Stormwind32

I just finished a playthrough with a dwarf commoner, and I have to say its probably the most satisfying ending. Going from a casteless 'scum of the Earth' not considered worthy enough to hold a blade or compete in the provings - to a Paragon. The funny thing is in the origin your sister tells you that nothing will change unless you can somehow "defeat the darkspawn and become a Paragon". Having completed Dwarf Noble once I had a suspicion that the dwarf commoner would be able to become a Paragon as well. The origin was pretty satisfying too, the only one where you can show Duncan your skill in person before recruitment. I think however that most people who think about rolling a dwarf go with noble because of how easy it is to make money. Can't blame them though. What was also very satisfying is that this time around I told Ser Cauthrien that I was rescuing Anora and got betrayed. Then at Eamon's place I told her I was pissed at her and would not support her in the landsmeet - So, as expected she lied at the landsmeet to further herself, only I had picked all the right dialog options and done the 2 tortured noble quests so I won despite her lies. Interestingly enough, I got all possible votes, except of course the old crazy man. So I think all those guides that tell you that you must tell Anora you will support her to win the landsmeet are wrong. Through trial and error I came to the conclusion that her support is irrelevant. Anyways, after splattering her daddy's blood all over her face she still had the gall to ask that she be made queen - I have to say that there were some very appealing dialog options at that point. Too bad I didn't get to kill her as well.

Do you see the bear abilities on the quickbar? If so, then its a visual problem. Maybe you installed a mod or file that morphs Morrigan's face/body? I have heard of people using face morphs or custom presets for their PC and have shape shifting issues in the Fade, could be a Morrigan face morph causing your problem. Just a hunch.

Rex I keep it simple ;)

I don't doubt that they have been probably working on it for some time, but I do think the timing of the announcement was meant as damage control over the delay of the RTO DLC.

I will admit I did not read it all, but I agree with the general sentiment - The duplicity in the Branka/Caridin fight annoys me too. As for Shale, the solution is not to bring him with you. Here are some things that annoy me (I hope there is no overlap): 1. In order to use Poisons you need poison making trained to level 1. But to use poultices you don't need any training in Herbalism! How much skill does it take to crack a bottle of poison on your sword? Its just a waste of a skill point 2. I hate that I have to have my team mates waste points on cunning (well the ones who are not rogues anyway) and waste skill points on tactic skills just to get tactic slots. 3. I hate it when you have party members you cannot get rid of. I don't like Wynne but at least I can kill her when I first speak to her. Oghren on the other hand you have no choice, he invites himself to the party and there is no way around it. Since I already have Sten configured and used the way I like, I dump Oghren right after the King is chosen, but its not soon enough! I have the same issues with Alistair. There should have been an option to leave him with Eamon after he is cured. 4. They say the game gives you Good/Evil options but that is simply not true everywhere. In the mage circle, when I told Gregoir I would cleanse the tower, I was expecting I would be able to go all "Anakin Skywalker" on everyone, including the children. But no, the only mages you can kill are Wynne and her entourage and blood mages. I could not kill Owain or Godwin. The tranquil in the great hall and the mages in the harrowing chamber cannot be killed, you can only allow them to be turned into abominations. Once I told Cullen I would kill everyone up there, and did not use the litany, but Uldred died before he could convert Irving to an abomination. I had no option to kill Irving, and I even tried going downstairs to fetch Cullen but Irving intercepted me with the usual chat dialog. It is true I can use the dialog with Gregoir to make sure the mages are imprisoned, but that is just not the same. I wish we had the same option of killing everyone we had with the Dalish. 5. "Good" choices should have consequences as well! If you decide to go to the mage tower to save Connor, he does not wreck havoc on anyone in the village or in the castle in the mean time! Going by what Teagan said, its a day's journey to the tower, so thats two days Connor spends twiddling his thumbs! By the same token, killing Kolgrim should mean that you MUST face the dragon to get to the Ashes. If you side with Kolgrim, he 'convinces' the dragon to let you pass, and if you don't the dragon does not care! As for not unlocking the reaver spec being the 'cost' of not detsroying the ashes - that is not much because you can unlock and reload. Forcing a fight with the dragon would have been much more meaningful as the cost of killing Kolgrim and not defiling the ashes. 6. Conversation ambush - I hate that some foes require you to talk to them before attacking. It completely negates tactics, stealth and positioning! If I already told the gatekeeper I didn't want to talk, I should not have to endure another conversation with the Lady of the Forest. Similarly with Tomas in Redcliffe, I should be able to tell him to **** off and not be dragged to talk to Teagan. 7. Dialogue options are largely stupid and generic. Why would my dwarf have the option to use 'Maker' in many plot dialogues instead of 'By the ancestors..."? With Avernus you have no option to discuss the current plight of the GW in Ferelden or even ask about the joining. With Alistair leaving the Grey Wardens you do not have an option to remind him of what happened to Ser Jory when he wanted to leave! Sure you can have him executed but you cannot remind him of Ser Jory in any of the dialog trees. Also, depending on your dialog choices in Ostagar you can TWICE have Duncan remind him he is not a Templar and Chantry business has nothing to do with the Grey Wardens - yet when he continues to whine about blood mages and blood magic I have no dialog option to remind him what Duncan said. 8. For two of the three races you discover a holy grail object - the anvil for the dwarves and the ashes for the humans. Nothing for the Elves. I would have even been OK for the Anvil quest to be shorter if it meant they could add more elven content.

