Dragon Age

[Xurtan]

Define "cool stuff". Cone of Cold? Fireball? Inferno, Tempest, Blizzard, Storm of the Century? Paralyze + Knockback Glyph? Entropy line? The hex that makes the mob miss normal attacks and crits hit for normal damage, or each of YOUR attacks hits the mob for crit damage..

The bomb you place on someone and then they explode in a big red goop-like mass? Controlling the blood of a creature and turning them against their allies? Stopping a large group of enemies by boiling their blood? Summoning undead? The list goes on.  

Mages are awesome.

(Or did I completely miss-read that and you meant cool stuff as in plot?  )

Also, you can use that raven mod to respec a character. Think it was linked a few times in this thread, somewhere..

[Threash]

You only get 2 specializations per character and shes already a shapeshifter.

[Ingmar]

Yeah you can buy books to unlock most of the specs at various vendors.  And once they're unlocked they stay unlocked even if you restore to a save taken before you spend the gold to buy the book. 

They're also unlocked for all subsequent characters you make.

[sidereal]

Speaking of all characters, what's the deal with the Blood Dragon armor?  I know when you pay for the DLC, your active character gets the main armor and all the other gear (helmet, boots, etc) shows up in your camp vendor.  But I bought it when my active character was a mage.  Then I rolled up a warrior and it doesn't look like I can get the breastplate, even though the other stuff is all still at the vendor.

[schild]

It was available at the vendor on both of my characters. What happened to you would qualify as a bug.

[Ingmar]

Was said warrior a dwarf noble? They lose all their gear at the end of their origin which currently includes bonus gear. Maybe the biggest "oops" sort of mistake in the game really.

[eldaec]

Was said warrior a dwarf noble? They lose all their gear at the end of their origin which currently includes bonus gear. Maybe the biggest "oops" sort of mistake in the game really.

imo this is awesome.

Because RMT gear in a single player story rpg is the single most retarded gaming concept implemented in a professionally produced game since HAM.

[Ingmar]

Collector's Edition special gear predates HAM actually (see: Planescape: Torment themed bonus gear in Baldur's Gate 2). 

[sidereal]

Was said warrior a dwarf noble? They lose all their gear at the end of their origin which currently includes bonus gear. Maybe the biggest "oops" sort of mistake in the game really.

Why yes, yes she was.  She must have had it up until the strip search and I didn't notice.  And eldaec, the Stone Prisoner is actually free (so DLC, but not RMT) and I think it's a safe assumption that most people are getting it for Shale, not the armor, which is fugly.  Just like most people are getting the actual RMT (Warden's Keep) for the storage space and the extra quest, not whatever slightly less fugly armor they're offering.

I just wanted to put Sten is ass armor to passively aggressively embarass that jerkface.  Alistair is wearing the Warden armor, which looks choice.

[eldaec]

If event A happens both before and after event B, where event B has quality C to a greater degree than event A, that doesn't prevent event A being the event with the greatest degree of quality C in the period of time between event B and the present day.

[eldaec]

Was said warrior a dwarf noble? They lose all their gear at the end of their origin which currently includes bonus gear. Maybe the biggest "oops" sort of mistake in the game really.

Why yes, yes she was.  She must have had it up until the strip search and I didn't notice.  And eldaec, the Stone Prisoner is actually free (so DLC, but not RMT) and I think it's a safe assumption that most people are getting it for Shale, not the armor, which is fugly.  Just like most people are getting the actual RMT (Warden's Keep) for the storage space and the extra quest, not whatever slightly less fugly armor they're offering.

Fair point.

But giving away free ugly armour that looks out of place in the game, requires nonsense downloads and does not have appropriate stats is also retarded.

[Raguel]

Define "cool stuff".

Sorry, I meant in terms of gear, but looking at that list convinces me if I do another play through I won't let Morrigan auto level 

[Sky]

But giving away free ugly armour that looks out of place in the game, requires nonsense downloads and does not have appropriate stats is also retarded.

I know, right? This game sucks so bad and Bioware is a horrid developer.

[Xurtan]

Sorry, I meant in terms of gear, but looking at that list convinces me if I do another play through I won't let Morrigan auto level 

Ah, my mistake. I can't really argue with that, the gear choices for Mages are pretty.. limited. 

[Zar]

I hate how the Mages' hats look.  My soulless, immoral warlock looks like such a tool in one :(.

[eldaec]

I hate how the Mages' hats look.  My soulless, immoral warlock looks like such a tool in one :(.

Chantry plot you see.

[eldaec]

But giving away free ugly armour that looks out of place in the game, requires nonsense downloads and does not have appropriate stats is also retarded.

