Dragon Age: Origins Catch-All

Don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but the Fade forms also affect your stats. The constitution change is obvious when you shift to certain forms, but also...

Spoiler:

Mouse form lowers Strength and Constitution significantly. Conversely, Golem form boosts both significantly. Burning Man form grants a large Dexterity and a small Constitution bonus, and Spirit form gives you a big Willpower increase and a minor Constitution bonus.

Regarding Orzammar:

[spoiler]
There's a way to get 20 gold from the Commons right as you enter. Get the gold and buy the Grandmaster Silverite rune from Faryn outside. Put it into Oathkeeper and you should be able to slice through the Darkspawn like butter.

Oh, and get Shale. Between Shale, completing all Lothering quests, the runabout quests in Orzammar and all the random encounters you get, you should be more than capable of braving the Orzammar battles when they finally occur.
[/quote]

Regarding Sidequests:

I must be just a hardened SOB because I never felt emotionally touched by any of the tragic endings. sh*t happens. It does so all the time. In fact, worse sh*t happens in real life, and I've had a front row seat at many such instances. Having a person be incapacitated for life, unsalvageable, just seemed, well, normal.

People can and do die of malnutrition and related illnesses (and a whole lot of other preventable crap) - I've seen no shortage of kids do so under my care. At a certain point, they just can't be saved anymore. It's all you can do to wait for the inevitable and hope death comes quickly.

Needless to say, I found Dragon Age to be a positively glowing environment by comparison.

Regarding Alistair:

Spoiler:

I actually found the guy irritating, whiny, and self-absorbed, not to mention hypocritical. For all his talk of duty and honor, he forsakes both just because you prevent him from exacting petty revenge on Loghain, even though it makes perfect sense - his GW superior, Riordan, even suggests the course. He is not worthy of his station; and by station, I mean his being a bastard.

Moreover, for all his talk of love and not minding your station (if you're an elf), he goes all elitist and racist on you when YOU get him to be King. Ferelden IS just "one bad day short of reverting to barbarism." I don't see how much difference it makes if he has to bash a few heads in just to get the people to accept an Elf Queen. Ferelden is a place where might essentially makes right. Your character herself proves it when she openly defies a vote by the edge of a blade and gets her way!

Despite his shortcomings, Loghain is at least consistent about wanting the best for Ferelden. He's even willing to stand still while you cut his head off. For policy reasons. He even suggests it himself! That's more character than Alistair ever shows.

Regarding spoilers:

We all know there's a spoiler thread, right?

LarryC wrote:

People can and do die of malnutrition and related illnesses (and a whole lot of other preventable crap) - I've seen no shortage of kids do so under my care.

You should sig that.

LobsterMobster wrote:
LarryC wrote:

People can and do die of malnutrition and related illnesses (and a whole lot of other preventable crap) - I've seen no shortage of kids do so under my care.

You should sig that.

Remind me not to let LarryC babysit my kid. Scary.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

I've already started my second playthrough, but I'm not sure how far I'll manage to get - based on a conversation Nightmare and I had, I'm going to play as Singleton, the antisocial Warden, and will see if I can drive away any and all potential followers. Except for my Mabari, Stay.

A boy and his dog against the Blight. This should be interesting :)

All Singleton wants is for he and Stay to be left alone.

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4176987664_5ae24d299b.jpg)

That simple goal apparently requires defeating the Blight. Reluctantly, Singleton has signed on as a Grey Warden - which wouldn't be so bad, except they keep forcing him to interact with people. In an attempt to drive off the other recruits, Singleton ordered them to disrobe before entering the Wilds. This has led to some mutually-uncomfortable situations.
IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4176982388_e175d095dd.jpg)

(Semi-related: Flickr is somehow failing to parse my Dragon Age screenshots. Anyone else run into this problem?)

Spoiler:

In Ostragar I also found you can rob the Quartermaster twice. Hardy must have a stockpile of those belts somewhere :)

I'm strangely interested to see how this man & his dog experiemnt turns out. I'm envisioning a lot of kiting in your future.

Found out something cool playing through Ostagar last night. You can buy two backpacks from the quartermaster for 56 silver each. Once before heading out to the wilds, and once after you finish the wilds. I'm up to 90 inventory slots before getting to Lothering. I wonder if I'll end up with 130 slots total.

Bullion Cube wrote:

Found out something cool playing through Ostagar last night. You can buy two backpacks from the quartermaster for 56 silver each. Once before heading out to the wilds, and once after you finish the wilds. I'm up to 90 inventory slots before getting to Lothering. I wonder if I'll end up with 130 slots total.

Ok, that's awesome Especially since I just spend 6 gold on one last night!

Yea, especially at the beginning backpacks are tough to afford. Now that I'm replaying the game, I've decided that there's very little equipment I'll be buying. I'm just saving up for backpacks, recipes and books, and relying on found equipment.

Bullion Cube wrote:

Yea, especially at the beginning backpacks are tough to afford. Now that I'm replaying the game, I've decided that there's very little equipment I'll be buying. I'm just saving up for backpacks, recipes and books, and relying on found equipment.

I agree that is the way to go. Except for the most expensive stuff, there's really very little equipment to buy that you can't get some kind of equivalent of off of corpses and from treasure. (Special items like Dragon Armor excepted.)

trueheart78 wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Found out something cool playing through Ostagar last night. You can buy two backpacks from the quartermaster for 56 silver each. Once before heading out to the wilds, and once after you finish the wilds. I'm up to 90 inventory slots before getting to Lothering. I wonder if I'll end up with 130 slots total.

