Gromnir

You have 8 or so characters (4 if you don't want to change party after exploring just to pickpocket) with 22/2-3 skill points to burn. Giving one of them pickpocketing is no big deal. unless you respec, chances are that most o' the character's skill points is spent before you recruit 'em. for instance, if you happen to think that it would be insane to give wynne four tiers of combat tactics, then you may be out of luck. sure, combat training is kinda like d&d concentration, but combat tactics? it is also preferable to have more than 1 character get at least 2 or 3 levels o' herbalism, 'cause you never know when you is gonna need a couple extra potions. with only 1 character proficient at herbalism you default gotta keep that character in your party at all times, no? warriors and rogues all pretty much gotta fill out the combat training skill if they want top-tier combat talents, and we thinks it is kinda a no-brainer to give all non-mages at least 1 level o' posion. etc. thus, the number o' functionally available skill points is not so large as you make it seem to be... but yeah, our first time through the game we didn't feel like we were sacrificing anything by giving the french girl 3 tiers o' picking of pockets... 'cause the only reason we had for bringing her out of camp were to do thiefy stuff likes picking pockets and opening locked chests.... and disarming the infrequent trap we had failed to trip. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that the best pickpocket score we had were very early in the game... in lothering. got a tier 6 or 7 crossbow. oddly enough, we couldn't sell the crossbow for very much, so we kept it for the sentimental value. ah, good times. with 3 tiers o' pickpocket skill we had the french girl stealing from peoples and critters with the yellow names... and we typically got a shiny amethyst or topaz for our efforts. at that point we stopped wasting gameplay hours on picking-of-pockets. HA! Good Fun!

according to the heroic accomplishments, leliana, whom we almost never let out of camp, had a max single-hit damage of 438. ... have absolutely no idea when that occurred. her toughest foe killed is listed as an arcane horror, and am not recalling having her along on any dragon fights. our second time through game (on hard again), with a dual wielding rogue and at level 11-12 (after mage tower) did not have an issue with redcliffe... but we easily went through more than 9 lesser lyrium potions during the night battles. we knew the length o' battles and an optimal approach to dealing with combatants. allister and our rogue both had enchantable weapons with expert or journeyman cold iron runes respectively. we had wynne healing, petrifying and mind blasting as necessary, while morrigan were casting force field, cone of cold, winter kiss and heals. now, the first time through we hadn't even had morrigan level-up yet... so she had frost weapons but not cone o' cold, and her best offensive spell were winter kiss. no heal spell. no force field neither. am recalling that mc mentioned he did soldier's peak and stone prisoner early, but assuming you hadn't... few potions and a wizard with few spells... fact that we were a 2h fighter probable made little difference to initial difficulty. after a few minutes o' the night battle at redcliffe, morrigan were reduced to plugging away with her staff.... waiting for mind blast and winter kiss to regen. the brazillian forest? as with most areas, you could inch towards daylight. take 1 battle at a time, heal-up, level-up, and move forward. the the brazilian forest were not containing 20 minute long battles that would consume your entire potion supply in one go. perhaps other folks have a different definition o' "first" as well. on hard, with a 7th level party and a limited potion supply (and 3 lumps o' lyrium in our inventory), am not seeing how redcliffe would be described as easier than the brazilian forest where you could wash-rinse-repeat at your own pace. 'course, if you were playing a mage at redcliffe... a player-built mage is a different beast than morrigan at level 7. have both of 'em in your party for redcliffe at level 7 would be different. HA! Good Fun!

shale were pretty effective for us on hard, but am not sure if that would be the case on nightmare. am also not certain that shale's ability distribution is ideal for higher levels o' difficulty. the big health of shale probable ain't gonna be as much benefit on nightmare difficulty... would be better to have higher armour and defense. dunno. next time, when we play nightmare, we will give it a looksee. HA! Good Fun!

well, 'cause vol saying it makes it so. heck, have noticed that the opposite tends to be true: vol observations has a preternatural tendency to be wrong. for Gromnir there were only 1 tough battle in the brazilian forest ruins, and that were a gimmick battle. took two reloads to figure out gimmick, and then it were easy as the pie you love so much. insomniac thought brazilian were hard, but he were including the optional revenants, which ain't really appropriate for comparing relative difficulty for a low-level party. the Big battle in brazil is tough or easy depending on the spells you has given your mage... which again speaks to the wacky balance o' da more than anything. with force field and cone o' cold, the end battle is somewhere between easy and manageable. regardless, there is a considerable number o' people at bio boards and here who struggled mightily with redcliffe as a first stop... and there is few threads complaining 'bout overall difficulty o' the forest. the following is not directed at the pie-lover: one aspect that makes a considerable difference regarding why redcliffe is so tough early, is lack of lyrium potions. as a new player you has no idea how to get lyrium. after ostegar and lothering, Gromnir had two or three lyrium potions and maybe 8 lesser lyrium potions, with supplies to make a few more. the redcliffe battles is considerably longer than those in the forest, and you is far more likely dependent on potions (which you probable don't have) to complete battles. individual battles in the forest may be tough for some folks, but they is unlikely gonna exhaust potion supply... unless you get greedy and try to wipe out the revenants with a level 7 or 8 party. a party with 1 mage, a paltry stock of potions, and no healing spells, makes the long battles at redcliffe a challenge for a level 7-8 party that don't benefit from meta-knowledge. HA! Good Fun!

