Gromnir

"So, I guess the question is, for you hardcore tactical types, is there any better way to take care of my mage AoE problem? Micromanaging two people with AoE would drive me crazy." vol response: ROOFLES! that is a riDkulous complaint. if you don't wont to mikroManage, then you should go back to playing BG2 because you want a super eZ game, and you obviously aren't using the combat tactics right, so it isn't bioware's fvault. And MASS PaRALYSIS kills everything instantly, so you have no reason to complain. ROOFLES. Next time you should do redcliffe first because it is so easy, and you don't need potions but the SPOILERS and SPoilers are hard. Kone of cold is a joke but all the other spells are GR8t. and 70 backpack slots is two much room. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

LOL! Redcliffe is a saturday night pub fight in comparison to the rest of the game! in terms of actual duration, redcliffe is probable the longest single battle... which is what makes it so taxing for wrong built & low-level parties that is unaware they need a large stock o' potions. in every other portion o' the game you may inch towards daylight... fight & rest, fight & rest. heck, those lyrium veins that show up in various places significantly ameliorate the player's need for potions as the mage types may re-charge on-the-fly and then heal party or smote foes. no such option is available in redcliffe. also, aristes did dahlish first, if we recall correct... and then the mage tower. HA! Good Fun!

btw... we used the patch. durations for cone o' cold is indeed shorter. however, we did get a lootable corpse with no 1007... and it will no doubt disappoint enoch to learn that, we found a couple lesser grounding salves/potions/balms... whatever. was in the cadash taig where we got the crud potions and the l007less corpse, so maybe is a limited problem... not that such is genuine problems in any event. HA! Good Fun!

wade has no sense of time. simply enter another building in denerim after leaving wade's... then return. your armour will be finished. oddly enough, the 20 sovereigns doesn't seem to improve the improved drakeskin armour, but it will improve the dragon armour if you choose to have wade make a suit of dragon scale armour. wade won't charge you for the dragon scale, but if you paid 20 to get "perfect" drakeskin THEN you gets improved dragon scale. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

the nwn:oc ending was... horrible. you fight some mage, whose name nobody recalls, and then you confront the scary lizard queen from some kinda 1950s b-movie sci-fi thriller. lizards have awakened from their eons long slumber intent on conquering the world. we know it is true because that is what we is told. is no genuine character development o' the main villains, and aribeth, who coulda' been important, essentially becomes a footnote. it were just kinda a mess. never finished hotu... too much drow. too much epic. too much... and yet, ironically too little and too late for Gromnir. we were simply exhausted by bio's nwn attempts by the time they released hotu. btw, the denerim thugs were tougher than any equal number o' darkspawn we ever faced. mas paralysis maybe works better on the easy difficulty vol maybe played... or the patched version that adjusts normal to something easier. dunno. scattershot archers makes the pre-casting of mass paralysis problematic, and on hard you gets lots of enemies making their resistance checks. sleep is a better crowd controller, coupled with cone o' cold and judicious use o' force field on the archers. HA! Good Fun!

there weren't nothing epic 'bout the da battles post landsmeet. however, there is a couple o' conversations post landsmeet that is significant. Gromnir tends to lump that altogether with the whole landsmeet portion o' game, but to be fair you does have 'bout 10 minutes o' fodder battles post landsmeet and before your big Resolution dialogues with party mates. the problem is they all occur in a relative small window before your final assault ... and the final assault is tedious and anti-climactic... the final battle itself is probable bio's second worst designed... next to kotor that is. da is indeed better than bg2 in many ways... but the final da battles were nothing more than tedious and repetitive exp grinds. the story development stopped hours before you reach the end o' the last battle, and the last battle itself doesn't result in any intriguing or compelling additions to story. you learn nothing new. on subsequent playthroughs Gromnir is gonna be forcing himself to endure a couple dull hours o' rinse & repeat battles just to get to the epilogues, which we already concede is nice... when not bugged. fact that the last couple hours o' da is dull and bloated not make da a bad game, but that not make last hours less bloated or more compelling neither. am betting more than a few people here were surprised that the da conclusion were so obvious and mundane. "that's it?" HA! Good Fun!