Ok, that's awesome Especially since I just spend 6 gold on one last night!

A most excellent tip. I'll certainly remember that one for round 2.

Bullion Cube wrote:

I'm just saving up for backpacks, recipes and books, and relying on found equipment.

All of the best leather armour for a Rogue is store bought, if I recall correctly. There is very little leather that can be found.

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

Bullion Cube wrote:

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

I didn't give the guy any cash and it still came out quite usable. Anyone know the stats if you pay him the differing amounts at the different opportunities? (you get 2 chance I think)

Bullion Cube wrote:

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

It's also complete sh*t compared to armour you can buy at a merchant.

MoonDragon wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

It's also complete sh*t compared to armour you can buy at a merchant.

It's great if you want fire resistance for certain battles.

trueheart78 wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

It's also complete sh*t compared to armour you can buy at a merchant.

It's great if you want fire resistance for certain battles.

Getting it at level 7 sorta kicked ass. It had a higher rating than higher grade armors for a good, long time.

I found out about this "hardening personality" business last night, apparently too late. At the end of companion quests, I was invariably trying to be a nice guy, because I thought that would get me better Approval. Disappointing to find out it doesn't matter. Now my potential evil act will be slightly less evil than it could have been.

Plz splain "hardening presonality"

I've heard rumors

So there's better Leather armor than Wade's Superior Drakeskin? Anybody want to point a brother in the right direction?

Its at Wade's Emporium.

buzzvang wrote:

So there's better Leather armor than Wade's Superior Drakeskin? Anybody want to point a brother in the right direction?

Spoiler:

The Felon Coat (<==that is a link btw, it doesn't show up in spoiler text apparently) is probably the best armor for rogues . Too bad it is only sold at Wade's, because in my game Wade's is no longer open for me.

Well isn't that just great.

Bullion Cube wrote:

Plz splain "hardening presonality"

I've heard rumors

Every Companion quest seems to lead to a "post-quest chat". This is apparently where you can do it. There are Nice options, and Hard Ass options, but I don't know how much an effect they have, since I haven't done the Hard Ass. The example I can recall, since I did it last night, is Leliana. After her quest:

Spoiler:

she's worried that she enjoys murder. Figuring she might not like being told that's true, didn't pick things like "That's just your true nature" or the like, and instead went with "You left the Chantry to help others. That's meaningful.", figuring that would improve Approval. Apparently if you chose the nastier things, she becomes hardened, and it has no effect on Approval.

I'll have to give it a try with one of the uncompleted companion quest, and share my results.

Look on the bright side, Buzzvang. Enemies prioritize characters with heavier armor (for some reason). Your squishy Rogue wants enough armor to keep them alive but not so much to draw attention.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Plz splain "hardening presonality"

I've heard rumors

Every Companion quest seems to lead to a "post-quest chat". This is apparently where you can do it. There are Nice options, and Hard Ass options, but I don't know how much an effect they have, since I haven't done the Hard Ass.

According to the guide, if you "harden" a companion's personality they'll behave differently in certain situations, possibly slightly altering the story.

buzzvang wrote:

So there's better Leather armor than Wade's Superior Drakeskin? Anybody want to point a brother in the right direction?

Erik pointed to the best one. But if you follow links to the light armour page you'll see that there is another one. Available to be purchased pretty much straight out of Lothering.

trueheart78 wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

End game I'll splurge. You can make the Drake leather armor, though that does cost a bit.

I didn't give the guy any cash and it still came out quite usable. Anyone know the stats if you pay him the differing amounts at the different opportunities? (you get 2 chance I think)

I believe paying more for the drakeskin has the biggest effect on the third set of armour he makes afterwards.

Spoiler:

From the scale of the high dragon

Armour value stays the same, but total bonuses go from

+35% fire resistance
set: -10% fatigue

to:

+70% fire resistance
+2 stamina regeneration in combat
+25 stamina
set: -15% fatigue
set: +5 defense

For the heaviest set, similar differences for the other ones. More details at the the dragon age wiki.

Holy mother of god, Gaxkang is ridiculous. Any one have any tips for this fight?

I've tried at level 14, 16, and now 18 (multiple times each) and the mofo just will not go down. I'm throwing everything in the book at him. And then I threw the book too.

Nothing.

f*cking.

works.

arrgh!

I had a bit of trouble with him. Couple of things that seemed to make the difference for me:

Get the tank to face him away from the rest of your group, so things like cone of cold aren't as big an issue.
Put the tank in the Juggernaut plate set to reduce elemental damage.
Work out which spells are causing the most damage, use a balm against them - I used greater spirit balm.
Don't bother with offensive spells, he's pretty much immune. I only tried fire damage spells, blood magic and crushing prison - others may work. Something like mana clash would be great if it affects him.
--> If possible, only take one mage, and have them do nothing but heal.
Non-tank characters get a lot of benefit even from the lowest-level poultices, can be a good way of keeping everyone's health up.

For me, it turned into an endurance fight - probably the longest fight I've had in the game. Once he ran out of mana he went down fairly easy, though.

To add to this, try to keep him incapacitated as much as possible. Paralyze runes, Glyph of Paralysis, Crushing Prison, Stuns, etc. He'll resist most of them, but if you keep tossing them at him some of them will stick, and any time he's immobilized is good. He does lots of melee-range AOE, so if you have a healer try to keep them back a few steps. If he pulls them in make sure to back them off again.