Monte Carlo

I've currently got a set of armour from Mikhail at Warden's Keep that looks like the Shadow Legion armour from BG2... ain't optimal for my level but looks to cool to get rid of. I will go the Drakeskin route for my rogue after Sacred Ashes, for my next fighter / 2H / archer build will probably go with the ancient elven armour.

^ Both of those are available at either the DA social site or DA Nexus.

^ My rogue game rocks but I can't find any really awesome light armour. Wasn't looking for it during my warrior playthrough, just gave the Drakeskin stuff to Zev. Anybody know where I can get me some?

My next experiment is going to be archer / melee warrior - even split between 2W fighting and archery talents (because of the Dexterity synergy between the two, I really wanted 2H weapon / archer but it was stretching it a bit). Probably go Elf, possibly death-wish ghetto avenger.

That'll be me selling that armour next time I boot the game up. I have another aesthetics versus power problem though, in that I have the juggernaut armour which is OK. But that helmet, y'know with the blue feathery plume? Yech. Had to sell it.

^ Sure, that is meta-gaming. First time I did it, like every other schmuck I had about ten minor health potions and a half dozen lyrium. My sword & shield fighter was pretty good, I had the walking panzer shield ability and my vanilla Morrigan had the cone of cold type spell. I also had a not every well armoured Sten (splintmail straight outta the cage) and Imoen Chick with a bow and a dagger. Bejaysus it was tough, I think I did three or four re-loads. As I posted before the initial battle was OK, but after that I had to beat it by kiting the zombies up the hill in groups to engage with the knights at the top. Did I mention I killed the dwarf in a fit of pique who in subsequent battles is very useful? Anyhow, I was last man standing. I'm also the half-wit who not long after took on the revenant in the courtyard without figuring out how to let the knights in. Again, one last man standing at about 3hp. Now I can do it on hard and hardly take any damage! Cheers MC

Why don't you go back and read my post again?

^ Yeah, I haven't got that one yet although my rogue has just met some dude who keeps offering me thief missions in Denerim... ha ha ha. That might push me over the edge into the 75% territory.

Arcane Warrior spoiler

^ Yeah, if you're talking across the classes - Melee Panzer - Warrior / Reaver / Beserker with all the shield talents Slice & Dice - Warrior DW with high DEX and medium armour Stealth Commando - Rogue with impossibly high DEX and CUNNING, Tier 4 stealth, throw in some DW skills and the assassin / duellist sub-classes I've not tried 2H warrior yet, nor pure rogue / archer (unless you count Imoen chick, who is like something out of Day of the Jackal with all the archery talents).

:: shrugs :: no shortage of great mage options - plenty of the guys here have crushed the game on Hard with various builds. The consensus is that the Blood Mage / Arcane Warrior is the Kensai / Mage twink build of DA. You unlock those in-game. Personally, when I re-specced Morrigan for the first time I took all the fire spells up to Tier 4 - that inferno one is stupid powerful and bags of fun. The spells are also symbiotic - you can freeze people then shatter them (i.e. stonefist) for example. Pump MAGIC and some WILLPOWER, choose one elemental route (the ice one is also pretty essential) and one other route. Force field is extremely useful, and the sleep / waking nightmare is great for mobs. As for sub-classes - shapechanger sucks. Healer is great if you want to, er, heal (NPCs job IMO) but Arcane Warrior does a straight swap out of MAGIC for STR so you can cut about as a mage wearing Dragon Bone armour and carrying swords. Admit it, that's exactly where you want to be! Cheers MC

^ I just haven't had the spare points to go archery but every character in my party has a missile weapon, I've got the twinky auto-Xbow that does 10.8 base damage from WK. Even this is pretty useful, enemy mages go down pretty quickly as Sten, my Rogue and Alistair pepper him with arrows and Morrigan lays down AoE spells. So I can imagine how potent a dedicated archer would be, I'm tentatively involved in making a DA mod with some other people and I think I'll design an archer warrior NPC for it.

More Rogue Update In the original Baldur's Gate I played, IIRC, a ranger or a paladin for nostalgic reasons. Then I picked up Coran the wise-cracking fighter / thief and discovered that with his archery skills (BG1 was sick as far as archery was concerned), backstab and stealth he was pretty un-stoppable. I would leave the entire party at the mouth of the dungeon and have lots of fun clearing it with Coran. Then I realised that it wasn't right, having that much fun with a freaking NPC. So I re-started, made a fighter-thief and never looked back. So I had high hopes for Dragon Age - I wanted to re-create that experience. When I first made a rogue all I could do, because there was no real frame of reference for what the rules meant, was die as a not-very-good light fighter. DEX and CUNNING? Hugh? Now that I've worked it out I can tell you I was wrong (but a casual gamer without the trial and error I've put in might not get the same result, which is a shame). You can make the ultimate commando character with this game, the level clearing Death God that Coran was in BG1. I've just cleared out the Brescilian ruins, virtually single-handed with a level 13 rogue. I need backup for bosses and revenants but mobs? No problem. The key is Tier 4 stealth, carefully selected combat skills, bombs and (most importantly) HIGH CUNNING. I don't have trap-making as a skill but my high (40) Cunning allows me to de-trap almost anything. I can backstab, attract aggro, dual weapon sweep (with passive DW skills my vanilla attack is still in the high twenties - yes I have lethality), throw a bomb then stealth out again. The game even allows me to use objects as cover whilst I reorganise, those pesky skeleton archers only wing me. Like I said before, this isn't everyone's cup of tea but I take my hat off to the designers, you can do a great deal of fun stuff with this class... it's just a shame you have to work it out for yourself. Cheers MC