sadly, as a finisher da is not bioware's best game. the last hour of the game... drags, and the final battle made us say, "that's it?" the epilogues (when not bugged) is nice enough. not a great finisher, but very solid all the way through. HA! Good Fun! Grom, what would you say is Bio's best finisher? mdk2 otherwise, am gonna probable say that mass effect were at or near the top o' bio's catalog... am not a huge fan o' the game, but the end were appropriate and fitting. am always averse to resurrecting bad guys, but at 'least the robo-saren were different than version 1.0... weren't like crappy star forge and the jawless freak we killed a half-dozen times. bg (a game we do not like one bit) actually had a satisfying ending, and in bg2 the going to hell (as it were) to finish off irenicus weren't bad as it weren't simply a big battle but there were additional story development as well... though we still thinks that the biowarians handled irenicus wrong. tob had a nice end battle and the epilogues were satisfactory. as an expansion it were good, but is hard to compare to full games. da has nice epilogues, but there is pretty much zero story development after the landsmeet... were just repetitive fodder battles leading up to a confrontation with a taciturn UBG. that's it? enoch "Alley thugs in Denerim have to be on that list, no?" am wondering 'bout that. as we has mentioned before, Gromnir wonders why fereldan needed gray wardens... or even an army. collect a few hundred thugs from denerim and you could quell the blight in an afternoon... have time left over to maybe throw a nice barbecue afterward. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, as a finisher da is not bioware's best game. the last hour of the game... drags, and the final battle made us say, "that's it?" the epilogues (when not bugged) is nice enough. not a great finisher, but very solid all the way through. HA! Good Fun!

If it nerfs my Shimmering Shield, I don't want it! if you don't want it, then you probably should have it. is a game, so people wanna be powerful so they can beat the game. unfortunately, bad balance robs the player of challenge and ultimately makes game something less than the developers intended. on an unrelated side note, Gromnir wants to visit Kal Sharok for da2... maybe find out that the denziens o' the other remaining dwarven enclave were forced to make some hard/terrible choices to survive the last blight. HA! Good Fun!

the auto-save didn't do us any good either as we returned to the arl o' redcliffe's estate and listened to all the post battle conversations before we decided to replay the ser cat confrontation. Gromnir is a compulsive game saver. after some o' the unpleasant early game surprises we endured playing on hard (not even nightmare) we got to the point where we has a save for every level-up (in case we realize after the fact that some bio talents is worthless only after the fact) and am saving after/before every major battle... keep a queue o' five. pretty much allows us to return to any noteworthy point during the last 1.5 hours o' gameplay. HA! Good Fun!

aristes, your pc is the only one who will benefit from the aspect of the mage tower you reference. no return trips possible. enoch, Gromnir had a save immediate before ser cat, so were easy to reload. nevertheless, loghain's uppity tramp needed a smack-down. so as a mater o' principle we decided to see if she could be defeated. took us a couple attempts before we learned that a half dozen scattershot archers and an amazon all pumped up on estrogen and hero worship were a killer combo... but we eventual made like the italian army and beat a hasty retreat... and in so doing wasted her in the hallway. however, is much more rewarding to not fight. HA! Good Fun!

Knight Commander plate = 40% MR The Spellward (amulet) = 30% MR Key to the City (ring) = 4% MR Starfang with 2 grandmaster dweomer runes & 1 expert dweomer rune = 26% MR Total: 100% magic resistance Starfang, Knight Commander plate -> from Soldier's Peak, I wager? yes & no starfang= yes knight commander plate = no (frostback mountains... the trader involved in sten's sword quest) HA! Good Fun!

Shadow of the Empire. Sold by one of the smiths in Orzammar, one of the outdoors fellows I think. Will cost you around 25 gold or so. but it's a nice piece of armor. Better than the drake scales imo. dunno 'bout the better part. won't give you better armour and your defense will actually suffer a little compared to what it would be with wade's superior, but the str boost improves your attack and damage slightly over a wade outfitted player. with the shadow armour you do loose the fire resistance, and your fatigue costs will be significantly higher. with wade's superior our fatigue penalty is actually a bonus of -6.1%. am recalling a massive expensive suit of drakeskin at wade's... gave good bonuses to defense, dexterity and armour... can't recall the name. HA! Good Fun!

agreed. is maybe only 1 or 2 battles that we would even want to be outfitted with such a get-up... and is pretty expensive to buy spellward, the knight commander plate, and grandmaster runes. somebody wanna spend big gold to breeze through 2 battles? be our guest. HA! Good Fun!

ohgren = lowbrow humor if such doesn't fit your tastes, then maybe stick with sten. Gromnir also is preferring sten to oghren. there is some interesting conversations between shale and sten, and the morrigan and sten stuff is kinda amusing. you also pick up a good bit of qunari lore from wynne and sten conversations. have not tried sten with the other party members, but for the banter we would almost invariably prefer sten. from a combat efficacy pov... they is both 2h warriors. no real difference save that oghren is a berserker right out of the gate. btw, on our second time through the game we were level 18 before we got ohgren. his level 18 stats are as follows: str: 39/41 (+2 for berserker spec) dex: 18 will: 23 mag: 14 cun: 16 con: 20/21 (+1 for item) right or wrong, it appears that the biowarians has the same notions as Gromnir regarding the building of a 2h warrior. HA! Good Fun!

