Dragon Age is out

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Anecdotally, I'm pretty sure Eamon is named after a friend (and GM) of mine's son, since she has friends in Bioware and other game developers (her other son ended up in City Of Villains).

[White Haven]

I don't know how I'd take a game attempting to assassinate the avatar of my own child. On one hand, cool insertion, on the other hand...assassination.

[Vympel]

My party is myself (Dual Wielding Warrior), a tank of some sort (Alistair or Shale) and Wynne + Morrigan. I don't even bother with Rogues, I don't see the point. What am I really missing out on in those locked chests?

I see the expensive stuff in stores but I don't see it really making that much of a difference to be worth all the money they charge ...

[charlemagne]

I don't even bother with Rogues, I don't see the point. What am I really missing out on in those locked chests?

For one, you're missing out on the "crime quests" in Denerim, they offer good money. Besides that, 95% of all locked chests offer the same crap as any other chest. But there's the occasional locked vault door/chest that gives awesome items and/or a crapload of money and is inaccessible without a rogue.

Also, you miss XP rogues make by picking locks and disarming traps. And the latter - disarming traps - can make a difference in some of the harder encounters, too.

[Serafina]

Rogues CAN dual-wield, and get sneak attacks. If you do not like either Leliana or Zevran, play a rogue on your own.

You get between 5 and 40 XP for locked chests and 40 XP for most (all?) traps.
Plus, if you want to, pickpocket can give a lot of money - about 5 silver per person or so (changes a bit, observation around level 9 with Leliana).

[wautd]

The backpack for some extra storage space, worth the rather high cost?

Oh and I'm glad you can change the game difficulty whenever you please. At one point I was ganked by 20 or 30 soldiers in Denerim and would have completely stuck if I couldn't change it from normal.

[charlemagne]

The backpack for some extra storage space, worth the rather high cost?

IMO, definitely. There's several backpacks with increasing cost, each ups the storage space by 10.

[Coaan]

Without a doubt.

If you manage to snag all five backpacks, it's a 50 item increase in what you can carry. Hundred and twenty items from Seventy is a serious increase in space and really minimizes how often you need to run back to town or destroy things just to free up space for loot that's worth more. There'll be some places that you absolutely WANT this carry space because either you'll be locked in until you finish (ala, Circle.) or you'll find one of the main quests that's huge (ala Orzamarr) or one that just has a huge amount of items on offer. (ala, Brecillian forest)

Having the backpacks reduces the amount of trips you need to make back and forth if you're in full money-grubbing bastard mode. Especially useful given that Bioware fully admit there's a memory leak and load times go to shit if you transition too often/play for long enough.

Having Warden's keep and the storage chest is just the cherry on top. Great place to store ingredients if you really need it. Also, for those of you that haven't gotten the DLC to work properly, Dragon Age Nexus already has members working on the issue. See This or This

The inventory is alot less annoying if you do not have to worry about it.

[wautd]

I also got a sidequest about Morrigan and her mother and I find the choice rather difficult Spoiler

(Morrigan wants you to kill the old hag).

. I hate to see Morrigan go since she's a cornerstone in my party, although my loyalty can be swayed if the rewards are high. Any tips on how to handle this quest best?

[charlemagne]

I also got a sidequest about Morrigan and her mother and I find the choice rather difficult Spoiler

(Morrigan wants you to kill the old hag).

. I hate to see Morrigan go since she's a cornerstone in my party, although my loyalty can be swayed if the rewards are high. Any tips on how to handle this quest best?

Why not just try it out? There's always reload... Spoiler

Also, that quest won't make Morrigan go or anything.

[dragon]

Without a doubt.

If you manage to snag all five backpacks, it's a 50 item increase in what you can carry. Hundred and twenty items from Seventy is a serious increase in space and really minimizes how often you need to run back to town or destroy things just to free up space for loot that's worth more. There'll be some places that you absolutely WANT this carry space because either you'll be locked in until you finish (ala, Circle.) or you'll find one of the main quests that's huge (ala Orzamarr) or one that just has a huge amount of items on offer. (ala, Brecillian forest)

Having the backpacks reduces the amount of trips you need to make back and forth if you're in full money-grubbing bastard mode. Especially useful given that Bioware fully admit there's a memory leak and load times go to shit if you transition too often/play for long enough.