I know, right? This game sucks so bad and Bioware is a horrid developer.

Bioware's knees are too sharp.

[rk47]

And I like Lel, she's light years ahead of kotor's obvious_female_trope_001-999 characters. It is just unfortunate that rogues suck monkey balls.

I'm currently playing with Leliana and myself as stabby rogues with Morrigan and Wynne as healbots. We mow things down, momentum with two daggers is awesome, especially if you throw some poisons on. It takes until level 9 or so to really come into its own but now I don't even bother micromanaging my mages unless someone gets grabbed or similar and to lockdown any mages.

1.hmm.. Rogue main, Zhevran, Leliana
2.spec ranger
3.summon 3 animals.
4.?
5.profit!

[stray]

I'm on PS3, and I've never gotten the dragon armor. Some kind of fuckup going on. Meh, oh well. It doesn't seem like anyone cares for it anyways.

RMT... I ponied up for the Keep when I found I had just the right amount in my PS account. It's turned out to be worth it for the superman sword alone.

[Reg]

I had that same idea. Unfortunately you can only have one summon per party. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Well, I went and rocked the high dragon at level with me{spirit healer} morrigan/lel/alistair as the meatshield. I can honestly say I have NO idea how you could beat that fight without a dedicated tank/healer.

[Ingmar]

Well, I went and rocked the high dragon at level with me{spirit healer} morrigan/lel/alistair as the meatshield. I can honestly say I have NO idea how you could beat that fight without a dedicated tank/healer.

A really big stack of poultices and some cheesy ranged tactics built around the dragon's takeoff/landing AI.

[Raguel]

It's turned out to be worth it for the superman sword alone.

Uh, is that made from a meteorite? I thought that was some sort of easter egg. Wow,  you'd think I never played a video game before lol.

[Engels]

Did they ever patch the dex bug? The one where dex doesn't modify bow attacks? I know there was some dev patch floating about out there, but it had a lot of caveats about using it, namely that NPC archers would get the upper hand since the 'fix' would affect them and then you'd likely be outgunned, so to speak.

[tmp]

Did they ever patch the dex bug? The one where dex doesn't modify bow attacks? I know there was some dev patch floating about out there, but it had a lot of caveats about using it, namely that NPC archers would get the upper hand since the 'fix' would affect them and then you'd likely be outgunned, so to speak.

I think some sort of official version of it is scheduled to go into the next official patch. The unofficial version isn't really as scary as it may sound, at least on normal difficulty. Yes the archers actually sting and you might want to pay some attention to them but it's more of a good thing than a bad one imo.

On completely unrelated note i started the game today and found it sneakily installed new official DLC bonus -- "the Edge". A dagger, hideously overpowered just like the rest of the DLC items.

[schild]

On completely unrelated note i started the game today and found it sneakily installed new official DLC bonus -- "the Edge". A dagger, hideously overpowered just like the rest of the DLC items.

huh?

[Rasix]

The unofficial version isn't really as scary as it may sound, at least on normal difficulty. Yes the archers actually sting and you might want to pay some attention to them but it's more of a good thing than a bad one imo.

It doesn't get scary until you start going up against 6 or so archers at a time or clusters of 3-4 behind cover later in the game. All of them firing off scattershot at once can have your entire group under half health (rogues/mages near dead) and stunned. I'd imagine the "hard way" out of the rescue might be incredibly difficult with it installed.

Need to do a warrior puppy kicker playthough. Not looking forward to 2 handers. Anyone have luck with a dual wielding warrior? I imagine stats would be at a premium. 

[tmp]

It doesn't get scary until you start going up against 6 or so archers at a time or clusters of 3-4 behind cover later in the game. All of them firing off scattershot at once can have your entire group under half health (rogues/mages near dead) and stunned. I'd imagine the "hard way" out of the rescue might be incredibly difficult with it installed.

Well i got through the whole game and even these instances weren't really hard to manage -- i found they could be dealt with reasonably either using the AoE cc or one of the spells Wynne gets by default, which basically makes a character immune to ranged fire for some time. Or moving into positions where the archers couldn't get line of sight on the target, or any combination of these. There's probably more ways to handle it, too.

huh?

I meant, the stats on these things are so high compared to pretty much anything you can find in vanilla game, it makes nearly all other gear in comparison obsolete. I found myself just not using them at all so i'd still experience getting an upgrade every now and then.

[Venkman]

Been avoiding this thread because I got into such a completionist mindset I'll probably finish this game around the time of the sequel. But I do have two observations:

• I'm a mute. This is annoying. Why give me a voice but not let me use it? It's not like they were trying to save money on the VO work here. And it's not like I'm typing text out. This wouldn't be so bad except they keep showing me in the cutscenes, standing there silent while even my other party members have pithy rejoinders in those dialog sequences.
  