maybe your definition of ubertastic is different than ours. the spell combo knocks folks down... at range. fireball knocks down, does persistent fire damage, and is a single tier-3 spell. 1 tier 3 spell v. 2 spells: tier2 and tier 4. however, the spell combo does add to the usefulness o' the spell line. *shrug* as we already stated, we find that we gets more use from the synergy as a defensive tactic to remove enemy-cast crushing prison effects. a single tier-2 spell instantly removes effect of crushing prison... but again, you not need crushing prison to make use of this defense. am only wishing there were a similar useful way to overcome curse of mortality. wade's superior is what Gromnir is using for his rogue. there were some intriguing sounding light armours for sale, but our frugality prevents us from partaking. HA! Good Fun!

"2) Cast crushing prison (2nd best power in the game) and forcefield (3rd best power) on the 2 strongest enemies;" am gonna complete disagree 'bout crushing prison... 'least on hard. is a very effective spell to use on individuals in mobs. use to debilitate 1 o' those pesky archers with scattershot? great. a fourth tier spell to incapacitate 1 archer? unfortunately, crushing prison is endured or resisted by most elites and boss types. forcefield, on the other hand, is resisted far less often. crushing prison is a nice spell, but one of Gromnir's big melee damage party members can does more hurt in far less time. is ironic, but at high levels, on hard, Gromnir is using tier-2 forcefield on the bosses and elites, but am using crushing prison on individual mob archers n' such. am placing force field considerably ahead of crushing prison in our repitoire. side note... enemy mages never cast force field on our party mates, but they does use crushing prison. cast force field on our character victimized by crushing prison will free him, albeit with an explosive side effect. HA! Good Fun!

"There's a trick to Redcliffe, I used traps, archery and a healthy stock of potions." the trick to redcliffe is meta-knowledge. chances are you won't have a healthy stock of potions if you does redcliffe first. the first village you visit post ostagar does not have merchants that sell much lyrium or lyrium potions. even your camp merchant doesn't sell much in the way o' lyrium or lyrium potions... and his prices suck. so why would the player without foreknowledge blow virtual his entire cash reserves on lyrium potions before going to redcliffe? surely the developers wouldn't put you in a position where you needed a big potion reserve but could not buy such supplies at redcliffe, no? is likely if you play straight, you walk into redcliffe with a bare handful of lyrium potions. after all, how would a typical player know that they can go to mages tower and buy unlimited lyrium before doing redcliffe? the "trick" is also making sure that if you is not playing a mage, that you have morrigan built proper. imagine trying redcliffe with a level 7 or 8 morrigan sans cone o' cold or any crowd control spell. low level archery is poor w/o the benefit of area effect spells that slow or damage oncoming melee combatants. traps would again require a certain amount o' meta-knowledge to make proper use of during the night battle. in the castle, if you is patient, they is no doubt very effective. as for the easily side-tracked achievement, Gromnir also got that one very late in game. we didn't do the rogue missions or the crow stuff... and there were a couple o' potion related blackstone irregulars and circle of friends quests we didn't do, but is difficult to imagine that we missed near 1/4 of the optional side-quests.... and Gromnir ended up a mere 500 points from level 23 at the end of game. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure why the gray wardens or wizards were needed to defend thedas. an army of 500 thugs from the back alleys of denerim could easily conquer the world. a dozen o' those guys gave Gromnir all we could handle on a couple o' occasions. 500 such well-armed ruffians would have little difficulty quelling a blight by tuesday, and then conquering the world by friday. the deep roads did begin to wear on Gromnir... were more an exercise in endurance than anything else. how many similar battles does it take before such stuff becomes tedious rather than fun? 'course, keep in mind that we didn't much care for the diablo games neither... precisely 'cause they became repetitive and mechanical exercises. given the popularity o' such games, obviously our personal tolerance for such stuff is far lower than the average gamer's. HA! Good Fun!

