Volourn

"Has anyone tried pickpocketing extensively? I wonder if there are some interesting items hidden away on NPCs somewhere." There's a certain quest in the Mage Tower where you need pick pocketing to get a nice interesting book... Good luck on figuring it out without a spoiler, though. I never got it myself since I haven't actually used pickpocketing yet just read about it on the BIo fourms.

Only if you plan to min/max. But, yeah, the rogue as a class isn't needed in DA. Mages as a class make sense as it has all that greta lore backing it up while warriors, ... well they're warriors. A rogue - even with all their cool abilities - are just there. " Dwarf Noble story screams warrior - nobody acknowledges your roguishness, not even a line about "how you didn't turn out the way Pa wanted." Well.. technically, you cna still be a rogue and be the honourable one, right, and still be who your father wants you to be? What is said if you actually do commit THE SIN.

"This game isn't scaled for every class / specialisation / party combo... it couldn't be." Yeha, but that shouldn't be shocking or surprising and is true for basically any RPG ever created. Play BG2 with a bard then play it with a mage.. which character is likely to have the easier time? Play BG2 with a part of all rogues then play with a part of all fighters then play with a party of all mages . This idea that a game should be set at a perfect difficulty for every character/party combination isn;'t true. I mean, as an exmaple. Some in this threaD mentioned how they got Leliana to do upwards of 138 damage in an attack. My PC dwarf fighter never reached 100 damage in a single attack, IIRC. *shrug*

"I don't think there is an 'Evil' path in Dragon Age. There's a mercenary path, an occasionally-selfish path and a morally ambiguous path... but Evil?" You cna definitely be evil in the game. Sure, fighting the blight per se obviously isn;t a good vs evil thing since it's more like a fight for survival and no matter your character you should want it stopped. But, certain decisions are definitely evil in carnate. And, not just merely greedy-evil; but *evil*.

"well, 'cause vol saying it makes it so. heck, have noticed that the opposite tends to be true: vol observations has a preternatural tendency to be wrong." cry all you wnat but youw ere wrong. Many people on the BIo boards and elsewhere believe that the the silly village/castle is the 2nd easiest behind the mage tower. On top of thta, the people whod eisgned the game, balanced with that in mind., So, poor little whiny Grom who plays the game on easy shouldn't be worrying about how hard an area is. LMAO 1. Tower (very short, and mostly easy fights) 2. Pathetic Little Village Where You Fight Wussy Zombies 3. Ashes To Ashes (minus one obviously optional fight) 4. Tough Forest With Overhwelming Wereolves & An Army Of Actual Deadly Skeles + Super Spiders + Tons of (Mini) Bosses 5. Orzammar Also, i find it funny that youa re trying to use BIO posters to 'prove' your point whenm they cna't even agree amongst each other. Espicially since many of them think rogues are awesome and you think they are the worst ever. R00fles! So, I guess someone's opinion is only right whenh it is yours. Dififculty/challenge is different for everybody. that's why you play on easy, and I play on hard. As for balance/scaling or whatever being 'fubared', it beats 99% of RPGs including that pathetic BG2 garbage game. You can beat friggin' Gygaxx in exactly one hit or be completely immune to him with one scroll. Yup, that's balanced. L0LZ "The forced skills and talents in character creation are really annoying, and pointless too" Nah. It's your training before the game starts. You think your character came into being in a vcaccum? "Basically, if I start as a mage, I have one less skill point than with other characters." Are you truly trying to claim that mages are treated unfairly and are underpowered? Weird.... "Fade area in the tower" Takes less than an hour, and very little backtracking even on my first time - I just had to go back to one place. I backtracked a lot more with the Forst/Ruins, and had to avoid some optional encounter smy first time through. Never had to do that with the Tower. Mass Paralysis + Inferno (or any area of effect spells that persists) is an awesome combination espicially versus mages/archers who don't normally move around. The 'necromancy' line is pretty sweet, too.

"Why Alan, why did Bioware decide to make the origins so restrictive? It's like each origin was specifically designed for a single character build." Huh? Outside of the mage, where uh you ahve to be a mage, I dunno. Do you mean because of speciifc items you get that are tied to the origin? *shrug* There are enough non origin sweet items it shouldn't be a big deal if you don't get one. P.S. A lot easier to make gold/loot/power when you are evil. I hevn got one of those magey talent books by committing an act of extreme evil. R00fles!

Look at where the supposed quote is. It's at the end of my own sentence. Why would I quote myself when I hadn't even wrote it before? Don't makea sense. Anyways, continuing on my second run in DA as an evil mage. Wow, did I ever mess some fun, and interetsing quests. Including, a rather silly one with bodybags. L0LZ

Nor does it change the fact that recliffe is easier than forest. R00fles!

"I can

"With all the inter-racial loving going around, its a wonder there are no half-elves or half-dwarves or Dwelfs (half dwarf-half elf) around." Who says there isn't?

"unless you is playing a mage we would not recommend redcliffe first." Kididn' right? Barring perhaps the mage tower, Redcliffe is by far the easiest of the main 4 areas. I'll take my chances with zombies over werewolves any day of the week. they even give you an easy out against one of the toughest enemy types in the game PLUS you do not even have to face the end boss if you choose not. Redcliffe, challenge wise, is the 2nd easiest one imo with only the mage tower being easier. The forest can be really tough, and no doubt about Orzammar's challenge level.