Having Warden's keep and the storage chest is just the cherry on top. Great place to store ingredients if you really need it. Also, for those of you that haven't gotten the DLC to work properly, Dragon Age Nexus already has members working on the issue. See This or This

The inventory is alot less annoying if you do not have to worry about it.

Nice mods also good is winter forge allows you to make and modify and copy weapons, shields and armor. Which is nice since by time I beat the game I was lvl 19 yet several of my characters was running around with the same stuff they had at lvl 8. And while you can make god items with it thats no funs but it is niffty to do light mods. Such as give stam and mana regen to items in order to combat the problems with those.

[Ghost Rider]

Of the three, they are a bit of odd flavor.

Warriors: Suck to dual wield. You have to pump Dexterity for it, and the two handed tree is better and better laid out. The two handed tree offers massive amounts of stunning, armor pen and crit and makes your strength work for you. Especially given two handers have better strength modifer.

Rogues: Duel or Arrows...though Arrows are basically playing Mage-lite. Duel with Assassination/Duel allows you to back stab with virtually anything, use Cunning/Str/Dex as attack modifiers and allows one to pretty much destroy anything with personal haste field. I found it to be one of the nastier Melee, and far far better then the warrior version. Opening locked chest gives easily a few thousand XP at the end of the day and some extra money in a game that is stingy.

Mages: Arcane Warrior and CC and you pretty much destroy any and everything, including that annoying final boss.

[Serafine666]

Dragon Age is turning out to be a really cool game although I'm continually amazed at the fact that the party members who do the most damage and are encased in the best armor die faster than the little priestess/rogue wandering around in a leather skirt and sports bra (the complete set of Dwalish armor). I'm still trying to decide on what specializations are best because other than Champion, Templar, and Spirit-Healer, none of them seem to give you a whole lot of millage. I ended up getting precisely one thing from the Bard, nothing from Duelist, completely ignoring the guy with the ready-made Assassin specialization, still looking for the Ranger, and then only getting Shapeshifter and Spirit Healer because the two mages come with those specializations... and only the Spirit Healer gets real millage because it's inconvenient to turn Morrigan into a superbear in the middle of combat when she could be blowing shit up with a fireball (or turning an unlucky Hurlock into a bomb ). In the end, I settled on a part of Shale, Leilana, PC, and Alistar because together (I'm a shield/sword warrior), we're a walking talking smackdown.

By the by, as to the money problem someone lauded to earlier... I'm not really seeing it. Sure, I couldn't get the Great And Terrible Sword of General Badass at the beginning of the game but after getting a stuffed inventory a few times and unloading it all with and random merchant, I never found myself confronted with a merchant selling a prettysharpshiny that was particularly better than the sharp things I already had (all of which you can get as part of quests). If the Blood Dragon Armor wasn't so good, I would totally be tooling around in the Juggernaut Plate which looks generally badass and makes spells sort of bounce off.

Not gonna be fun to deal with that archdemon though... spirit flames THEN darkspawn hordes THEN hoards of darkspawn self-propelled bombs is no joy. At least none of my party will die when they lay the final blow on the thing... thank BioWare for a sarcastic witch with a grating British accent.

[Ghost Rider]

What difficulty are you on NOT to use a healer? Other then casual you are chum bait for most battles given they swarm and then cut down unless you're the mage delivering AoE or the Rogue doing mass stuns. Especially given you can't see how the Bard's Mass Stun, The duelist superior 100% crit strike or any other talents can help.

And if you're not seeing that they are easily 10 items in the game that cost 100+ gold, and you will never reach it regardless is not a problem even if you are a penny pinching motherfucker, you are not getting the arguement. The point is why go that route. Why even try to get gold from every mission if you can never reach said items, because you won't get them from being the goody two shoes. In fact by end game I would amazed if the skinflint would be at 1000G let alone the 1500+ one needs to acquire the extra junk.

And some of the best items are only bought. In fact the best Rogue armor, best mage staff, best spell resist neckpiece, and a few other one time best only slot items are only purchased at the 100+ level. Usually you are limited to maybe a few at the end.

[charlemagne]

What difficulty are you on NOT to use a healer? Other then casual you are chum bait for most battles given they swarm and then cut down unless you're the mage delivering AoE or the Rogue doing mass stuns. Especially given you can't see how the Bard's Mass Stun, The duelist superior 100% crit strike or any other talents can help.

