quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I also felt like Duncan's decision to recruit me as a mage felt a lot more random than the dwarf commoner. I talked to him for 5 minutes and suddenly he has a "high opinion of me?" Dwarf commoner felt a lot more like I had to earn his respect.
For what it's worth, the mage was supposedly the "star pupil" of the first enchanter. While you might not have been aware of him before, it's plausible that he had been aware of the character for some time.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Okay, I guess. I understand the "game balance" technique of stating that "level 1" is still extraordinarily above an ordinary person, even an ordinary fighter, because players are just plain several standard deviations above the norm of "hero." But I find it hard to internalize it no matter how many NPCs say how awesome I am, until I've actually had to do something hard.
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In other news: I'm feeling weird about poison use as a rogue. Without using it, I suspect I'm missing out a lot on what makes my character actually good, but I feel like I'm wasting poison if I use it for random trash mobs. But if I don't use it, then my rogue just sits around feeling outclassed by the mages in most fights.
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Starting around mid game, at least, I've found rogues to do pretty good sustained single target damage. They aren't quite as powerful overall as a caster, but in an anti caster role, they're pretty solid.
Also, attacks from stealth seem to shatter normal frozen targets roughly 1/3 of the time. So once you get up to level 3 of stealth (for in combat stealths) it's pretty deadly in combination with cone of cold. Especially since it doesn't require stamina/mana to pull off, unlike overpower/stonefist, which are my preffered fighter/mage shatterers.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I don't have cone of cold at all in my normal party-just didn't work out that way, and now I like my guys too much to switch:) I'm looking forward to a replay making actual use of spell combos. I'm sure there's lots of efficiency I'm missing out on.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Against mid sized groups of white labelled opponents, shattering can be devastatingly effective. I don't know of an AOE shatter, but since my other three characters have at least one shattering move, I can take out 3 for each cone of cold.
Keep playing around with mixing effects, though. I've only found a small number of combinations, but most of the ones I've found have been pretty effective in the right situation.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:I feel like I'm wasting poison if I use it for random trash mobs.
You're not. Poison is very common and very cheap. You will have no difficulty finding ingredients for poison.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I wonder Tom, have you advanced to the higher levels of poison-making? I've not gotten mine past the initial stage, because I've wanted to have the awareness skill, persuasion, and weapons training. There just hasn't been any room left over.
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*nod* I don't actually use Zevran for anything, so I just pumped his poison skill up and let him make poisons in camp. Everyone else can benefit from one point in it.
I'm noticing over multiple playthroughs that all the skills really are useful, except for Pickpocket. Pickpocket is pretty much worthless, which means poor Leiliana starts out with one hand tied behind her back.
There's a mod out there which allows you to respec any one NPC. Leiliana benefits hugely from this; you can pump down her strength, get rid of her pickpocket skill and melee rogue talents, and make her into one heck of an archer.
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Does anyone know if it's actually worthwhile to give money and runes to your allied supply guys in camp? I've been doing it because it's the sort of effective and goody-two-boots thing my character would do, but I am wondering. Because I've potentially flushed a lot of money down that crapper, if it is indeed a toilet. Counting runes I figure at least 50gp.
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It's not worth 50gp. Basically, on the PC version, you get XP if you donate items to the chest. This is supposed to happen on the console, too, but a bug prevents this behavior (meaning that donating has no game effect on the console.)
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All it is is XP? Blegh. I thought from the conversation it would be distributed to my troops, to better equip and train them and whatnot, for the presumptive final battle.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: *nod* I don't actually use Zevran for anything, so I just pumped his poison skill up and let him make poisons in camp. Everyone else can benefit from one point in it.
I'm noticing over multiple playthroughs that all the skills really are useful, except for Pickpocket. Pickpocket is pretty much worthless, which means poor Leiliana starts out with one hand tied behind her back.
There's a mod out there which allows you to respec any one NPC. Leiliana benefits hugely from this; you can pump down her strength, get rid of her pickpocket skill and melee rogue talents, and make her into one heck of an archer.
Pick Pocket occasionally gets a really nice item but in general it's just junk. It can also get you into a lot of trouble with the law.
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I think not having the Pickpocket skill up high amongst my party may have cost me a thieving job with the guy in Denerim who gives 'Robin Hood-esque' thieving activities, Slim Coudry or somesuch, because he asked about it when I spoke to him.