• No matter how you track as a character, really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic, you can always choose really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic. Basically, at any time, you can just arbitrarily change your entire personality. This somewhat breaks immersion for me. I'd have preferred the game start emphasizing certain responses based on prior actions. You always need a way to change your bearing of course. But after however-many-hours of being pretty much lawful good, I can still choose to go on a sudden murderous rampage and torch villages. Doesn't seem right. But I imagine there's only so much hiearchical dialog you can have
  
  

Neither of these are showstoppers. This game is freakin' awesome in a way I haven't experienced probably since, shit, maybe one of the Ultimas. I don't have the years of experience between Ultima VI and Baldur's Gate though. And at the time of BG, I was sucked exclusively into diku MMO. So I probably missed a lot of good shit. Which is fine because I feel like so much of it has culminated in DA.

Define "cool stuff". Cone of Cold? Fireball? Inferno, Tempest, Blizzard, Storm of the Century? Paralyze + Knockback Glyph? Entropy line?

Mages are awesome.

Yes. I actually have two Mages right now plus Shale and Alistair. I feels rather overpowered, but that's how I like it for a game more about story than pew pew. I just got Tempest too. God I love that spell  And practically live by cross-fire Cones of Cold and Stone Fist.

[tmp]

No matter how you track as a character, really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic, you can always choose really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic. Basically, at any time, you can just arbitrarily change your entire personality. This somewhat breaks immersion for me. I'd have preferred the game start emphasizing certain responses based on prior actions. You always need a way to change your bearing of course. But after however-many-hours of being pretty much lawful good, I can still choose to go on a sudden murderous rampage and torch villages. Doesn't seem right. But I imagine there's only so much hiearchical dialog you can have

I rather like it since it allows for wider variety of characters -- ones with certain hot buttons which can make them flip out, e.g. And this sort of murderous rampage after x hours of lawful good can even happen to your companions, so i definitely don't want my own character to be denied such option

[sidereal]

Anyone have luck with a dual wielding warrior? I imagine stats would be at a premium. 

Yes.  Dual Warrior PCs basically need every stat except Magic.  And you if you want to give up on high level skills and Coercion you can leave out Cunning.  Going to the Circle Tower and getting the load of stat bonuses there early is very helpful.

[stray]

It's turned out to be worth it for the superman sword alone.

Uh, is that made from a meteorite? I thought that was some sort of easter egg. Wow,  you'd think I never played a video game before lol.

Yeah, the meteorite. Do yourself a favor and craft a blade. It's the best one in the game I've seen. Has 3 slots too.

I have a dw warrior. He's an autoattacking asskicker.. with some good aoe. And a Temp/Champ. But I haven't played it all through. I pretty much lvled with dex and str fairly equal until mid 30's. Also, I'd just bother with the 3rd line of skills early on at first (the ones that lead to whirlwind). The 1st line of Warrior class skills are the most beneficial, while the second are sort of for tanks. Best to avoid the second tree as much as possible. There are some lvls where you might not have opened up your most useful skills, so if you can, just trudge through without actually lvling up until you reach the lvl requirements for those skills.

[Slyfeind]

No matter how you track as a character, really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic, you can always choose really friendly, neutral, and sociopathic.

This is interesting, because playing a religious zealot, I was mostly good, but there were moments I was sociopathic. Maybe the direction to evolve in, is to gauge the player's responses, and open up new dialog choices based on those. I'd probably want to respec my personality at will, though. :)

[rk47]

Anyone have luck with a dual wielding warrior? I imagine stats would be at a premium.  

Yes.  Dual Warrior PCs basically need every stat except Magic.  And you if you want to give up on high level skills and Coercion you can leave out Cunning.  Going to the Circle Tower and getting the load of stat bonuses there early is very helpful.

Eh, I always thought Rogues make the best Dual Wielders since they're not as Stamina hungry as Warriors with the passive backstabs racking up huge numbers. Plus a cheap stun on mage = auto crits at tier 3.

Looking at the Rogue vs Warrior specializations, Rogues aced this one by a mile with Assassin / Duelist single target awesomeness.

[stray]

A dual wielding warrior isn't that stamina hungry. With decent gear, you don't do anything but mow through shit, and occasionally execute two aoe attacks on minions, and flurry on elites (all of which have long enough timers that prevent spamming). You could use other abilities, but you don't have to. If I really need another damage type/skill thrown in the mix, I'd just switch to another party member.