I killed it again like 30 minutes ago...too bad I didn't screen shot the loot. I did not notice anything for spell casters in the dragon loot. In the entire quest 2 items stand out as mage-items: Lifedrinker - For blood mages, its +4 spell power - its in an egg in the one of the Drake rooms (I believe the one that is near the Arcane Warrior enemy) Belt of the Magister Lords - +3 spell power - Its in the charred corpse in the room sacred ashes room. The loot that the dragon itself drops will be, with some minor variation: The Longsight - leather helment with some sort of fatigue or stamina bonus Generic Heavy Plate set - includes helment, gloves, chest piece, boots. Material will be based on level when you kill it. At level 15 it was red steel Generic Metal Kite Shield Metashear War Axe - Nice 2H axe, but has -1 dex penalty Pure female dog Braid - This is the best collar for the Dog in game. In case the board censored it, its the term for female dogs that rhymes with 'witch' Grandmastar flame rune Deadhead Charge? Cant remember the name exactly but thats whats in my head. I cant remember exactly what it does but it comes with a -10% nature penalty Grandmaster Flame Rune Dragon Scale Antivan Longbow - this is just generic. Mage's Eye which is in a locked chest in the haven village shop is better Thats all about I can recall from memory. I know of no unique items that are random drops on the dragon (unlike Gaxkang/Sophia, whom you have to reload several times to get the good stuff). I just remembered - the Dragon does drop Storm Talons, they are mage-only gloves that add 20% electrical damage

Once you kill the dragon, it never respawns. The level or quality of the unique items it drops are unaffected by level because they are unique. The rest of the items are more or less generic, and would be affected. You could wait, but the dragon armor made from the scale is pretty good and you will have to do without it until you kill it. I usually keep the three items I mentioned and just sell off the rest. But no matter what level you are, the unique items will be made of the same material and have the same stats. Oh I just remembered some of the generic items like the Grandmaster Flame rune it drops is the same regardless of level. You turn in the dragon scale at wade's and he gives you a choice to make medium armor, heavy armor or massive armor. The best thing about wade's dragon armor is the stamina and fatigue bonuses (plus the fire resistance). Really good for 2-handed warriors. Overall, its good enough to last you until the end of the game. Do some research on which armor type you want before you hand it in. If you hand in 3 drake scales first and give him 10 sovereigns, then when he makes the dragon armor (for free) you get superior dragon armor. At least that is how it works for me. TL;DR If you plan to use every single item drop for yourself, wait until level 16. You can still complete the quest and come back for the dragon later in the game. Just be sure to hold on to Kolgrim's Horn. The neat stuff that drops will always drop regardless of level.

I know I will be hoping for a mod that lets me give him the Ser Jory treatment when he attempts to leave the Wardens.