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*nod* Yeah, there's a quest line through him. Either you need a high Deft Hands or a high Stealing to work for him.
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The quest line working through lockpicking and stealth was extremely lucrative, so much so that I wished I'd gone to Denerim first, because apparently it's a no-strings attached sort of thing. Go there, visit him, get quest, laugh all the way to the bank.
Also, I've been looking on the boards and so far the group consensus appears to be that giving stuff to the Allied Supply Crates in camp yields (sometimes, there's some dispute over this) experience, but no actual benefits other than that. *sigh* All that gold down the crapper. With that I could've, for example, filled out my trap/poison/herbalism recipe.
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Is anyone else having a hard time finding specialization trainers? My elf mage is now lvl 9 and I still haven't found a trainer for my first specialization.
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I'm a bit confused; is this still a Wheel of Time game being discussed? Because I see references to dwarf commoners, and WoT doesn't have any dwarves.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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No, to me this game doesn't seem any more inspired by WoT than by several other fantasy series.
The human / elf / dwarf triumvirate is clearly LotR based.
I've noticed several ASoIaF references and inspiration (characters named Duncan, Jory, Allistar; your dog is much like a dire wolf; Loghain is very similar in feel to Bloodraven; the Grey Wardens and Night's Watch are similar, etc).
The human noble background felt very much like Paul and Jessica's escape in Dune.
The only thing, to me, that struck me as being likely inspired by WoT so far has been the mage tower. I haven't read the books in a while though, so I'm sure true fans of them see more.
Really I think it was created by fans of the genre, and has a lot of different influences.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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You can learn specializations in two ways that I've found so far. One, you can purchase books on the subject that unlock them. They're expensive, 15gp range. The other way that I've found involves getting a companion's approval rating high enough. I think it may also involve doing their side quest. Morrigan, for example, loves me to pieces, but won't teach others to shapeshift.
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You can get Morrigan to teach other people to shapeshift even without finishing her quest if you pick dialogue options early on that imply that you're not suspicious of non-Circle mages.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: No sarcasm. I was actually pretty ecstatic to be able to ditch the robes.
Hmmm, I've been having some anxiety over my class / background choices. An Arcane Warrior sounds pretty awesome to me (see my swordmage over at Sakeriver).
So far Morrigan is my favorite party member, but I feel like there's too much overlap between my player character and her as far as abilities go. They even look fairly similar. Maybe I'll start over as a melee centric mage to get a bit less redundancy.
Any advice for the build, if I were to do this?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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You can learn specializations in two ways that I've found so far. One, you can purchase books on the subject that unlock them. They're expensive, 15gp range. The other way that I've found involves getting a companion's approval rating high enough. I think it may also involve doing their side quest. Morrigan, for example, loves me to pieces, but won't teach others to shapeshift.
SPOILER
You can also do a bit of a cheat, if you save before you buy the book, then reload to that save after you bought it, you will still have that specialization without spending any money. It has to do with unlocking the specializations across all characters once you unlock it on one.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Don't worry about mage overlap. People beating the game on hard/impossible are doing it with three mages and a tank (and would probably take a fourth mage, if they could :/)
When you make a melee-centric mage, just be sure to max the trees to get to Crushing Prison and Arcane Warrior, then pick up the easy-to-reach passives that increase defense (Mage II, Earth I, etc) and just put them on at all times. Suddenly, you're the hardest-to-damage class in the game.
This allows you to use your (now limited) mana pool to open up fights with the blatant aggro-generators like chain lightning, fireball, and the OP Cone of Cold, get all the foes to want to attack you, then you cycle between everyone's cooldowns on Force Field. The enemies are dumber than rocks and will continue to attack a force fielded person as long as they have enough threat.
Generally you want to leave the debuffs to Morrigan and Wynne. Spirit Healer tree is the most mechanically useful and makes you extraordinarily difficult to kill; Blood Mage will give you some utility in using HP to cast as well as the amazing AOE party-friendly CC spell. Shapeshifter is the most worthless spec tree in the game. Do not take it.
If you're playing on regular and casual difficulty, you can do excellently with variety and not need any other mages in the party. Some excellent spells to snag are the wisp, the heal, and some of the crueler disables (misdirection hex, etc) and the party buff auras.
