Gromnir

"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!

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!

for the first 2/3 of game your best bet for upgrading combat effectiveness is to dump the rogue in favor of another mage. after the french girl gets the 4th tier archery feats, and once your mages is casting area effect spells, then bringing the chantry tart along ain't a liability. do you have wynne? three mages and dog would probale work great. if not, does your mages have force field? alternate 'tween force field and cone of cold. dog is doing as much damage as sten at low levels, and is more durable... Gromnir would actual be more likely to kick allistar to the curb as both dog and sten can do good damage, and at least sten probable has indomitable, no? no shale? shale is a more durable and versatile tank than allistar, though allistar's templar abilities makes him worth having around if you has to face mages. ... you is gonna hear a lot of advice, but most of it don't matter. if you got a mage with the Right spells, you can handle virtual any battle. if you got the wrong spells, you is probable screwed until your party levels a bit. really. so, what spells do you have? HA! Good Fun! ps Gromnir actually prefers to fight the critter in the hallway as 'posed to its trap-filled lair.

I hate that argument. It might have carried some weight if the game were based on a licensed property, but this is an original IP that Bioware had full control over. They wrote the lore to support their efforts to make a fun game. If the lore is screwing up game elements and making it less fun for the players, you don't just shrug your shoulders and point at the lore, as if Moses brought it down from the Mountain. You change the freakin' lore! However, I think that most of the balance issues will recede into the "OK for a single-player game" margins if a few select spells are toned down some. (Increased chance to resist CoC freezing, enemy AI accounting for invulnerbility of Force-fielded characters, Shimmering Shield dispels on exhaustion of mana pool, and a few others.) agreed. dragon age is a Game. there can be no legit story reasons for making classes imbalanced when the developers has complete control of the game universe, and am at a loss to come up with a gameplay rationale for creating obvious class imbalances. now perhaps the developers don't honest believe that balance is important, and that player expectations is a much greater consideration. sure, you could make mages more balanced, but chances are you would have a magic system that didn't embrace traditional "schools" of spells and there would probable be far fewer spells as well... after all, is axiomatic that as the complexity o' a system increases, so to does the potential for breakage increase. if the developers wanted for da magic system to look familiar, then is no surprise that the system has familiar flaws as well. HA! Good Fun! ps is strange how quickly folks forget. am recalling how some o' the same folks who is defending disproportionate powerful mages were taking a different logical stance when josh sawyer and others were discussing fallout weapon skills. people who argued that fallout weapon skills should be balanced in spite of real world disparities is now arguing for imbalanced classes. with magic you not even have to fight 'gainst player notions o' reasonableness. go figure.

I suspect that many of the high-damage-dealing rogue builds I've seen over on Bio's social site are dependent on both Lethality and the 2nd tier Assassin ability "Exploit Weakness," which boosts backstab damage based on your Cunning score. If you're getting consistent backstabs (via positioning, stealth, Dirty Fighting, Coup de Grace, etc.), it probably gives a better raw damage boost (raw meaning disregarding armor-based reductions) than does investment in Strength or Dex. Edit: Apparently, one of the rogue-specific abilities that you can get in the Wardens Keep DLC also provides a Cunning-based boost to damage. we recognize that you can reach big damage potential from cunning, but you get a damage AND attack boost with strength. our experience with boss characters on hard is that with an attack rating o' 100, Gromnir were missing more than hitting when attacking boss characters. the notion o' sacrificing attack for damage seems... odd. no doubt it looks impressive 'gainst fodder, but who cares if you can backstab a hurlock for 200 points o' damage if you cannot manage to hit a revanant? dunno. the dlc power for rogues, the one that uses cunning, is a pretty damn serious health drain. with specific equipment that super-boosts con the rogue dlc ability may be worth considering, but otherwise... HA! Good Fun!

464 we rechecked, and the french girl somehow gots a "most damage dealt" of 464... no lethality and no master archer. she does have the scattershot and arrow of slaying talents. arrow o' slaying simply converts into an auto critical, right... and supposed, 'ccording to the in-game description, tougher opponents may resist the critical. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

am getting that people views cunning as somewhere between valuable and essential for a rogue, but am simply not seeing where the payoff is. if attack is a function o' str and dex, then stopping at mid-20s for str and 36 for dex results in a serviceable attack score, but hardly boss-worthy. does essential equipment work into these builds... something that significantly boosts attack? is maybe just a gut impression that cunning is good? is some hidden numbers that make cunning invaluable? lord only knows how armour penetration and criticals work... does crits and armour penetration somehow supersede attack scores? am convinced that cunning is useful... am wondering why it is useful. given what little we can see of the rules, str should kick cunning's arse, but people say that ain't the case... and the "why" is usual absent from the explanations. HA! Good Fun!

