~Di

I finally finished the game. I must say that from the time I hit the constant battles grated on my last nerve. Toooo much. Took me six freaking hours of nothing but being overwhelmed. Lost Morrigan twice, so there went our ranged attacks. Thank god for I decided to take Shale instead of Wynne, so I didn't have any healing. Must have gone through 40-50 healing potions. Good thing I had a decent stock of them. Still, overall a great game. I loved my little rogue assassin. Now I'm going to try a mage, because frankly I'm sick of Morrigan and would love to go somewhere without her complaining and losing approval every time I help someone else with a quest. Besides, after the little surprise at the end, I really don't want to look at her again. There are some things I did NOT want to see... my poor, poor Alistair. Am I the only one who thought the end battles were too many and too much?

I honestly never used pickpocketing. I know there's a guy in Denerim who gives out theifly quests, including some that require pickpocketing. I just passed him by. I was busy enough with 100 other quests.

Okay, I'm sold. Where do I get this respec mod? I'm starting Landsmeet now, and when I begin a new game I'd like to try all the tactics I'm learning on this board. Besides, my rogue hasn't used Leiliana once, so I'd like to buff up her archery skills and mess around with them a bit next time. Oh, and although it seems to be consensus that rogues are gimped, my gal is an assassin/duelist with great DPS and terrific defense. I've loved playing her. She makes a great stealthed scout, eyeballing distant enemies that are begging for Morrigan's Blizzard. All in all, I'll no doubt make myself another rogue some day. I really recommend this class for a back-stabbing, chest-robbing, sneaky-stealth good time! Plus you get XP every time you open a lock or disarm a trap. My rogue leveled once from that XP before she ever left her daddy's castle!

Yeah, I just went on into LOL!! Totally cute, Bio's play on words between and , who frequently handed my party their asses in BG2!

Weird. I've just finished Ortan Thaig in the Deep Roads, but I'd search the Bio boards, but frankly I simply cannot figure out how to use the search function on those silly "social" boards. Has this happened to anyone else?

Oooh, where please? Because I must have missed all of them. I'm not kidding.

it doesn't heal injuries of the caster... which seems more than passing odd. is similar to the templar's aura which don't remove adverse magical effects on the templar using the aura. Actually Leliana was the injured one. I read somewhere that it only heals injured partymembers that are closest to the caster.

Another quick sidetrack: Banter. I've honestly never adventured with a quieter group in my life. I've only found two spots... one in Lothering, one in Orzammar... where anyone talks. So I painfully trot back and forth, beaming down alternate party members, just to find out what they have to say to each other. After almost two hours of this (mostly spent on the Loading screen), I got bored and gave up. Did anyone else have this problem, 'cause it sounds from some of the posts like their members were bickering with each other all the time. Oh, and do you have to take Oghren into the Dark Roads in order to get him to join your party? I'd rather take my main man, Al.

I'll try that... although I thought I already had. Maybe I wasn't patient enough. Thanks!

To completely digress from the track this topic is taking, I have one burning question: Why are there two ring slots on our equipment menu when we are only allowed to use one of them? Anyone know?

am going through as a rogue. am curious to see if cunning makes serious differences in dialogues (not much so far) and am also so disappointed with available rogues that making our own seems like ideal solution. that being said, for people who respec'd their jnpcs, we can see why mage would be the obvious choice on a second playthrough. HA! Good Fun! I'm playing a rogue! Master of Coercion gives some very nice options on how to handle some sticky boss situations that nobody else has. So far I think that Cunning has more to do with rogue skills like lockpicking than dialogue. I am a master lockpick, and I still run into chests I can't open... so I think my Cunning score (at 29) must be the reason. I'm still really having fun with her. She's a backstabbing little scrapper who deals DPS like nobody's business. With her in the party, a second tank really isn't needed for most fights. BTW, how does one "respec" our companions? I don't know how to do that.

I went into one battle with Sten, Wynne and 15 health potions. At the end of the battle, Sten had died twice, been revived AND had drunk all my danged health potions. I SO wished for a "change party" button in that dungeon, but it was the Urn of Ashes thing, it went on FOREVER and, being out of health potions, it wasn't a healthy time for any of us. I don't bother with Sten any more. I'll only take him on his personal quest, then back to camp for the big lug pantywaist.