All Mages All The Time is tight, though, especially given that you can pawn cleansing and Haste off on Wynne.
Myself, I was blatantly abusing AOE threat generation. With weaker encounters, I can open up with Chain Lightning, Fireball, Cone of Cold (circumstantially fire blast and shock if the enemies are lined up perfectly enough), generate impossible levels of threat, and tank away. With the harder encounters you do this and then just force field yourself while the other party members mow down the mages and ranged units.
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I have to admit that too many mages in the party eventually made it very difficult for me to control friendly fire.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I have to admit that too many mages in the party eventually made it very difficult for me to control friendly fire.
The game's hardest difficulty is essentially a contest to see if you can get good enough at managing overpowered mage effects to win.
By the time you've worked out all the mage combos like "Storm of the Century" and learned how to use force field in combination with aggro management, mages upgrade from 'kinda overpowered' to 'blatantly utterly overpowered'
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: *nod* Yeah, there's a quest line through him. Either you need a high Deft Hands or a high Stealing to work for him.
If you have high stealth he will also work with you
Posts: 305 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: Is anyone else having a hard time finding specialization trainers? My elf mage is now lvl 9 and I still haven't found a trainer for my first specialization.
What training are you looking for? Only 2 (Champion and Reaver) are difficult to get the others are all pretty easy. Duelist requires talking to a lady in the capitol and all the others are either books you can buy or talking to your party members. Edit If you are making a Blood mage then you want to dump a lot of points into Con. Because you will be drawing from your hit points to power spells. If you want to make a shape shifter then put points into str. You will need it to wear armor and wield good weapons. You shape shifted forms use those items to figure out your stats. Arcane Warrior has already been given a great rundown in this thread.
Posts: 305 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Shapeshifter is the most worthless spec tree in the game. Do not take it.
Yeah, took all four abilities with Morrigan, and it's pretty underpowered. I'll occasionally use bear form when I'm out of mana, but even then it's pretty weak.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Love the game so far, but I went to the forest after hitting the mage tower, so I am having a bit of trouble wiht the end of the Forest Catacombs. I can win most of the battles, but it took almost all of the healing pots I had, and I tried it with Morrigan rather than Wynne, so I think I am screwed.
I am a mage, and I have Allister, Lianna, and Morrigan with me. I killed the big monster and got his stash, so I have some gold now, but I am miles from any town. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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So, when I play and beat an game, I like to feel like I earned my victory. I don't like setting a game to normal unless it is going to present a real challenge for me. I'm not saying I like to die repeatedly, but I like to be forced to use my brain and skill.
So, that being said, do you recommend normal or hard for playing this? I am not an expert gamer, but I have played both Neverwinter Nights and SWKotOR, as well as several other rpgs. SWKotOR could have been a little bit more of challenge for me on the normal setting, but it wasn't always easy.
I want to try playing Dragon Age on hard, but I don't want to have to become an expert on D&D rules to be able to beat it.
FYI, my current character, who is still in the Mage's tower, is an elf mage. I am leaning toward becoming an arcane warrior. Also, given all the talk about mages being too powerful in this game, I don't want the game to be too easy for me given that I am a mage.
As I'm typing this, I realize that I don't know if you can change difficulty levels without starting a new game. I won't be at home for a couple days to play the game again and check this, so can you change difficulty levels after starting a game? I am currently set to Normal.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:I want to try playing Dragon Age on hard, but I don't want to have to become an expert on D&D rules to be able to beat it.
The game's mechanics don't use D&D rules at all, so .. you're safe on that front.
Anyway, if you play the game on hard, it'll be hard, unless you're the kind of person who could wander through Baldur's Gate in his sleep. And yes, you can change the difficulty setting in-game.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Yah, I just assumed it was based on D&D due to all the talk about it earlier in the thread, though I just glanced through all the talk about updated rules. I am not familiar with the more technical aspects of the rules.
So, what is the game based on, or did they just create a unique rule system?
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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It isn;t easy or hard on normal, but it all depends on what type of gamer you are, I guess. I like puzzles, and tactics seems like a puzzle to me, at least a little bit.
