Enoch

@vir, if this Bioboards thread is to be believed, Cunning has no effect on stealth-- it's all skill ranks and no attributes. Although the author there was unable to determine how laying traps while cloaked works, so it might play in to that calculation.

No, you can't. My rogue had all 4 skill ranks and Cunning of 28-30 (I don't recall which), and there were locks that she didn't have the skill to pick. Which annoyed me no end! Just to highlight one line from my ridiculously long post: I had confused the Locks formula with the Coercion formula. You need 4 ranks, plus 30 CUN (or maybe 31; not sure if the checks are 'equal to' or 'greater than') to pick all locks.

OK. Melee Rogue Construction Research (Cobbled together from http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki , http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/ , Google, and some BioBoards threads) Caveat: This is all calculated without any Soldier's Peak special items/abilities. Attributes STR: Prerequisite for Armor (20 gets you best light armor; heavier armor has heavier fatigue) Prerequisite for non-dagger melee weapons (31 STR for best longswords) Increases Attack (0.5/point) Increases Damage (1/point with most melee, 0.5/point with daggers) Boosts Intimidation (eq. to 1 rank of Coercion per 25 points over 10 (@35, 60, 85)) DEX: Prerequisite for Roguey and DW Talents (36 gets you all) Prerequisite for Daggers (30 for all) and Bows (34 for all) Increases Attack (1/point) Increases Damage for Daggers (0.5/point) and Bows (1/point) Increases Defense (1/point) CUN: Prerequisite for lots of Roguey Talents and Skills (22 gets you everything) Increases Armor Penetration (0.14/point) With Lethality, takes the place of STR for damage calculation (1/point for non-daggers, 0.5/point for daggers) With Exploit Weakness (2nd-tier Assassin ability), adds damage to all Backstabs (Presumably, not to non-backstab criticals??) (0.17/point) Boosts Lockpicking and Trap-Disarming. (NOTE: my previous post on this was WRONG. Formula is (10*ranks in skill) + (CUN-10), with the toughest checks at 60.) Boosts Persuasion (as STR for Intimidation) Weapons Weapons have different ability modifiers, which are applied to the STR/DEX damage adjustments above. Daggers are 0.85 (so each pt of STR or DEX really only increases damage by 0.425); Longswords (ignoring axes & maces for the moment) are 1.0. Weapons have different speed modifiers. Longswords have -0.1; Daggers have -0.5. I don't know how this really works, but I would guess that it is applied to base of 1.0, so that for every 5 longsword attacks, the dagger gets 9. The base damage ratio between the weapons is pretty close to the reverse of this (best daggers do 6.4; best swords do 11.2). More attacks also means more payout on enchantment runes, but also that enemy Armor factors in more often. Daggers have the advantage in base Crit chance (best is 4.8%, versus 3.2%) and Armor Penetration (8 v. 4). I'm sure that Dual Wielding affects this, but I have no idea how. Combat All Rogue flanking attacks are Backstabs. With Coup de Grace (3rd tier, min. lev. all attacks on stunned or paralyzed foes are backstabs. All attacks coming out of stealth are either backstabs (melee) or critical hits (ranged). 4th tier Duelist ability makes all regular attacks Criticals "for a moderate duration." Critical Hit v. Backstab is weird. Damage formulae are the same, but Crits are not Backstabs and Backstabs are not Crits. If a blow can be either (e.g., coming out of stealth), I think Backstab takes priority. More notes: Crits shatter; backstabs do not. Ranged weapons cannot backstab, but can crit. Backstabs can only be done with regular attacks, not with activated abilities. Narrative Conclusions With the Dex Fix now official, I think Dexterity looks like the winner here. Dags v. Swords looks like it's close enough to be a draw to me, with the tiebreaker being that your tank can still use the best swords you find if you go with 2 Daggers. Plus, DW Mastery (for Drizzty fightin) is expensive. So, if you're going daggers, DEX is better to sink points into than STR in pretty much every way, once you have 20 for your armor (much of which can come from . For CUN, you'll get it to 20ish for ability prerequisites. The question is what then? 30 is minimum to handle the hardest locks and traps, and 35 lets you save a skillpoint in coercion. (Both nice, but not necessary.) With Lethality and Exploit Weakness, points in CUN get you more damage than increasing DEX, but those Talents are costly. And DEX retains the advantage in Attack and Defense, such that additonal CUN is probably only worthwhile when you already have a near-100% hit rate against whatever it is you're fighting. Talents I Want: Stealth: 3 ranks Devices: 4 DW Sweep: 3 (Momentum is really good) Dirty Fighting: 3 (for Coup de Grace) DW Training: Not sure about the true effects of these. 2 tiers, at least, look useful. Below the Belt: First two tiers don't look particularly useful. What amount of CUN (minus STR) is necessary justify 3 Talents here? Assassin: 1-2, depending on CUN. Dual Striking: Has some nice auto-crit attacks, but hardly necessary. Skills I Want: Combat Training: 3 Poisons: 1 (The reason to spare Zevran) Trapmaking: 1 Stealing: 1? (Supposedly worthwhile in the Origins and Ostagar. After that, I can use Lel when I want to steal.) Coercion: 3-4 So I think I'm going DEX-heavy, with Daggers. I'll eventually get CUN up to either 30 or 35, with equipment. Going for Momentum as early as I can for survivability.