My advice is to leave it until you are level 12 or so at least. Morrigan won't bug you about it for a while anyway. I've played that battle on Easy, Normal and Hard, always with Wynne and her spell selection isn't really optimal for the challenge. In fact, as long as you don't go completely crazy I see no shame in Re-Speccing Wynne and giving her at least one elemental damage spell tree.

There's a trick to Redcliffe, I used traps, archery and a healthy stock of potions. Hey, let's talk about it in The Tactics Thread!

Di, Go into her Tactics tab and simply enter as a condition SELF > ENEMY and action > USE RANGED WEAPONS removing any references to melee, swapping them with ranged weapons too.

I'm glad somebody referenced Ballard earlier, his dystopias capture what post-modern cities are perfectly. The major city is as much a part of the built environment as a mountain is part of the natural... the only people who have seen cities as 'machines for living' have historically been socialists and other authoritarians. The true nature of the city is more like the corporate bordello described by Ballard, it applies as much to Babylon or ancient Rome. What I'm saying is that you view a city as you would a challenging natural part of the environment. If I were a Masai warrior the bush would be an easy place to live. If I were a Sherpa the mountains are my backyard. I, OTOH, am a Londoner, a finely honed survivor of an equally challenging (albeit urban) terrain Now, as I approach my dotage and look to my son, I ponder moving out to the Elephant's Graveyard of the counties. A well-trodden path that I will walk without too much regret, but having lived all of my twenties and thirties now my early forties in London it's been an incredible experience. Cheers MC

^ Yes, a common denominator of world cities is that hardly anyone living there is from there. I am an exception, I was born in London and have lived here all of my life, bar three years as a teenager in the early 80's and another three at University.

I wonder if the game was designed with this in mind, initially I thought it was because the class was gimped. Or maybe I'm being generous. You have to be fairly patient to build and play a decent rogue without dying every five minutes. The same is not true of warriors or mages (unless you go 2H warrior, that's another finesse build).

^ I could say exactly the same about Amsterdam, fabled home of nothing but cannabis dens and hookers. Of course, that's rubbish. there's a lot more to the place than that because I'm a belligerent SOB and don't believe that any major European city isn't worth visiting. A trip to any large metropolis requires meticulous planning. It rewards the diligent and punishes the lazy - and I don't care if you're talking about Paris or Berlin or even Rome. I'm a New York City veteran and I've got the scars on my back from not planning that one properly (I've mastered it now). Berlin can be an unforgiving bitch of a place to visit if you don't know what you're doing and don't plan. If you do it's incredible, one of my favourite cities. London is very similar. Parts of London are horrible and worth avoiding: other parts are sublime. This is what makes it what it is. Cheers MC

^ This looks indeed awesome, and a couple of years ago would have been my Favourite Waste of Time for six months. Alas, as I've got older I've regressed and become more enamoured of tactical-level and action RTs games. CoH, Warhammer, Total War and the Close Combat series (Best. Tactical. Wargame. Ever) are the meat and drink of my wargaming nowadays. However, the pure awesomeness of your example makes me tempted to go back to hex-based oblivion.

From the top of my London townhouse, and with a very powerful telescope, I can just about espy the provinces. I hear that, now and then, they can be quite a reasonable place to visit. London is a city-state. You're not meant to like it, just benefit from the wealth it generates. London has more in common with Hong Kong or 16th Century Venice than it does with provincial England.

^ one rogue is fine, two is fiddly, three is a nightmare unless you configure the tactics slots just so. I'm now on Tier 3 stealth and have configured my main character to automatically stealth in combat, he's sort of auto-backstabbing most of the time, hmmm well mebbe 50% but that's not bad. A mod that allowed you to set a combat tab for backstab (as opposed to stealth) will be a very valuable addition for rogues in DA. FWIW I use the rogue blood ability from WK much more than the warrior ones (and the fact that one is passive is a real result).

Sure, fiar enough. It's just that we already locked the last tactics thread at 34-odd pages and the current one is lively. I also like to think that other folks might use that thread if they're stuck so I like to keep all the stuff in one place. Not being a Nazi, just helpful to other forumites... this thread is a smorgasbjord of DA trivia rather than crunchy advice.

^ Then you can work it out for yourself, I'm sure.