Dragon Age:Origins and a question

Note: "Ishal" means "diarrhea" in Turkish.

 

I gave Morrigan Cone of Frost, which really helps, especially since Leliana and Alistair both have insta-critical abilities.

I'm about ten hours into the game now, with five of the followers (not including yourself). One thing I find helps, Grimmhatter, since your team mates ARE complete buffoons if left to their own devices, is to pull the enemy. When I was in

Spoiler

the frozen temple of Andraste

I took a lot of beatings, and most of my dudes had three or more injuries (I used 6 lesser injury kits in that particular dungeon). With my health low, I was still bumping into large swarms of bad guys, though. To remedy this, I set team movement to 'hold position', fired my bow and pulled the baddies WoW-style into the corridors. My melee tank (I'm using an archer, a mage, a tank, and myself, the melee DPS) wasn't much use unless the baddie wandered next to him, but the rest of us could kill the enemy one at a time with relative ease. This does not work in cases like Japes mentioned, however, when you're suddenly in a boss fight right after a conversation.

That dungeon was the best experience I've had with the game so far, too. I'm astounded at how they managed to work it into the plot so elegantly. I didn't even see it coming.

One thing I was worried about is that in KotOR and Mass Effect I would get so attached to the first few team members I picked up that I would ignore the others and miss out on their stories. That was almost the case here, except:

A) You get to take 3 of them with you. This is actually a notable step up from 2, especially when you've only collected 4-5 of them.

B) I actually came across points where I could roleplay the act of leaving one of my dudes behind and taking a different one instead. The end of some of the plotlines actually serve this purpose very well. I can just imagine I left one character in the locale of the old plotline while I go to the new one. I could never do this in KotOR or Mass Effect because those games had a habit of putting a lot of focus on the characters even when they weren't there. In Dragon Age, they're just not there. I collected Sten from Lothering near the beginning (I don't know why. He's kind of an asshole. I imagine he must have some redeeming features, but when you get him all he says is "I killed a family. My bad". I only really took him cause Morrigan was pissy about everything else I did and she seemed to like him), and then just ignored him while I went through Redcliffe. I still have no more information that I started with. If I hadn't been able to find convenient plot points to switch characters in, I never would.

 

I don't do much with tactics, I just pause and micro.

Then again, I use two mages, a bard-ranger, a shield tank, and a wolf, and:

-Mages need to be micro'd, because I am -not- putting an AoE spell on tactics.
-Melee tanks either can charge the guy I'm ordering an attack on because all their permanents are set up and they're drawing righteous aggro, or they need to be micro'd because I need to lay down some damage on a particular target, or they need to be micro'd, -repeatedly-, to get their damn asses out of the way so Morrigan can drop a Cone of Cold. And then they'll still refuse orders.
-Rogues...eh. Who cares about Leliana? ^_^ Seriously, most of what she does is in permanents and lockpicking. Aside from that she's mostly a rain of arrows.
-No tactics for the woofie.

 

I just picked up a healing mage, and I find tactics work well for her. She automatically heals anybody who goes past <50% health. I stopped needing poultices until a plot device cause me to be separated from the team.

I also like using tactics for the warrior. I gave Sten Critical Strike and set tactics to that every time Morrigan freezes something he uses it on those units. I can focus on running my main around to get backstabs while Sten smashes the brunt of the force.

I find Sten doesn't take aggro very well, even with heavy armor. He has a named battleaxe with two enchantments that averages at 60 damage at around level 10, but my rogue is still the focus of attacks. Alistair was a better tank. Sten is more of a DPS warrior.

And a total prick. Every five minutes he tells me what a cunt I am. What? Didn't I save him from a cage at the beginning of the game? D:

 

The sten and morrigan party chatter is awesome.

Though I prefer Shale's party chatter with anyone else I have in my party.

 

Thanks for the tips. I have found so far, after practicing on some side quests in Lothering, that even though I suck at managing my party tactics, just monitoring my party's health then pausing and making each member heal themselves individually (I guess that's what micro-ing is?), then unpausing helps a load.

I also have everyone on auto-level. Deciding where to put every last point on every party member makes my head spin. Wow I've really become lazy in my RPG gaming over the years and just feel more bothered than anything when it comes managing every last little detail about my party. I blame Bethesda and all their epic solo sandbox RPGs for this.

Grak, I figured I'd pick up Sten because he looked like a good tank character. Ironically, at the point I freed him and outfited him in the best available armor, he's always the first to bite it in a drawn out battle. Pretty disappointing even though that's, again, probably due more to my horrid tactics control.

On one other note, I was really pumped about getting a Mubari dog from the kennels at Ostarag (or whatever that's called). I found the flower to cure it, but when I got back from the Joining quest, I talked to Duncan before checking on the dog which threw me into the Joining cutscene and then the big battle. So aftarwards, when I went to check on the dog, it wasn't there. Is there another opportunity to get a dog later on somewhere?

