HoonDing

Cute..

I have AMD Phenom 9500 (quad-core) on Vista 32-bit. But I notice when I restart the game, the loading times are normal (< 10s). Maybe it's because I use quicksave a lot?

Maybe to get a ridiculously high defense. Since rogue isn't going to wear Dragonbone armor...

Well, it'll take a while before Morrigan will pick up Crushing Prison. Anyway, are there any tactics against *insane* load times? It takes 2-3 minutes to load by simply changing floors in Redcliffe Castle... I suppose this is a sloth demon at work?

I just went through the Mage Origin and there's something I don't get:

Immediately putting him/her/it in a Force Field is best, imo. But if the sucker managed to use Curse of Mortality, one is forced to bull-rush and kill him as fast as possible and run into a series of fireballs, ice & lightning.

Best tactic when encountering a group of Hurlocks led by an orange marked Hurlock Emissary: refer to an earlier save.

I miss a Knock & Disarm Traps spell for my mages. Or bashing chests. I can usually keep Imoen chick out of trouble though. Enemies target the dudes in heavy armour first, it seems, so if I put her somewhere away from the crowd and let her shoot arrows, she's not that bad. And at least she can kick people in the nuts.

Dilemmas...

From now on: six.

There's a place where you can buy lots of ingredients.

Most of those clich

#1 is Oblivion?

Tropes are not clich

I'm pretty sure a PC mage together with Shale can own the entire game (at least on normal). Shale can do everything, taunting, ranged, earth quaking. And he's hilarious to boot.

Morrigan gets on my nerves. The way I'm playing, I can barely get her approval over 0. Then again, I did a really ridiculous goodie-two-shoes thingie in Redcliffe and I was astonished to see a "Leliana disapproves -5" on screen afterwards. Darn irony.

I guess female Grey Wardens get nothing then? Male Grey Warden = canon?

I'm looking forward to seeing whether Zevran is a better fighter. I guess he'll be a dual-wielding specialist with some stealth skills, which would be nice. I only use Imoen chick in the first phases of entering a town when it's all about chatting up people and I have the opportunity to influence her, but as soon as the fighting is starting I swap her for another mage. The tier 4 archery skills seem pretty nice, though... but with the destruction mages can rain down on enemies, who cares?

I'm level 10 and I've yet to meet the 'trainer' to become a Champion... anyone know where (s)he is? Maybe I should become a Templar instead...

^I think the game wants you to go to Mage Tower first, no matter what NPCs advise you to do. Morrigan's suggestion is... ridiculous, no? I'm really glad I didn't go to Redcliffe first after Lothering. Without Cone of Cold, Force field or Earthquake I guess I'd be having a *hard* time there...

Cone of Cold + Stonefist/Shield Pummel has become my bread & butter. I'm sure Morrigan will be modded into having decent starting spells sooner or later.

Cool pics. I'm usually too busy pausing the game rather than enjoying the 'aesthetics'. Anyway, Shale is awesome: Someone is happy with new crystals:

"You fiend!"

Concerning Redcliffe...

I've been buttering up Shale, Alistair & Leliana mostly, but surprisingly have good approval with Sten too. He's not the Canderous Ordo type I had expected him to be. With Morrigan it's just a pain to prevent her approval from sinking constantly.