That's just you being stubborn and not facing the facts. There were several tough moral choices in DA, maybe they the story wasn't good enough for you to actually feel anything for the characters but saying those choices weren't there is just a lie. As an example: On my first play through I went to Redcliffe before clearing the Circle of Magi tower, and when presented with the option to either: , I definitely felt like facing a tough moral choice. Or at the end, before facing the Archdemon, , that definitely felt like a very tough moral choice to make. the first one is a toughie... only if you visited redcliffe first, and even then did you really think they would give you a bogus option? there were clearly a Good choice, just not an easy choice. your second example also not really present gray, as it were obvious what the right, honorable and good choice would be. sure, is a tough choice 'cause players, like people, is greedy and selfish, but it were obvious what were the good and right choice to make. there were a couple places in the game where bio faces the player with a hard choice, and we applaud 'em for it. however, don't confuse hard choices with moral ambiguity. all bio did was sometimes give you a genuine cost for trying to do good. *chuckle* am recalling how we glanced at the pc achievements page at gamebanshee. we got no genuine interest in such things, but am always curious to see some o' the wacky stuff for which the developers eventual award their silly achievements. anywho, there is three or 4 basic Game Resolution achievements and we noticed that the achievement Gromnir were awarded were still grayed-out on gamebanshee's chart. obviously whomever had constructed and posted their chart had played every option save for the one that involved some kinda cost to the player. were not a moral ambiguous choice, but it were hard... for some folks at least. HA! Good Fun!

yes we did play the dwarf commoner origin. thanks for asking though. HA! Good Fun!

is a dozen times we specifically said that rogues ain't useless, but your reading comprehension ain't improved. pointless? yeah. useless? no. and if you thinks the orzamar throne situation provided genuine moral ambiguity, then you is no doubt the lowest common denominator that bio is trying to appeal to. congrats on living up to such a lofty standard. enoch and di, haven't played the mage origin, so am not sure what you reference, but is good to know that there is more genuine moral ambiguity than there would seem to be... even if it were only a small addition. HA! Good Fun!

that is the rub o' it though, no? the question is not whether or not bio got morality right or wrong, but whether or not they gave the player plausible options. player feels cheated if only options is as follows : 1) kill, 2) set free. is not that bio is presenting the player with a tough moral dilemma, but rather that they is presenting an implausible moral dilemma. as for da morality... am not surprised that the da shades o' gray were less evident than we were led to believe. typically we had a Good option and a Bad option as a possible resolution for most major quests. on the positive side, the Bad choices weren't simply selfish... you could see a Machiavellian or pragmatic reason for choosing Bad. even so, there were no tough moral choices in game... 'least not as far as Gromnir recalls. the Good option, while maybe not the most beneficial to your character or anybody else, were hardly hidden. da were hardly gray, but at least Some o' the choices had consequences. is too bad those choices and consequences were not particularly dependent on the origin material as were suggested by the biowarians. HA! Good Fun!

?? I got her approval to 100 this time by leaving her at camp the entire game and showering her with jewelry. First playthrough I always did the noble thing and her approval was +9 in the end. you failed to realize that vol were using "nice" in its middle-english incarnation... meant wanton or mischievous. see? makes sense now, don't it? HA! Good Fun!

2h is different, but you is actual probable less dependent on abilities than the other builds because your base damage is much higher. do +65 base damage and have an attack rating o' over 120. as such, you is actual less dependent on abilities to do large and consistent damage. boost str and willpower... dex and constitution ain't genuine necessary 'cause you is Not a tank. 'course, abilities does make a big difference, just as they does with sword and board and dual wield. playing sword and board would be lame without shield bash and assault, no? a 2h warrior with high willpower and some fatigue boosting armour, can easily get 2 or 3 mighty blow attempts in each battle... and we pretty much had indomitable active 24/7. with indomitable you is not gonna be stunned or knocked off your feet, which means that you is dealing damage when other party members is struggling to stay in the fight 'gainst all those mobs with scatter shots and war crys. even dragons can only knock you back a little: they won't knock you out/over. again, don't think of a 2h as a tank and you will be fine. at high levels you got a persistent chance to stun and with the fatigue regen ability you may be able to use abilities often enough... but even without abilities you is probable doing some serious and consistent damage even to critters with extreme heavy armour. 'course, if your plan is to make a 2h warrior your party tank, then things may not work out so well, and Gromnir got little suggestion as to how to build proper. HA! Good Fun! Nah, wouldn't make him tank, just off-tank. I find Alistair amusing, so I want him to have a purpose in my party. How'd you get your attack rating that high? When I finished on hard, I had I think 113 with my sword'n'board, who had 50 strength and 30 dex. Gromnir stopped at 25 dex and 22 for constitution. probable wouldn't have gone past 20 for constitution if we could redo. had a natural str o' 60... which boosts attack and damage. with str and attack boosting equipment and specialization bonuses... *shrug* our goal were to create a character that could dish-out the hurt on a consistent basis... a boss killer. boss battles is long and fatigue runs dry, but Gromnir's character were able to do big damage even if fatigue were gone. bosses is resistant to everything, but they still take damage from a big weapon. worked out well enough. fell victim to curse o' mortality more than once, but otherwise it were a pretty effective build. HA! Good Fun!