Given that intimidate can be used in place of persuade in most conversations, a high strength is nearly as good as a high cunning for talky purposes. I'm going to play a rogue in my next game, but I'm not yet sure how I want to build her. (I'm thinking Dwarf Noble.)

The dagger attack rate is faster than the attack rate with bigger weapons. I'm not sure how the damage-per-second math works out, but it is noticeable.

You get 1 spec slot at level 7, and a second at level 14.

Are the ranger critters controllable, or are they wholly AI-based?

From what I've read over on the Bioboards, the lockpicking formula is the same as the persuasion formula: 4 tiers of difficulty at 25, 50, 75, & 100. The formula for your ability is (Cunning - 10) + 25*(ranks in the governing Skill). So you can still unlock anything if you take all 4 skill ranks, but with a Cunning of 35 you only need to take 3.

No. They are real characters, that you can't bend to your will constantly, not the cardboard cutouts that flip to your way of thinking at the last moment or purr at whatever you do. Why shouldn't you be able to turn Morrigan into a sweet little bunny that doesn't drop you the minute she get what she needs? Or turn Alistiar into a hard as nails King that can see Loghain might be useful? Why should Wynne and Lelianna react to a certain choice? Why should Sten be annoyed at all the kitty saving? Let just have them all as bland instruments to your will, with no agenda or personality of their own. It's always this way with strong characters. Whinging. Not my point. I have nothing against strong characters with agendas and personalities. (Although I would quibble with the relative strength of the character design, that's a separate discussion.) I was simply pointing out that the agendas and personalities that these two particular characters exhibit towards the close of the game make them wholly unlikeable. Not because they disagreed with me, but because they were selfish, petulent, and irrational in doing so. Making the two JNPCs most central to the game's story and appeal so unlikeable is ... an odd choice. (Oh, and you should probably tag the spoilers.)

Will be going to bed shortly, after having gotten through the of the endgame. Big ol' spoilers ahead. Both Alistair and Morrigan are petulant, selfish little children. These are the characters that Bioware expects us to like?

As a strident micro-manager,* here's a feature I want: An option to enable an automatic toggle into the "Hold Position" mode at the beginning of combat, that goes back into "Free Movement" when the fight is over. On numerous occasions, I've set up actions I want my people to do at the beginning of combat (e.g., Wynne cast Petrify), then jumped to another character to move it around with the WASD keys (e.g., to set up a flanking Cone of Cold with my PC), only to find that first character ignoring my previous order and instead following the character I'm directing, because I forgot to toggle Hold Position on at the start of the fight. This is irritating. * The only spells that auto-cast are Heal (on very low health, just in case I'm not paying attention) and Arcane Bolt. And that's with a 2-mage party.