Actually healing is overrated in this game It's helpful during longer boss battles, but everything else is very doable without a healer. I'm on normal and playing dual-wield warrior right now - because it's fun and I go for "crazy dwarf in heavy armor with two axes" whenever I can do that - partied with Shale, Morrigan and Leliana, and nothing stops us. Lots of mobs are no problem at all if you focus your fire and throw in stun/sleep/waking nightware whenever things get hairy.

[Ghost Rider]

What difficulty are you on NOT to use a healer? Other then casual you are chum bait for most battles given they swarm and then cut down unless you're the mage delivering AoE or the Rogue doing mass stuns. Especially given you can't see how the Bard's Mass Stun, The duelist superior 100% crit strike or any other talents can help.

Actually healing is overrated in this game It's helpful during longer boss battles, but everything else is very doable without a healer. I'm on normal and playing dual-wield warrior right now - because it's fun and I go for "crazy dwarf in heavy armor with two axes" whenever I can do that - partied with Shale, Morrigan and Leliana, and nothing stops us. Lots of mobs are no problem at all if you focus your fire and throw in stun/sleep/waking nightware whenever things get hairy.

I'll take your word for it really. I just relied on healing because too many times the game will go "FUCK YOU BITCH" and go happy criticals from whatever and then proceed to destroy the party. Strangely the end battle was less healing and more resist fight then most of the rest.

So far the only consistent bit of the game I've really seen is stunning is god in the game. Whatever locks down enemies is pretty much the end all except the large dumb shit that has 150% resist. Only reason I liked the rogue. Whatever stun, backstab, proceed to next if they are alive.

[Serafine666]

What difficulty are you on NOT to use a healer? Other then casual you are chum bait for most battles given they swarm and then cut down unless you're the mage delivering AoE or the Rogue doing mass stuns. Especially given you can't see how the Bard's Mass Stun, The duelist superior 100% crit strike or any other talents can help.

Easy, I think.
Believe me... I'm pretty much as surprised as you are, Ghost Rider. But even if it ought not to work, if it works, it works.

And if you're not seeing that they are easily 10 items in the game that cost 100+ gold, and you will never reach it regardless is not a problem even if you are a penny pinching motherfucker, you are not getting the arguement. The point is why go that route. Why even try to get gold from every mission if you can never reach said items, because you won't get them from being the goody two shoes. In fact by end game I would amazed if the skinflint would be at 1000G let alone the 1500+ one needs to acquire the extra junk.

And some of the best items are only bought. In fact the best Rogue armor, best mage staff, best spell resist neckpiece, and a few other one time best only slot items are only purchased at the 100+ level. Usually you are limited to maybe a few at the end.

I'm aware of those items, Ghost Rider, but except for the Robes of the High Magistar (or whatever they're called), none of them have proven to be significantly better than what I have when I encounter them. In my mind, it's not a problem if you're unable to buy something you don't wish to buy.

[charlemagne]

I'll take your word for it really. I just relied on healing because too many times the game will go "FUCK YOU BITCH" and go happy criticals from whatever and then proceed to destroy the party. Strangely the end battle was less healing and more resist fight then most of the rest.

Yeah, sure, there's moments like that. That's what F5 and F9 are for It's mostly bad luck though, sometimes enemy mages just happen to use a deadly combination of stun/knockback + damage that just rapes your party - and after a quick reload you then do the same to them. In my experience there's not that many situations that always go that badly.

[Vympel]

Warriors: Suck to dual wield. You have to pump Dexterity for it, and the two handed tree is better and better laid out. The two handed tree offers massive amounts of stunning, armor pen and crit and makes your strength work for you. Especially given two handers have better strength modifer.

I use a Dual Wield Warrior. It's pretty awesome. Though I would like the game to have flails, so I could emulate my longsword & flail Dual-Wield Warrior from Baldur's Gate/SoA/ToB.

Anyone notice Leliana looks exactly like Imoen from BG, right down to her haircut?

[Serafina]

Anyone notice Leliana looks exactly like Imoen from BG, right down to her haircut?

Yes, it's pretty obvious. Tough Imoen was not a bard, and NOT religios - their personalities are quite different. Spoiler

and not a lesbian

By the way, does anyone else find it ironic that (female) members of the churchs are always rogues?