I am playing on normal, and it wasn't too hard until I went to the wrong area without pots. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and KOTOR and KOTOR2. I'm playing DA:O on hard. Overall, I find most of the trash mobs of average difficulty. On the boss fights, I seem to be just squeaking by, by the seat of my pants.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I think Normal mode is hard enough that you will feel as if you have earned your victories. It's not hard to use the right strategy most of the time, but you WILL have to use strategy or you will fail, and a lot of times the harder fights took me one or two tries to figure out what the right strategy was.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I think I am going to change to hard, and if I find myself dying too often, I will just change it back.
So, on a subject related to difficulty, do any of you have a personal philosophy on how often to save in a game that allows you to save almost anytime? I like to save often, but sometimes I feel like I am cheating to get in the habit of saving everywhere. It almost seems to minimize the impact of dying, yet I still find myself saving a lot.
I think I have OCD when it comes to saving. Even when I am typing a Word document, I find myself automatically hitting ctrl+s after every phrase I type, or every time I pause to think. I think, over the years, Microsoft has trained me to never trust my computer to remain ON beyond the next 6 seconds.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I at least quicksave after every fight. There are way too many games that I want to play (and things outside of gaming I want to do), to waste too much time redoing sections over and over.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I'm finding normal to be a bit of a challenge, with a rogue (PC), two warriors, and a mage.
However, in retrospect for quite awhile there were many things I wasn't doing very efficiently, and the longer I've played the easier it's gotten. Though some of that is normal in games of course:) Getting Wynne the Spirit Healer cranked up in Cleansing Aura makes even the biggest trash-mob fight no problem at all, because with two warriors aggro-grabbing, she hardly ever gets targeted.
I think with another mage, I could handle Hard or maybe even Nightmare difficulty, though it would be...err, well harder:) That and knowing what I know now sort of thing. I'm not sure I'd pick another Rogue at all to be honest. I can't recall any extraordinary loot for example I've gotten from chests or unlocked doors, and stealth and backstab while nice are mitigated by having a character with maxxed out awareness who can see almost all the big fights coming anyway. One or especially two warriors offer all the stunning, debuffing, and knockdown capability a party would ever need in melee.
One thing that chaps my ass, though, is that my L18 Rogue with extremely high cunning and better-than-average Willpower, and maxxed out awareness (or whatever that skill is called) still gets surprised by the pre-planned stealth mobs. Even when they're lower level than I am.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I've been feeling a little iffy about the extent to which saving is necessary. I guess what I don't like is how many situations will basically automatically kill your party the first time through unless you are insanely careful about where you're going, and then the second time through I feel like cheating because I already know where to position my party.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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So, after not getting two more measly corpse gall despite doing scads of side quests and everything Orzammar related, I turned in my 16 - not the extra-reward-getting-18 - galls to the Chanter.
posted
I'm hooking myself up with a mod community to get my ideas passed off onto a popular overhaul.
I want a mod that makes it so that you can turn off the visibility of your helm. A mod that retools dex bonuses to damage, a mod that retools what spells an arcane warrior can cast without putting his weapon away (or at least makes it so that weapon drawing is not automatic at the start of combat) and a mod that retools the major problem with mages: 2/3rds underwhelming choices, 1/3rd overwhelming choices.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I don't even have cone of cold, I had no idea how useful it was......I'll have to get it next level.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well, for me it's helpful that one is a female mage, one a female rogue, one a male warrior with sword and shield, and the last a towering qunari man with a greatsword;)
SPOILER
I was somewhat disappointed with Arl Howe's demise. It seemed sloppy storytelling to me. For one thing, he appeared completely untroubled by coming to a showdown with my character and her party, a quartet by now that has been tearing all over Ferelden through literally hundreds of darkspawn and hundreds of other enemies. Some of those exploits have to have been known to him.
For another, his rants didn't really explain anything-he alluded to the idea that my character's father was somehow a traitor to Ferelden, but in all this time playing I'd never heard anything but good things about him from other people, to say nothing of what I saw of him in the beginning. How was he able to nurse such crazy, hateful animosity without being suspected?
I mean, guys like that-backstabbing opportunists-they don't fight the conquering heroes, or at least not as a first resort. I was expecting some pleading or some extortion or something!
posted
Gaaah!!!! Friggin Revenant! (Just spent an hour trying to beat the courtyard in Redcliffe Castle, gave up for the night)
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I've also noticed that, for now, fighting is a lot more successful when Liliana's tactics consist of "draw a lot of aggro. Then run around, keeping the boss and his friends out of the fight for as long as possible. Then die."
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