agreed. doesn't change the fact that the brazilian forest revenants is optional and the redcliffe one ain't. HA! Good Fun!

the revenants is optional in the forest and forest ruins. the revenant at redcliffe is not optional. HA! Good Fun!

our only helpful advice is supremely unhelpful: reload from before going to redcliffe. am only wondering what kinda sick joke the developers had in mind when they had allistar repeated suggest going to redcliffe as the initial stop after lothering. Gromnir went to the mages tower initially so we could recruit wynne... 'cause we needed a healer badly. 'course we heard all sorta people complaining that going to redcliffe first were a kinda death trap, so we reloaded an earlier saved and did redcliffe right after lothering. ... unless you is playing a mage we would not recommend redcliffe first. HA! Good Fun!

"Also, like BG2, going the rogue route allows you to arguably build the best NPC team (unless you are going uber-mage)." am not sure we agree with the bg2 part (jan or imoen were excellent compliments to our party), but is definite true with da. the two jnpc rogues is built wrong. if you don't use respec (and Gromnir doesn't) then each o' the da rogues has 1/2 the talents and skills one would hope for in a rogue... so only way to get a good rogue is to build your own. rogues also require a greater spread of points across various abilities to be successful... can't just dump into willpower and magic as do mages. str, dex, cunning, and willpower is all very important for most rogue builds, and jnpcs simply not get enough points to be effective. our problem with the rogue is that as a class it is unnecessary. make the rogue talents and abilities general available and lose the "class." separate rogue serves no purpose... other than the wacky "overwhelmed" theory postulated. the problem with the 2h warrior is that it cannot be used as a tank. typical player probable wants to rush through the door first and be the leader both actual and geographic. a 2h warrior IS a warrior after all. is not some pansy rogue or mage, right? unfortunately, the 2h warrior, while very effective, is having much less versatility than the other warrior builds, and is also relative fragile. 2h is a big gun that can do extreme high consistent damage. with indomitable active your 2h warrior won't end up on his back or stunned during fights... is no lost combat rounds during which the 2h is failing to generate any damage. unfortunate, to be building a powerful 2h build you is pumping str and willpower... dex and con is useful, but placing points in these stats rob from the true potential o' the 2h warrior: dealing massive damage on a consistent basis. 2h is best v. high armour boss types, but probable seems like a dog v. mobs... and the mobs make up a majority o' the game... but the bosses is the toughest part o' the game. *shrug* however, as we pointed out earlier, we thinks that the enchantable weapons probable give edge to the dual wielder late in game as a clear best warrior build... and the best weapons seems to be 1-h in any event. best 2h weapon may be starfang. if you kill ser cat, her weapon is very nice, but is only tier 6 with two enchantment slots. the dragonslayer sword is neato, but is only 3 genuine tough dragon battles in game. ageless is ok v. darkspawn. there is one genuine powerful maul available real late in game, but is needed to be purchased, and it ain't cheap... and the best battleaxes simply suck compared to the greatswords. the 1h weapon selection is better, and you can potential equip 2 at once. is a double-whammy. Gromnir ain't a power-fiend who needs the best equipment and build to enjoy the game, but it does seem as if the 1-h weapons is superior, and a dw character can equip 2 of 'em. the way the character menu reads, a +4 to attack from an enchanted dagger in the off hand boosts attack for primary hand weapon as well... and such bonuses stack. 6 potential enchantments 'stead of 3, better selection o' weapons, and stacking effects from weapons gives the dual-wielder a serious advantage. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* this is getting ridiculous. pixel hunting would indeed add 200 hours-- using cursor to actual look at every spot in game would take At Least 200 hours. yutz. use tab is a way to avoid pixel hunting, and the trade-off is the mildly annoying 20-second tab routine. if you can't keep up, then just go back to spewing nonsense 'bout the inevitability o' overpowered mages... who ain't actual overpowered... or something similar. is tough to keep track o' your nonsense. in any event, why? elfroot, deathroot, and lootable corpses is clearly identified, but for some reason bio chose tab function for other stuff. is no challenge. is not fun. is simply an exercise in tedium. again, if search were attached to some skill or ability, then we could see usefulness of tab, but if is simple a mechanical response for the ocd crowd, then it does not improve game and should be corrected in bios next attempt at da. "On Normal that won't even bring a Rev's life down to 3/4s so... yeah." don't try to be reasonable. won't work. HA! Good Fun!