 

Yea, I have found out that Sten is a terrible tank, and Alistar is a terrible DPS.

That's why my main is and Dalish elf wielding a two-handed sword and massive plate mail ^^^

And about the dog, I don't think you can get one later on.
About the dog and how you really get it.

Spoiler

When you talk to the dog kenneler he just says that they can try to imprint him on you after the battle. And when the battle is done and you travel to Lothering, you encounter the dog and fights some darkspawn, and then he is all yours.

 

The new DLC, "Return to Ostagar," (which is supposed to come out around xmas) supposedly gives you a second chance at recruiting Dog. As well as a chance to recover Cailin's armor and sword. Estimated cost will be $5.

Unless you are a rogue 16 cunning is all you need for max coercion.

Some numbers to aim for. (putting behind spoiler tag if you want to experiment yourself)

Spoiler

Tanks - Strength 42, Dexterity Max, Willpower 20-25, Constitution 20ish. This lets you equip the heaviest armor, dodge most attacks, have decent health and stamina for your sustainables.

2h Warriors - Strength Max, Willpower 20ish. All you need to focus on is dealing as much damage in a single swing as possible with just a splash of points to boost your stamina. If you aren't going berserker you won't even need any points in willpower.

Dual Wield warriors - Strength Max, Dex 36, Willpower 20ish. Gets you all the dual wield talent as well as a decent stamina pool, high damage.

Dual Wield rogues - Strength 20, Dex max, willpower 20-25, Cunning 30. Enough stamina for sustainables and rogue abilites. The strength lets you equip the highest leather armors. 30 cunning increases damage and lets you pick every lock in the game.

Archer rogue - Dexterity max, Cunning 30, Willpower 25ish. More dex = more damage for archer rogues. 25 willpower will make for a powerful ranger and cunning for chests. If you don't care about chests you won't need any cunning. Warrior archers will want to swap cunning for strength and use longbows.

Mages - Willpower 30-40, Magic max, Con 20ish. If you are a bloodmage you will want about 20 con, otherwise just focus on magic and willpower.

Spoiler

If you do the mage tower immediately after lothering you can save a lot of hassle with the free stat increases. On your PC you gain +2 Con, +5 Magic, +4 Strength, dex, willpower, and cunning IIRC.

 

Yeah. You generally want a shield on your tank; two-hands is for people who break stuff.

 

So I put in about seven more hours of this game today, and tomorrow when I go into town to pick up a book, I'm going to EB to see if they've still got PC copies left because I NEED THIS GAME FOR MYSELF SO FREAKIN' BAD.

I almost finished Redcliff, but I'm playing my Rogue as a real goodie two-frickin' shoes so I'm off doing the Mage Tower now to avoid major, major kharma loss. (And I'm talking about me here, not my rogue...) Damn this game wins. Alistair is fairly fond of me, my wardoggie is awesome, Morrigan and I are kinda meh about each other and ditto to Sten, Leliana is out of her fucking MIND, I love my new healing mage eer so much, and I was gonna go all 'Squee Alistair!' until Josh told me that there's an elf romance option with the voice of Rino Romano, which has made me very... conflicted...

I hate elves (although Dragon Age elves have some wonderful flavour to them). I love Rino Romano. DAMN IT.

 

I did? I don't remember saying that. But yes, Zevran is bi though so you can romance him as a male to get your yaoi on.

 

Slightly off topic:
I've been requested to add gay/bi romance options to my hack.
Would someone be good enough to take notes of the set-up and dialog needed to trigger this and PM them to me?
Thanks in advance.

 

Xiao?

 

Well Zevran was raised by whores so he's really easy to get into bed. It's basically: Give him a gift, ask him to sleep with you, watch sex scene.

Leliana on the other hand you need to really romance and get her approval up to 100 I'm almost done my current play through and have only her left to do, so I will copy the dialogue tree to start the lesbian romance for her next play through.

 

Dude, wrong freakin' Josh. I'm talking about MY Josh.

 

I know I'm just having fun.

 

Best party chatter is between Ohgren and the women.

"And another thing, I don't appreciate you eyeing me up at night."

"What?"

"I saw you, all squinty-eyed, checking the wares."

"I am certain I was not staring at you, and certainly not for those reasons."

"Oh, well, it must have been the dog."

 

DA:O progress update.

Zevran is so weird it actually hurts me. He's funny, which is a plus, but DUDE. He breaks so many of my rules, including 'no assassins or murderers', 'nobody weirder than me', and 'nobody who shares their favourite kinks before the first date'.

On the other hand... Alistair is love... *dreamy sigh*

 

Grakelin: I love it!!

How much trouble will I get into for using those lines....
:thinkof:

 

Yeah. Wynne really is one foxy grandma.