Alistair doesn't stay in the party if Loghain joins you. Thats the way the game is designed, and I think overriding it using a console command (even if that could be done) is in no way a good idea, the game has quite a few plot dialogs that are buggy already. If I kill Connor and put Alistair on the Throne, then Eamon talks to me as though Connor is alive. If I destroy the ashes AND kill the high dragon, the epilogue still says the high dragon attacks people and the cult grows stronger. So I don't think a console command or a mod that changes events around or forcibly adds characters is a good idea. As for Alistair's motivation for leaving, I don't think we should get into that here - the 'other' forum is already overrun with Alistair fangirl vs Alistair detractor threads. As for best ending, its a matter of perspective - best ending for who? Alistair or Anora alone have their drawbacks, they appear to be best when they rule together. My favorite ending is: Anora rules alone, Alistair is executed or becomes a drunkard - In fact I prepare him for this life of alcoholism by equipping him in Commoner Clothing and the Thane Helment (BEST drinking hat ever!) for the entire game. Brother Genitivi commits suicide High Dragon (which I killed and wear as an armor suit) some how comes back from the dead and torches the country side Zathrian continues to stir up trouble until he gets bored and disappears into the forest Bhelen dissolves assembly Isolde dies during childbirth Redcliffe is haunted and loses influence - no one wants to resettle there. Cullen implements tougher anti-mage rules. Yeah you can guess I am hard on Eamon and Alistair, but after a dozen play throughs with them being the only people I can't get rid of, I am sick of them. I also hate the village idiot (Tomas) who drags you to see Teagan the moment you set foot in Redcliffe. Even when I would decide to save the village I would take it easy until I saw him die, then I would really start to get to work on the undead. I wish there was an option to side with Connor and get an army of undead instead of Eamon's Redcliffe soldiers. Unfortunately Connor does not have those 'magical landsmeet' powers. I wish I could hand Alistair over to Eamon after curing him and not see him again until the landsmeet. Oh well, I can only hope DA2 won't have 'must save' or 'must be in your party' type of people.

I am currently playing a 2H warrior, and I am trying to boost my spell resistance. The problem is that I do not know how to tell what my current spell resistance stat is. The character sheet lists mental, fire, cold...etc but no spell resistance. I can add Dweomer runes but those do not impact any stat I can see on the character sheet I want to make sure I don't overdo it. On a separate play through it took me a while to realize that the AW shimmering shield negated the need for any need for mental/elemental resistance gear. I am worried that now I could be equipping too many resist runes and limiting my gear options when I could be over the cap (be it 75 or 100). So is there something I am missing, or do I need the toolset or some other 3rd party mod to find out this stat?

I second this. The one hit wonders get old fast and I have to create new tactics for my whole party so they dont needlessly burn through mana/stamina fighting these non-entities). The 'Dead Trenches' in the deep roads was amazing and much more satisfying than the final onslaught. You know, just for sh*ts and giggles I did NOTHING at the Denerim city gates (on Nightmare) and my allies and other blues killed everyone without lifting a finger. If that is case, then all of it should have been a cut scene instead of a waste of time. Harder enemies would make this part of the game more enjoyable.

My first play through was on Easy, because I wanted to enjoy the storytelling and understand the game mechanics without having to reload too often. I used a walk through posted online but I was unhappy with that in hindsight. It was not well written and spoiled the plot twists for me, while not offering much assistance beyond puzzle solution. One of the funny things is that when it reaches the point of the Sloth Demon in the Fade it says "Hopefully you have some ice salves with you....". I remembered thinking "Wow! would have been nice to mention that BEFORE I started going through the tower!" Nature of the Beast was the one quest I didn't use a walk through for, and I enjoyed it the most. It is still my favorite and I wish there was more content to it. Deep roads was too long, I wish they had taken content away from that and added it to this quest instead. I have heard that with high enough cunning it is possible to recruit both the werewolves and the Elves, but I have not been able to find a dialog tree that does that. My second play through started as normal and ended with hard. Once I downloaded the Advanced Tactics mod and finally set up the tactics the way I wanted, I started playing on Nightmare and enjoyed it. Nightmare is the only difficulty I play with now. I solo'd nightmare twice as an Arcane Warrior and once as a Sword'n'Board. My challenge right now is doing a 2H warrior solo but its proving difficult without all the spell resist items I need to really make this work. I never played as a rogue, so I might try that one day. From what I have seen of Zevran, I am not impressed. I have played as Warrior/Archer twice now - without any of the archery mods. For me Archery was the most fun in the Brecilian forest and in the final onslaught - It was amazing to finish off all those one-hit darkspawn quickly without having to chase after them. But it is definitely hard at the beginning.