why? doesn't add to gameplay, and the biowarians has already supplied tab to reveal everything. the way we look for stuff is to hold down the tab button. maybe some dope pixel hunts with his cursor and adds 200 hours to game making sure he covered every conceivable spot in game, but Gromnir is not foolish to engage in such nonsense. the biowarians gave us the tab button, but tab only has a very limited range, so we effective gotta tab every few seconds o' gameplay... which we does. to what end? to stretch Gromnir's pinky finger? what is biowarian motivation? in bg2 there were hidden stuff too, but the biowarians made entire map subject to the tab function. we could be on other side of slums and use tab to recognize that there were a hidden object in the wall at the base o' the jansen home. there were no walk-20'-and-tab silliness in bg2. if "Look for stuff" made game more challenging or more fun, we would do so... but there ain't no challenge 'cause tab reveals all. and only vol could thinks 20'-n'-tab is adding to fun. if no challenge and no fun, then from game design pov there is no purpose, so why do it? is a somewhat tedious bit o' repetition... like arguing with vol. HA! Good Fun!

am not convinced by the zots argument. gay romances, which includes, as far as we can tell, additional dialogue resources and some rather disturbing animation, were less of a zots drain than simple give "torn note" and "phylactery" the same treatment as 1007able corpses? the diminishing return works in favor o' a feature that would benefit all v. one that would genuine only ever be accessed by some extremely small % o' purchasers. and in any event. the targetable stuff in bg2 were typical more obvious... and tab would reveal entire de-fogged map. in da, revealed stuff with tab is only in immediate proximity to player. Gromnir did not have to keep pinky on tab key for most o' bg2. HA! Good Fun!

display text, glow, whatever... corpses with 1007 glow and have sparklies. could make options menu toggle that would do something similar for objects capable o' interaction. for folks bothered by floating text or glow they could turn-off... and for those o' us who not see a genuine game purpose for rewarding constant tab depressions, we could have floating text or glow. HA! Good Fun!

On the third level, there's a broken statue with a black phylactery, IIRC. Yep. kinda makes you wonder why they even have the tab function. is relative easy to miss books and phylacteries and other such stuff, so Gromnir is pretty much holding down the tab key every few seconds. why even bother? why does game seeing reward people with ocd? if stuff were genuine hidden (required a skill or talent to identify hidden stuff) then am seeing a reason for tab key... but otherwise it simple seems like some way for biowarians to make game slightly more tedious, and am doubting that were the goal. HA! Good Fun!

maybe the admiralty caught her making big trouble for moose and squirrel. kept hearing natasha fatale when tali spoke. HA! Good Fun!

our knowledge o' the mysterious and reclusive kanadian sub-species is limited, but based on the many The Kids In the Hall skits we has seen, there should be sheep involved, no? HA! Good Fun!

am positive that the exit grid for dalish camp gots one. circle tower in hallway just before you encounter wynne for first time. orzamar before you enter proving grounds... and elsewhere. oten/orten/whatever thaig gots one... just after entering map, and right before you come upon that first ogre corpse. am not recalling one in haven, but am reasonably sure we got some chatter just before entering gauntlet. truth-to-tell, our party were extreme chatty. with all the backtracking we did to have the french girl open chests and dog "find" items, we musta heard every chatter option a few times 'cause jnpcs did begin repeating selves after a while. if Gromnir were wynne, we woulda' been mighty offended that allister kept asking her 'bout getting knocked up. very crass. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling that after nwn were released there were one regular poster who repeated lamented the absence o' customizable footwear and the paucity o' stylish non-armour outfits. is nothing wrong with being bothered by such stuff, but that were her primary complaint regarding nwn. everybody gots a different idea of what is important in a crpg. a nice man-bag that matches zeveran's antivan leather boots? *shudder* HA! Good Fun! ps am hoping that Gromnir weren't alone in hearing the ghost of ricardo montalban every time zev spoke of his antivan/corinthian leather.

