Dragon Age

[Mikaze]

I just get frustrated with it sometimes because I feel like I know what I should be doing, but I can't figure out how to do it. For example, I feel like there should be a way into the Elven Alienage in Denerim, but I've yet to figure out how. Guess I need to delve deeper into the designers' heads.

There is a way, but it's a fair way into the main storyline, I tried to get in beforehand for ages too.

[Jared Darkwind]

Well fighting that freaking Ogre at the top of that tower was no easy feat. He is one tough mf for the 5th level party that has to face him. I just kept using my mage to heal. Any offense from the mage caused almost immediate agro and immediate death, hehe.
But the storyline is wicked; and having an entirely new prologue for each class and race combo makes for great replayability.

[Guaran]

Guaran's Dragon Age PROTIP's for shian and you others having troubles:

SPACE BAR - pause the action after each swing so you can heal, etc. Use each characters nice abilities on the yellow/orange tough mob specifically. Configuring the tactics helps automate some of this so be sure to do that.

Ogre at the top of the tower: Have Your helper toons, the mage and the archer on attack, get aggro on yourself and just kit him. Pull him around while they slowly whittle him down.

Shian - get them all to be active by using the button on the bottom left side underneath the bottom groupmember. You should see 4 little dots when its in the proper mode.

Loading scene: Read the tips.

When exploring: HOLD DOWN THE TAB KEY. This highlight opjects and points of interest. Especially useful in dungeons so you can find the "Mystical Site of Power"'s and all the "Small Glass Phylactory"'s. Oh, and save the game right before interacting with any of these you find...

On a character dying in a fight: If you can finish the fight with remaining characters, do so. The character isn't "dead'< he's just out for this fight. Although after waking back up he will have an injury. This is where the "Lesser Injury kit" comes in. Open inventory, toggle to the hurt character, find the lesser injury kit in inventory, right click-use. It will be used when you close the inventory window and heal him of his injury.

In Ostagar: do the quest to help the dying/poisoned noble: You get a formula for making a poison cure which is basically a "cleanse" for nasty effects like weakness, etc. It cleanses all of them in a single use too.

Drag health potions to the hotkey bar.

Be prepared to play it again from the beginning once you've learned the interface and how things work. I'm on my second playthru and there was so much I missed the first time thru.

[Dhalin]

On a character dying in a fight: If you can finish the fight with remaining characters, do so. The character isn't "dead'< he's just out for this fight. Although after waking back up he will have an injury.

Bah.

I wish they'd TELL you that in-game.

I forsee this confusing a lot of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights players, where if a character dies, he's dead until resurrected (or permanently in the case of BG if they got gibbed). Seeing a big skull icon over their portrait only perpetuates this misunderstanding even further. Instead of a skull, they should have just greyed the portrait out or something.

[Guaran]

Yeah I figured it out on accident during a tough fight in the first "dungeon" I entered. 2 toons died but only 1 mob was left so I finished him off. I was figuring , "ok i need to reload and try again" only for them to both get up and dust themselves off after I killed the last mob. Then I thought "whew"!

Eventually you can get a spirit healer ability to heal injuries without using a kit. but thats a ways into the game.

[Shian]

DAO new expansion is on preorder. I'm getting my copy soon.

[Frith-Rae]

Yea been talkiing about that on the OTHER forum - and wondering why its 40, instead of 30 US like every other game expansion - heh.

[Dragonboy]

Actually got the game a few weeks ago (biggest reason for my absence from Istaria) and have played all the racial specific starting quests and went completely through the game 1 time, 1 time I quit when reaching the final battle and now I am planning to finish the game as Arcane Warrior / Spirit Healer mage. The game is really well made, loads of side quests and sometimes I totally fall of my chair laughing when hearing the talking between the various companions while on the road.

Although I must say that without Warden’s Keep, Return to Ostagar DLC the game becomes a lot more linear. (not to mention the 2 nice massive armor suits you get when playing those)

As for the race stories I like the Dwarven Noble / Human Noble best and for some reason I don’t like the start of a Dalish elf.

[Dhalin]

Just finished the game a week ago, and had to say I enjoyed the experience.

Been thinking of doing another play-through, and such... I find myself tempted to use the same 3-4 people throughout the whole game, though, as they are without a doubt the most powerful/easiest-to-do...

Wynne ... can't replace her, she is the best healer in the game, period, and you can get her as soon as you are permitted to open the world map (going after her first is also best because of the huge stat upgrades in the area you get her).

Sten or Shale -- great DPS, better than the others. Both are not only durable, but also dish out ridiculous amounts of damage, and in Shale's case, you can get high approval very easily (and unlock Shale's inspiration easier) and very few decisions reduce approval, unlike Sten. Either way, these two are much better than the alternatives IMO. More durable, they can take hits better, and they dish out nice damage.

Alistair -- best tank (unless you replace him for the secret guy later). Give him tank talents and give him strength/constitution and set him to tanking behavior and you're set. I don't really see a replacement for him.

All that's left, is your main character... my first playthrough, was a Rogue.

I suppose if I swapped my rogue out for another DPS type (warrior or mage), I'd have to bring either the assassin, or the rogue girl from Lothering.

Alternatively, I could swap Wynne for a mage warden set up to be a healer, but I'd have to wait longer to get the Spirit Healer manual (it costs a whopping 15 gold), which means I'd lose out on the Spirit Healer talents until I get that book. Wynne starts with it, and you get her much sooner.

Tank, I could make a Tank Warden, and not use Alistair... doing that would force me to bring either the rogue girl or the assassin to open locks...

See, that's the problem with Dragon Age...

You *need* a tank; you die too fast without one.
You *need* a healer; you use up way too many poultices without one.
You *need* a rogue with good lock-picking; you'd miss out on lots of gold without one.