[Ghost Rider]

Warriors: Suck to dual wield. You have to pump Dexterity for it, and the two handed tree is better and better laid out. The two handed tree offers massive amounts of stunning, armor pen and crit and makes your strength work for you. Especially given two handers have better strength modifer.

I use a Dual Wield Warrior. It's pretty awesome. Though I would like the game to have flails, so I could emulate my longsword & flail Dual-Wield Warrior from Baldur's Gate/SoA/ToB.

Anyone notice Leliana looks exactly like Imoen from BG, right down to her haircut?

The difference is the Duel Wield Rogue versus Warrior is literally the DW warrior is gimped in comparison. Sure you do good DPS, but you don't have the stuns the warrior can have in other trees or the Rogue, and all you do is damage. The Rogue can do the same and stun better and have abilities to have more haste and crit. The 2 handed warrior can do nearly the same damage and AoE stun.

It's why I say it sucks because when direct comparison, the only advantage is two weapons the rogue cannot use BUT neither are better then the Starfang and do not make up for the difference of the loss of stuns or crits. It's not bad, it won't cause you to go never win the game but it is definitely gimped when compared to other builds.

[Ghost Rider]

I'll take your word for it really. I just relied on healing because too many times the game will go "FUCK YOU BITCH" and go happy criticals from whatever and then proceed to destroy the party. Strangely the end battle was less healing and more resist fight then most of the rest.

Yeah, sure, there's moments like that. That's what F5 and F9 are for It's mostly bad luck though, sometimes enemy mages just happen to use a deadly combination of stun/knockback + damage that just rapes your party - and after a quick reload you then do the same to them. In my experience there's not that many situations that always go that badly.

Like I said, taking your word for it. . Most if any of the times they get lucky is if the enemy has 3-4 mages working perfect concert like your example or for some reason melee magically walks past me because somehow my archer has gained the highest aggro, for standing there and swarm the healer who's standing next to her. Then proceeds to swarm me after eating them.

That would be a complaint I have of this so called Aggro system. It's bullshit. If this was to emulate any MMO, most tanks are utter failure since the time it takes for them to have enough my character or the mage, or the archer, or fuck...any of the other two hander warriors destroys it and they become the tank by default because nothing except dragons last long enough for the tank to regain aggro. And fuck using the lowering talents as you do that with their so called taunt, the still mostly stare at you the second you touch them.

Doesn't detract from the game but makes you wonder why go sword and board except to use the items.

[Serafine666]

Doesn't detract from the game but makes you wonder why go sword and board except to use the items.

The slapdown talents. Shield Pummel, Overwhelm, and Shield Bash all let you put status effects on the enemy from knocking them over to stunning them. Assault lets you whack them 4 times (a good sword-and-board warrior can do 100-150 when they get high enough level) and things like Precision and Perfect Strike lets you trade attack speed to bigger damage. If you're awesome and get Champion, you can sit around knocking hoards over every minute or so with War Cry and your Final Blow (I think that's the name of it) refilling your stamina every time you kill something then Rally to up the damage, attack, and defense of the party. And all the while, using skills like Shield Defense and Shield Wall to bounce away arrows. I'm sorta fond of sword-and-board, as you can tell.

[dragon]

Is an archer any good to play through or are they broken as well.

[Serafina]

Archers do have certain disadvantages:
Their weapons can not be equipped with runes or poison (tough you have special ammunition for that) and you have a lower variety of weapons. Also, you do not get any sneak attacks with ranged attacks.
Most gravely tough is the fact that there are no specialisations for archers.

However, you also get extra damage from dexterity AND strenght and twice the attack bonus from dexterity - so you can invest heavily into dexterity and have a good defense.

Suppressing (Stance) fire ist quite good - a stacking attack penalty to your target, quite handy against strong melee opponents.
Scattershot is a nice AOE-stun - improved by the fact that it is a ranged attack.
Crippling shot reduces the enemies attack and defense, not bad either.
Pinning Shot can ber quite handy against running casters, since it reduces their movement and is quite cheap.

If you are a rogue (or have Leliana in your group) and don't want the risk to send him/her into melee, archery is a valid choice. Go for the Bard specialzation first and add ranger later. You are a support character with moderate damage, one area stun, a couple of summons and some good debuffs.

Generally, i would advise other styles for a main-character rogue. You profit more from your class abilities, get more damage and have a use for all four specializations. It's not a bad choice for Leliana tough.