lack o' transparency makes character building such a crap shoot. HA! Good Fun!

something seems strange with many o' the high cunning builds we has seen for rogues. high cunning may replace str for damage, but not hit v. miss. if you stop at 27 or 28 for str and 36 for dex, won't you end up kinda sucky at hitting the big bads? am recalling that more than a few elite type critters has that seeming persistent weakness aura that lowers attack and defense by 10 points. am aware that there is a couple o' powhaz that allow the rogue to add cunning score to damage, but it seems like many o' the cunning build folks act as f cunning is a replacement for str, and it ain't. also, as we noted earlier, we has seen very few additional cunning based dialogue options... can count on one hand after finishing redcliffe, dalish and mage tower. am looking at numbers and trying to figure out why folks is so enamored with cunning for rogues as we don't see a payoff compared to a high str rogue. HA! Good Fun!

more terrible logic? "why is Congress messing with baseball?" fact that Congress has no business involving themselves in baseball means that baseball is okie dokie? mana and stamina regen is a difficult fix. our 2h fighter were doing near 65 points o' base damage per hit (maybe more) by the end of the game. if there were some way to regen stamina fast and he could use mighty blow or the berserker powers with impunity, the game would become even more broken. am suspecting that one o' the reasons the da mechanics is not transparent is 'cause the biowarians recognize the rules and mechanics as being a mess. fallout 3 had terrible combat mechanics too, which obsidian's josh sawyer has commented on numerous times, but the first time we played through fallout 3 we had no idea that the mechanics were busted, so we were content. with da we can see just enough mechanics to know that stuff is wrong... is not a very coherent system. even so, expecting bio to genuine fix at this point may be unreasonable. is a bit late to go back to the drawing board. on the other hand, fix inventory and rogues is easy. solutions: 1) expand inventory, 2) get rid of rogue and open up rogue abilities to mages and warriors. Gromnir is far more likely to complain 'bout easy fixes that gets ignored than we is to rail 'gainst the biowarians avoiding wholesale redesign of combat mechanics. fix combat tactics? there is an easy fix: remove combat tactics as a skill. see? HA! Good Fun! ps on our second run through the game we just finished up the dalish portion. before we entered the ruins we had over 60 inventory slots open. immediately after entering the final/doggie part o' the ruin we had to back-track all the way to a merchant 'cause our inventory were full. even after having played once we were sure that +60 slots would be enough. it weren't.

some guy is trying to solo as a rogue, and that means something to vol. many people complain 'bout inventory space, but that has no impact on vol-logic. ... the da dog were also far more consistent than vol. HA! Good Fun!

Clearly you don't read enough Worldnetdaily. this is Gromnir's first experience with worldnetdaily. "We're a bisexual nation living in denial, all because of a bunch of nerds

good is far less important than popular. Gromnir absolutely loathes crpg romances. they is tacky little tangential quests that suffer from insipid dialogues and immature scenarios that has our principles eventually bumping nasties as the culmination o' a mini-drama. is same formula we has seen in past... but with da, bio added gifts. huzzah. nevertheless, regardless o' Gromnir's personal take on game romances, we concede their popularity and the inevitable inclusion o' such material from this point forward. the fact that bio romances is avoidable makes them tolerable for Gromnir. 'course, having the romances be complete tangential to critical path is arguably what keeps 'em from being noteworthy. kinda ironic. try to come up with an example o' a great (or even good) romance story that were complete incidental and extraneous to the main storyline. books? movies? plays? we can't think o' any such examples. HA! Good Fun!

clown. again, the rogue is effective, but Pointless. biowarians try to create synthetic usefulness by limiting thiefy skills to one class... take away a couple o' combat trees and replace with rogue talents. is dumb. is bad design. is pointless... and for some reason you still ain't getting it. "You sound like the people who said a bunch of spells in BG2 were useless. They aren't. Just ebcause YOU don't find them useful (cause you didn't figure them out), doesn't mean they were useless." whatever. you compare bg ogres to da ogres as if the comparison is meaningful. you identify that some people is trying to solo as rogues as if that is significant o' anything. your mage dies in last battle and somehow you use an an indicator that mages ain't as powerful as some suggest. etc. is like a laundry list o' silliness. really, how does you manage to work/use a computer and play these games? we got more insight from the da dog than from over 12,000 vol posts. as for inventory... *shrug* using vol rationale (HA!) mathew rorie is an idiot and obvious tig is a fool, and even alan finally concedes that he had inventory issues for a considerable portion o' his first play through (bio concedes that most people only play once), and he didn't even use frost bombs 'n such... so we guess he were a dolt too. am recalling hearing that the reason the chest were added to soldier's peak is from all the press feedback regarding lack o' inventory. one o' the first developer mods available were the camp chest. vol is the guy using fact that some people is trying to solo as rogues as indicative of relative mage power, so he obvious ain't averse to using what other people is doing/experiencing in da as probative. this just gets more and more ridiculous... really. "The same goes for the class discussion. " well, that is conclusory, no? alan's previous defense o' rogue bloat were based on the belief that people would be overwhelmed by too many choices if not for creating a third class. *chuckle* and am still gonna call bs on some o' the da spells being anything other than sucky, but that has been discussed to death. in a couple of months you can come back to boards and poll people... ask 'em what spells they would give their da mage. am betting those spell lists gots more in common than they gots varriation, and some spells will be unlikely to show up on any lists at all. but heck, no doubt there is somebody out there who actually found a way to make each spell useful... 'course if a spell is disproportionately less useful than all similar tiered spells it is still sucky in our book. HA! Good Fun!