That's 3 out of the 4 slots in a group. They don't give you much leeway, and sadly enough, there's never any room for poor old Morrigan... not that I like having her in the group anyways; she disapproves with _everything_ that Alistair would agree with. Alistair performs an important function in the group; Morrigan doesn't....

Sorry, Morrigan, but.... I need someone who can actually pull their weight.

lol.

[Dragonboy]

That's 3 out of the 4 slots in a group. They don't give you much leeway, and sadly enough, there's never any room for poor old Morrigan... not that I like having her in the group anyways; she disapproves with _everything_ that Alistair would agree with. Alistair performs an important function in the group; Morrigan doesn't....

Sorry, Morrigan, but.... I need someone who can actually pull their weight.

lol.

The cool part is that once you unlocked the specializations they remain unlocked permanently, I actually gave Morrigan a simple Heal spell and used her instead and eventually also made her spirit healer, Somehow I dont really like Wynn (How could I like her if she wants to bath my dog!! ) and I absolutely like the comments between Morrigan and the various other compagnions, for this reason I also like the elf assasin since he has some nice remarks and conversations.

Sten is one of those characters that I only use when I do not yet have Shale or the dwarf and I only give him gifts because of finding his sword side-quest (nice extra coin as well as his remarks against those you talk to during that quest are fun )
Allistar is fun in combination with Morrigan for their talking, but after I have shale I actually prefer Shale and the Dwarf as damage dealers… Agro always goes to shale even though I have a T7 (king’s armor) on Allistar as soon as I can get it.

My personal favorite team would be Shale, dwarf / Allistar, me (rogue), Morrigan

The team I tend to use mostly during my current playthrough is filled with Shale, Allistar, Assassin, Me (Don’t you just love a mage in Warden Commander armor, Starfang and high defense shield)

[Dhalin]

The cool part is that once you unlocked the specializations they remain unlocked permanently, I actually gave Morrigan a simple Heal spell and used her instead and eventually also made her spirit healer, Somehow I dont really like Wynn (How could I like her if she wants to bath my dog!! ) and I absolutely like the comments between Morrigan and the various other compagnions, for this reason I also like the elf assasin since he has some nice remarks and conversations.

Sten is one of those characters that I only use when I do not yet have Shale or the dwarf and I only give him gifts because of finding his sword side-quest (nice extra coin as well as his remarks against those you talk to during that quest are fun )
Allistar is fun in combination with Morrigan for their talking, but after I have shale I actually prefer Shale and the Dwarf as damage dealers… Agro always goes to shale even though I have a T7 (king’s armor) on Allistar as soon as I can get it.

My personal favorite team would be Shale, dwarf / Allistar, me (rogue), Morrigan

The team I tend to use mostly during my current playthrough is filled with Shale, Allistar, Assassin, Me (Don’t you just love a mage in Warden Commander armor, Starfang and high defense shield)

The problem, though, with Morrigan is that she disapproves of _everything_ unless you play a very evil character. I'm not really the evil type myself, and that's the nice thing about Wynne. While Morrigan is "evil", Wynne is good and agrees nicely with a Good playstyle. It isn't too hard to get her approval 75+ in fairly short order with a few quests.

Sten... meh. This crits he can put out are nice, he swings huge weapons, does lots of damage and tends to be decent in the durability department, but honestly, he has the same problems Morrigan does -- he disagrees with a lot of "good" decisions, hence why I use Shale instead. Shale disagrees with a few of them but they are usually minor (-1s or -2s instead of -5s and -10s from Sten).

Giving Morrigan heals could work, yes... but you still got the disapproval problem, and having to wait until you're Level 14 (I had typed Level 7, but I forgot Morrigan comes with a spec already!), while I've gotten Wynne as early as Lv5-6. And even then, Morrigan has a lot of points already spent in DPS spells, and a shapeshifting spell -- Wynne comes with mostly Creation spells (as well as the first Spirit Healer spell), which is what you want if you have a Healer.

As for Oghren, he could be a decent person (much like Sten), but... I usually do Orzammar later, after the Mage's Tower and Redcliffe. By then, I already have Shale (who is a lot more durable, even if slightly smaller damage output), who already has a High approval, and the 2nd best equipment in the game. Sadly, Oghren tends to be a "I already have someone better..." type character. He does, however, work well with Sten during the big Denerim Battle, though...

I will agree with you, though, about party comments... meh. The coolest banter happens between people I have little to no reason to actually use... maybe someday I'll stick those other peeps in the party and run around in Orzammar or something to hear their comments.

[Dragonboy]

The problem, though, with Morrigan is that she disapproves of _everything_ unless you play a very evil character. I'm not really the evil type myself, and that's the nice thing about Wynne. While Morrigan is "evil", Wynne is good and agrees nicely with a Good playstyle. It isn't too hard to get her approval 75+ in fairly short order with a few quests.

Somehow I always manage to get Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, Shale to approval 100, Oghren, Sten, Wynne and Zevran in 75+.
Large amounts of gifts are available throughout the game without using the gift DLC, Only you have to handle talking to each player in camp differently. Never try to be a good samaritan against Zevran for example, but eventhough you are a “good� guy/girl you will get their approval high anyway despite the small amounts of approval you lose.

To be honest… If you only play as a good guy, you will never get a few achievements like preserving the Anvil of void, defiling the ash of andraste, siding with the werewolves and killing the elves or making a deal with the demon who has possessed Conner. There are probably more, but so far I prefer to stay good’ish. I saved the game before having to make the choice and reloaded the save after getting the achievement.

Edit:
Btw... The Lothering spring trap quest is quite fun, don't you think?