Alistair says it involves lyrium, darkspawn blood and mages (yet he doesnt see this is as blood magic - a discussion for another time). Still it would have been nice to see an arc where you try to recruit someone (e.g. Ser Perth in Redcliffe), have it go horribly wrong, and then never try again. One of the things I hate about one of the possible endings is that you cant recruit GWs for the whole game, then Riordin tells you why, and says that he cant make anymore because the archdemon supply is gone - but then he magically recruits someone out of the blue if you allow it. I left out a few details because even if it is the spoiler forum, its a pretty big spoiler. Its pretty stupid that you cant ask Avernus (Warden Keep DLC) about the details of the joining.

On my first few play throughs I chose Harrowmont, but I was not satisfied with the Epilogue blurbs about Orzammar. I thought Bhelen would be worse, but turns out he is a visionary and the only one willing to take a stand against everything that is wrong and backward with the drawves. From a purely gameplay perspective, there are several advantages to picking Bhelen: 1. With Bhelen you can unlock the royal estate alot quicker than you can with Harrowmont (which will have to wait until you put him on the throne). This is critical if you are doing the "Trial of the Crows" sidequest. Completing this sidequest unlocks Cesar's "special stock" and allows you to buy items like the Quiet Death recipe (a must have if you like using poisons), a Grandmaster Dwemenor rune (sorry can never spell that right, its the 10% spell resist rune), first enchanter robes and Knight commander helm. I usually do it for the poison and the rune, but I guess you can say his stock has something there for everyone. 2. You can support Bhelen and still do the provings, win it, and dedicate it to him. So more xp. 3. It provides Deep Roads access earlier, so you can take your Dog with you and have him fetch the "Duty" helment (part of the Effort Armor set) eariler in the game. And again, more opportunities for XP earlier in the game. Keep in mind that if you choose the drawven origins there are going to be some compeling roleplay reasons to pick sides. As a commoner you will likely favor Bhelen, as a noble you will likely favor Harrowmont.

Yes the issue here is scatter shot, and I only ever see the archers in Denerim (for all quests/random encounters there) make gratuitous use of it. It used tlo be annoying but since I recently completed a 2H warrior playthrough I have gained real appreciation for the "Indomitable" talent that makes you immune to stun/knockdown, as opposed to Sword & Board talents that make you immune to knockdown only. I also found that when I stopped training Morrigan in those visually appeasing but not so powerful spells like fireball and such things begin to improve. Now I have her set up to make gratuitous use of sleep and walking nightmare to stun all those archers, have them run in circles, and attack each other.

I would say the memory leak is the biggest issue. I usually have to save and exit every 2 hours if I don't want insane load times when moving between zones. Its especially bad for me in Orzammar and the Deep Roads. The are a few more annoying issues: 1. Oghren - This character can be really bugged if you ever use the console command for party selection. Either you will be unable to add him to your party or he might appear already there, but not selectable. I used this command when I was tired of going back to camp to fetch Leliana to come pick locks, and have never used it again since. 2. Tactics: Alot of the tactics are broken, specifically the "Enemy> Nearest Visible Class". Your party member will just perform the action on the nearest visible target regardless of their class. Thankfully the 'Advanced Tactics' mod fixes this bug. 3. Clipping Issues with Haste: If you have a mage in your party running the 'Haste' ability its possible, with your quicker speed, to run into a spot you were never supposed to go and find yourself stuck. You can remedy this by selecting a different party member and moving away until your main character teleports to catch up. 4. Sometimes, after a main quest is done, the screen is completely black because the view has not switched zones while your character has. This is easily fixed by using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out again. I get this after saving Eamon with the ahses and picking Bhelen as king. The game has a few things I would have wished were implemented better but can't be designated as bugs. Overall I would say the game is very playable and entertaining at the moment. I would recommend it for everyone.

try this runscript zz_givearmor Not sure if it includes shields, let me know if you give it a try. You can also just wait until you get to Ortan Thaig (Deep Roads) and buy it off of Ruck. Oh and the most comprehensive list of console commands I have found to date are at: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Console

One of the more annoying things in game is that I have to zoom out every single time I open the map. I have not been able to find a setting that makes the 'zoomed out' view the map default, so I was wondering if anyone knew of a mod that does just that?