Agreed. My preferred party setup right now uses both of the NPC "tank" options-- Alistair and Shale. Shale is not only an adequate tank (a knockdown-avoidance ability is really the only thing lacking), in "Pulverizing Blows" mode, you've got a DPS-focused fighter that is probably better than Dog, Sten, or Oghren for most stages of the game.

ME was more balanced because there were fewer options. You had no character attributes and only about a dozen abilities per character class (with ranks that increased efficacy) to choose from, many of which were shared across multiple classes. Much easier to balance than DA's scores of unique spells (spells alone number 80, by my count), combat abilities, skills, and class talents, perched across variations in attributes, races, classes, and backgrounds. Any game with that many options is going to have some overpowered and underpowered abilities. And if the player is forced (as they are in DA) to make irrevocable character decisions based on limited knowledge of the actual effects of these choices, you are going to get some inadvertently gimped builds (and some inadvertently uber builds). It is a fun game, but some of their system-design decisions are destined to create frustrated players. (Who get mocked rather mercilessly when they post on the official forums.)

Details on the spell nerfs from a Bio employee:

"Gang of Dickensian child-thieves" was always one of my favorite cliche backgrounds for D&D characters. Also, link to source?

The merchant who's quest you get in the Mage Circle seemed overpowered to me. Good call-- that one gave me a lot of trouble. Encountering that merchant before you have an effective and immediate long-range mage-neutralizing spell or ability (force field, paralyze, etc.) makes for a fight that's tougher than most boss battles.

So, anybody care to guess which encounters that "were not scaling properly" were fixed by the patch? Alley thugs in Denerim have to be on that list, no? Edit: I also wonder what dropping poultices and $ "more appropriately" means. (Guess: Minor resistance balms have essentially been cut from the game for reason of uselessness, unless the player is dim enough to buy or make them.)

If it nerfs my Shimmering Shield, I don't want it! Condolences. DO NOT WANT! It's like my Morrowind Robe of St. Roris all over again. Or the BG2 Cloak of Reflection.

If it nerfs my Shimmering Shield, I don't want it! Condolences.

Yeah, the game gave me an auto-save right before the fight, but subsequent auto-saves have almost certainly overwritten it. I'm pretty sure I have a hard save before the Dungeon area, so, worst-case-scenario, I have to put another hour or so into getting through there.

Yup, and it's my favorite part of the game. Watching the comedy antics of your is PURE GOLD (I went with Leliana & Dog on my first playthrough); Damn.

So, what happens if ? The problem with Chain Lightning is that it's one of the only direct-damage spells that doesn't scale with Spellpower.

Go visit the Dalish. You'll stumble upon it while doing their big quest.

Last night I earned the "Sidetracked" achievement-- was the quest that put me over the top, which I thought that was an amusing coincidence. Then I talked to Arl Eamon and triggered the "go to Denerim for the Landsmeet" stage of the game.

I regretted taking the whole Paralysis line with my Mage. I found the Sleep line to be more useful, overall. Both have useless tier-1 spells and near-identical tier-2 spells (Horror is shorter range, but gets the edge because of its spell combo with Sleep). Mass Paralysis is nice, but it has a casting time, and it attacks an enemy's physical resistance. Sleep does much the same thing (enemies wake up when you hit them, but you should be concentrating fire, anyway), but it fires off quickly, has a larger area of effect, and attacks mental resistance, which is lower for most of the standard mobs you face. Walking nightmare is an OK spell, but you can get away with stopping at Sleep-- it sets enemies to treat each other as hostile, but half of them usually just keep going at your people (is threat level the reason?), and the duration isn't long enough for the in-fighting to do serious damage. The Glyphs line is also nice, but I think that Sleep + Force Field + Crushing Prison + Cone of Cold = all the crowd control you need. Focus the rest of your spells on ones that are effective in boss fights. (Hexes!)