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. dunno. never had a problem getting anybody other than wynne healed... the french girl included. am thinking that the only jnpc that we didn't heal in this fashion were the dog. dog were rare in our party, but even when he were he rare took the 10-count. tough dog. anybody know if the templar and spirit healer auras is 'posed to be ineffectual regarding the caster? could be a balance thing, butt it seems counter-intuitive. HA! Good Fun!

is you making an effort to be an ass everytime you posts? we are guessing you is. Aw, jeez. For you and Google-impaired vol: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gay+purchasing+power edit: this gromnirspeak thing is tricky! you really is ssssllllloooooowwwww. even if each gay person could be able to buy trump tower and an 80' yacht it wouldn't make a damned bit o' difference to bioware and ea. Gromnir makes very good money, but am still only going to buy 1 copy. so again, for you and you developmentally challenged friends, gay purchase power is not noteworthy from the publisher point of view... which should be obvious to #... but isn't. HA! Good Fun!

What numbers have to add up? Alanschu said the characters were bisexual so the cost of including a gay romance can't have been that much, appealing to more people without a significant extra effort. It's not purchasing 10 copies, either, but DA on top of other stuff. But apparently BIO decided to cut the gay romance from ME2, so then again, maybe not. is you channeling vol? is you who mentioned insane purchase power of the gay gamer. if gay not take anything additional to add, then that is useful to know. regardless, the purchase power o' the gay gamer is limited by their relative small numbers. cost v. benefit is indeed affected by zots it takes to implement, but the purchase power o' gay gamers, as a group, is limited by their small numbers. is no insane purchase power from a publisher's pov. HA! Good Fun!

"(Except for the first revenant I fought, at redcliffe, which I was somewhat underleveled for)" you might not have felt undeleveled... if you were playing a 2h warrior. and yeah, compare pc to sten is not the best measure. also makes it tough with lack o' transparency o' rules. feels like 3:1 for dw v. 2h... feels like you is doing more damage. lord only knows what is reality. regardless, dr/armour is gonna impact the dw warrior significant more than the 2h. though your dw will be superior 'gainst light armed mobs. equipment does factor into the equation later in game. obvious difference: a dw warrior/rogue will have two weapons equipped and both weapons may have 3 enchantments. HA! Good Fun!

"I remember reading that the gay segment of the population has an insane purchasing power." unless every gay player is buying 10 copies, the numbers simply won't add up. HA! Good Fun!

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. "Ironically, he survives longer in combat than my walking panzer sword and shield guy, even when Sten is with me as the only other tank. Go figure. If you put Wynne and Sten together they're not a bad combo - Wynne keeps him (and everybody else) alive whilst Sten can put down large amounts of damage. It's just not optimal." 2h warriors is less than optimal tanks, but they is fantastic at doing big and consistent damage. we has seen folks complain 'bout the slowness of 2h swings... and indeed, they does "feel" as if your 2h fighter is perpetually under the influence o' some speed reducing effect. nevertheless, the folks who do the math and add up multiple dual-wielder strikes and compare to a single 2h strikes almost always ignore damage resistance. revenants, for example, seems to have very good damage resistance/armour. let us assume your early game dual wielder is doing 20 pts o' damage with main hand and 15 with off-hand. the 2h fighter at such point is easily doing 35-40 pts o' damage. if enemy armour is effective dr of 20, then your dual wielder is pretty much only doing damage on backstabs, and with additional elemental damage... or perhaps with armour penetration, which nobody has yet explained the mechanics of to Gromnir. the dw warrior could get in 100 strikes and he would still be doing 0 base damage. the 2h warrior, on the other hand, is still doing 15 to 20 pts base damage with every strike. 'course the trade off is that the 2h warrior has less optimal defenses. if you try to tank with sten, then wynne is constant having to cast heroic aura and heroic defense... and lots of heals. allister, with high dex and average strength has talents that already allows him to wade into combat and absorb punishment. revanants is actual a pretty effective test subject as those phials is in specific locations that may be triggered optional. play around with weapons 'n such and compare zeveran to sten. for much of game it is a big win for sten. HA! Good Fun!

am finding all game romances a tad... creepy. gay game romances not bother us any more than does the traditional varieties as we avoid both flavors with equal resolve. a long as we can avoid we don't genuine care. however, am gonna admit one final time that we were hopeful that da would not have gay romance. is not that Gromnir is offended by such material. while we thinks game romances is invariably juvenile and tacky, we recognize that they is popular and is now a non-negotiable feature in current and future bioware games. seems like a waste o' resources to add gay, but at same time we commented at bio (almost 5 years gone by now) that if they genuine felt strong 'bout gay romance they should add, and to hell with the detractors. we encouraged them to make the best damn gay romance they could. ... sadly, the gay minority at bio is no better than karzak was... but criticize gay board guerrillas gets one labeled as a gay basher, while criticizing karzak were deemed a public service. am not certain how many threads were hijacked by the Gay Liberation Front as they fought for equal rights or some such similar nonsense. took Gromnir out o' the "support" category and put us in the "mild disdain" group... didn't want the GLF to thinks they got their romance through incessant whining as such would only encourage similar behavior in the future. end rant. HA! Good Fun!