1) where did we say you should be able to find everything the first time through? heck, tig, who not think inventory were limited, had to use an inventory increase mod if he were wanting to take advantage of traps n' such. gosh, the biowarians put grenades and poisons and elemental coatings in game, but a player who wants to use 'em is sever hampered by the initial and early inventory limit. am also wondering how many people okie dokie with inventory has soldier's peak. soldier's peak is dlc, not core. that extra chest makes a big difference in inventory management. in any event, our point were that to use a relative obscure backpack purchase to show that there is no backpack shortage is intellectually dishonest... we certainly were not criticizing the lack o' player omniscience. would think that were obvious, but you do tend to miss the obvious. speaking of which... 2) show where Gromnir said that rogues is sucky we said that rogues is pointless... they is an example o' developer bloat. Gromnir specific noted that when we played through the dwarf noble origin, through ostagar, our rogue were effective. didn't change fact that we sees 'em as pointless. can't find your own arse and now you is misrepresenting Gromnir statements? stick to telling us how all spells in da and bg2 is non-sucky and how mages ain't disproportionate powerful in da. HA! Good Fun!

how many folks without meta-knowledge knew that you could get 2 cheap(er) backpacks in ostegar? in any event, your second sentence does seem to weaken the strength of your first sentence observation, no? HA! Good Fun!

having 2 mages does not decrease potion usage as mages end up using lyrium potions... net reduction on potion usage is zero. conversely, you could have morrigane and wynne sit back going pew-pew with their staves until mana regenerates enough to cast... anything. is no doubt a very fun way to play da. ask vol for inventory tips. apparently you is a serious yutz if you need more than 80 inventory slots. perhaps it is a kanadian thing as alan also claims that the base inventory allocation never felt limiting. *snort* with a useful rogue character in our party we even have more need for inventory slots... deathroot and frost rocks... plus the actual frost bombs and concentrated deathroot stuff. thank goodness we don't use traps. HA! Good Fun!

our problem with rogues ain't 'bout power disparity. we played through dwarf noble rogue and human noble warrior almost simultaneous... and the rogue were pretty effective. our current rogue is also effective. 'course, the question that comes to mind when we play rogue is: why? why even have a rogue class. take a da warrior... now subtract 2h talents and sword and board talents. to make up for the subtraction, add some thiefy talents. why? what is purpose? make the thief abilities open and available to mage and warrior and you has effective removed the need for a rogue class. you also would get more interesting and diverse warrior and mage builds by doing so. also, the da jnpc rogues... suck. part of this is bioware's doing with their crappy initial builds for the rogues. the other problem is that rogues would seem to benefit from a more careful spread of attribute points, and the jnpcs have fewer ability points than a pc rogue. late in the game, when the mages is spamming area effect spells, then the french girl becomes a valuable party mate. before that non-specific point she were a combat liability. and zeveran... why? no lock pick, so he is a solid, but unexceptional light warrior. unless Gromnir is playing a tank pc, we cannot seem to find room for him. so, why? is not that rogues is ineffective... is that they is unnecessary. as for combat tactics as a purchasable SKILL... ... single dumbest aspect of da... and that is saying something. is a nice game, but there is some head-scratchers related to rules, mechanics, and story. even so, there is no bigger mystery than combat tactics as a skill. am honest curious to hear the rationale that led to the inclusion o' combat tactics, 'cause Gromnir is complete baffled by the result. heck, while Gromnir thinks that 5 and 7 gold sovereign backpack space is kinda ridiculous, at least we can understand how and why bio bent us over with their backpack scheme. am not getting combat tactics. "We need one more skill. Does anyone have any ideas? Anyone?" perhaps there were another one of those silly community contests we didn't hear about: create the final da skill. cartography maybe came in second... have map not fully functional 'less you buy ranks in cartography skill. maybe the da doctors lost a bet. dunno. HA! Good Fun!