasn't very helpful, I just like RPGs.

I haven't played Cesspool but it seems neat and it's at a large discount

SKALD: Against the Black Priory just got a big update and it's on sale for less than 12 bucks. It's a Commodore 64-styled RPG modeled after the old Ultima games and it's fantastic. Lots of Lovecraftian elements as well, if you're into that.