"1. Push the boat out just a few feet more on the setting - do something that would make all of us go.... WTF? The game is solid enough for you to have gotten away with it." Like what? You said yourself, the chance of BIO going any darker (after all you can murder children, kill unarmed people, make out with demons, join up with a cult, kill your brother, pimp someone out, etc.) "2. Make it classless - be brave. DA:O played with the character I wanted to make would have been an awesome experience." Rogue can be cut, but the mage should be seperate. Too much lore and background for that to be lumped and allow anyone to take spells. Only mages should be able to cast spells. "3. Less linearity... be confident in the setting. Ferelden is promising, let me explore it not rescue it like an unexploded bomb with the big red LED clock ticking." Not BIO's style. If that's what you want, you shouldn't be playing a BIO game. They give you enough non linearty. "4. More critters. Slaying waves of the same flavour enemy infantry got old." More critters is always good. Other stuff that can be improved: 1. No heath or mana regen. 2. Cut the rogue and give the talents to the other two classes. 3. Should have two mage origins. 4. No forced companions not even in camp. It was very satisfying being able to just kill . Heck, there was no real reason why Alistar was forced on you. Game was completeable without him. Afterall, Morrigan had a pretty big role too yet you could finish with out her. 5. Some specialization ideas: Dragon Slayer, Grey Warden (I'm shocked that this wasn't in DA1), Ellementalist, Necromancer, Deep Delver. 6. GIANTS 7. Dwarf noble should have had an oppurtunity to become king. 8. Should ahve been non obvious allies to persuade to join you instead of the either or choices. 9. Every origin should have had one ally to potentially join them. 10. No more cheesy Ser Cauthien type battles. 11. Continue the awesome lore. 12. Combat tatics shouldn't give extra AI options. It's liveable but not needed that way. just give every character x slots, and be done with it. 13. More dialogue between 3+ characters. 14. Limit inventory. you should be not allowed to carry 100 suits of armour. It should be limited by both strength and more reasonable carrying capicty and by per character.

"Nope, it's still the best.The impression I've gotten is that crowd control is more important on nightmare, so it's possible it's even better. I know the difference in difficulty with and without Cone of Cold is very large at least." Want crowd control? Just use Mass Paralysis, and Nightmare. Much better than Cone of Cold. I'm not using CoC my 2nd play through and I'm having an easier time of it. *shrug*

"2H is gimped" Nah. 2hander does the most damage and can knock creatures down with just a normal hit. That's impressive. And, the npc rogues are absolutely fine, and useful.

"I don't see what other choice Palestine has than do what they've been doing" O RLY? They've had no choice but to do the following: 1. Bomb cafes, bosses and other place where unarmed civilians are 2. Murder each other, have the inability to even worth with fellow Palestinians. Heck, there is absically two Palestines. How cna anyone actually work with them when they cna't even work with each other? 3. Break inetrnational law repeatedly 4. Bigoted towards Isreal for their poor treatment of Palestinians (which Isreal is guilty of); but basically saying nothing about the treatment that their fellow Muslims in other countries poor tretament of Palestinians? The list goes on. And, I could make a list for Isreal too; but this idea you have that palestinians are 'just the victims' who have 'no choice' is ludicrous.

"Cone of cold is the best spell in the game, hands down, on any difficulty" Nah. Plenty of other spells are better, imo. But, that's okay, nothing wrong with different people liking different spells. "adds 200 hours to game making sure he covered every conceivable spot in game" O RLY? 200 hours just on this? That's , let us agree, is just impossible. Took me 60 hours, and most people seem to have taken between 40 and 80 hours - so are you saying without this, it would take people - 120ish hours to complete the game. So, in conclusion, I hope you realzie that you silly situation is utterly impossible and doesn't make any sense? Right? Right.

"but on easy you can almost permanently keep a revenant frozen." Wow. Thank god I didn't play on easy. Revenants are so fun because they are hard (and the first one is *usually* surprising in its hardness). One simple cone of cold being all it takes to win would be.... uncool. "Any how, anyone take on that Dragon in the Ashes quest? I almost had my ass handed to me on that. I had one Sten left who was alive, low on hit points and he scored a critical on the dragon and won the day." yeah, pretty tough. Espicially if it is on the ball. Sometimes the AI gets stuck, though. One time I had to reload because I couldn't have had an easy win because it just sat in some place farting after it had killed all but Morrigan and she was able to just cast spam cast on her untouched. I had to come back to it after doing the Deep Road 'cause I wans't up to the task originally (it slaughtered me wholesale). Beat it, at level 18ish. With greater knowledge of the game, I can probably take it now at a lower level if I play smart.

Had to try.

NWN > DA > BG2

Show me a vid.

First post was one of the best trolls ever. Thumbs up.

You must be playing a different DA than. Now ay does 3 spells take down a revenant even on easy... so why do you lie?

You got so exicted about a 7 year old game that you suppsodedly hate that you just felt the need to bump and post in this thread. LMAO I guess I should find an old TW or FO3 or Oblivion thread just to post how much I hate them. HAHAHA!

Revenant? No.

"Spamming Cone of Cold nicely keeps the Mage Tower Revenant in check. That is, until one runs out of lyrium potions. " Only helps so much. Not gonna win just with that one spell since the duration is very short, and it takes a little while to come back. Good idea is to use spells to make his attacks weaker if you have them. And, get ready to run with whatever made is doing the most damage. L0L Here's an idea for finding things Grom. Look for stuff. Why the need for hand holding? There's already way too much of that in DA specifically, and RPGs in general. The less babysitting the better.