Paralyzed enemies don't shatter. Are you sure you're not thinking of Petrify rather than Paralyze? You're right! It's Petrify, not Paralyze. I am an idiot.

dual weilding with high dex and moderate con (20+) most times out survives a well armored tank like stan. In fact I have to baby sit stan to keep him from dying. With leh and zep with their med armor and duel weapons and high crits just kick as much arse as the warrior classes if not more. Simply the game mechanics favor high dex, duel weilding abilities without a doubt. I have alister as my main aggro with sword/shield and shield wall on. He and my main PC (human warrior) draws most of the aggro and as long as I can keep the aggro on them the rogues and mages normally open a 6 pack of whoop arse. So much for tactics as that formula works with 85% of the encounters boss and some elites aside. Agreed, my rogue really hasn't fallen often. Maybe 3 times in 70+ hours of play. Alastair is my main tank, and he is one tough bugger to kill! Sten... *sigh*... he only looks tough. Even Wynne can't keep him alive. On another note, I agreed with whoever said that Crushing Prison owns! However, I've discovered the joy of Wynne's Petrify and frankly it's even better!

Lucky dog. Zevran barely talks to me even though he's "warm". I gave him presents, even! Two-faced pointy-eared jerk. I wanted to make Alastair jealous. He's begun to take me for granted ever since we did the deed. Bah. Men.

I'm finding Wynne's Paralyze to be the handiest spell so far, especially on big-ticket mobs. Those wild sylvans were kicking my butt until I pulled out Paralyze. Then it was a simple "cast spell, beat with sword, watch shatter". Two second mop up on sylvans! The only beast to resist so far was an Ogre, who took umbrage at the attempt, ran over to Wynne and killed her with a single blow. I love Paralyze and Crushing Prison.

I'll confess my mages fall. So do my warriors... well, Sten, anyway. I've fallen a few times myself... to be expected of a lightly-armored rogue who's in the midst of the melee fray with her little daggers wailing away. I've become enamored with Morrigan's Blizzard spell. I hold everyone else back, then have her run up and cast it. When it works, she gets to the back of the pack and my warriors wait for the survivors to stagger to them. When it doesn't work... well, RIP Morrigan. Even when it works, the mobs have blood in their eye for my mage. It's tough for the warrior's taunt to keep them off her. I'm going for arcane warrior next time around. I love magic, I love melee, it should be right up my alley! BTW, I've no experience with fireball or inferno since I kept Morri on the cold path, then went straight for crushing prison. Is heat better than cold? Opinions?

Holy cow, thats handy. Why am I just now learning this? Huh? What does that do? Never mind... I just checked it out. Not sure how I would use it, though.

Di, whilst in the city the little 'Change Party' icon should glow gold at the top of the GUI, you can just access the 'Cast 'O NPCs' screen automatically. It doesn't work in other areas, you need to access camp. That's my problem, I only have access to the market district, and my little icon is black. When you say the city, do you mean further inside the city, like in the castle areas? I can't go there yet, only to the Pearl and back allies.

I find full VO a delicious treat, but since I cut my teeth on BG I'm quite used to doing without. It doesn't bother me. I'm stunned at how quickly y'all finished the game. I think I'm at about 50 hours (although truthfully I don't pay much attention to the hours played), and have only done the Redcliff and Urn main quests. (I think I did the Urn quest a bit too soon... a level 12 party with a level 10 tank. Ouch.) I'm doing all the sidequests I can get, spending a lot of time in camp chatting everyone up, and wandering around each new town with different sidekicks to hear the banter. (BTW, why the hell can't we change party members in Denerim??? We could in Lothering and Redcliff. Grrrrr.) Guess I'm just a slowpoke, but I'm really having fun with it. When I take on DA with my mage, now THAT will be a royal beat-down!

You log in while in the game, and then you stay logged in as you play the game. It took me forever to figure out how to do this, since the manual had absolutely no information about it. Once you manage to log in, it will have your email address in the corner of the game menu. You have to make an accout in the Bio social place too. A real annoying facet of the game for me, 30 minutes to install and 4 hours trying to figure out how to get the downloads and play.

I've noticed that, if I select one of my party members (by pressing the corresponding F# key or clicking on them), and then press = to select the entire group, the character that was selected prior to me pressing = will move to the "leader" position of the party formation. Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but as far as I've seen it's the only way to influence the formation. Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try.

Probably not a big deal to most, but I was wondering if I can change the order of my party by doing something with their portraits? For some reason my tank is at the bottom, which means that my mage and healer are right behind me into battle, and the tank is bringing up the rear. I kinda think that the order you choose them in camp is the order they wind up in the party, so I'm screwed for now. But I thought I'd ask the experts who know the game better than I do. Thanks!

What's going on with the Bio Dragon Age forums? Every time you click on the link, it takes you to your profile on the social site... It wasn't like this a day or so ago.

Thank you!