Dragon age discussion

[HoonDing]

I have already solved the DA mage balancing issue earlier in this thread. 'X' is Mage POWAZ and 'Y' is ridiculousness of Mage Apparel.

 

X and Y rise in tandem until the game actually melts and distorts the space / time continuum. Honestly, mages should literally look like Mr Krusty off The Simpsons to balance their awesomeness. This would be an especially potent way of balancing the class in a MMO context.

I think Reaper's Vestments look pretty cool, combined with Libertarian's cowl. Like something from Elton John's wardrobe... no wonder no enemies ever resist Horror spell in my game.

[Tigranes]

Forced redownload of Shale DLC to make things work... *sigh*

 

I did say this is what happens with modularity.

[Enoch]

From a story/lore standpoint, Mages should be pretty powerful. If they balance the game, I hope it's more because there is a multiplayer component. I definitely agree that non magic users should be balanced, but I'm a bit torn about the mages. Ultimately I guess if they feel the gameplay concession is better, then that is the way to go.

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.)

[Tigranes]

Retaining Lyrium addiction to make mages powerful but volatile walking bombs would have been nice. You had the whole magic is feared, darkspawn and somesuch going on, why not go the whole nine yards? i.e. Lyrium exposure deteriorates the physical conditions and mutates them to the extent that the body of a mage is unable to support itself in anything other than specially prepared conditions within the Circle, and you are dependent on magic weaved into special accoutrement (think Irenicus, whose strap-fetish attire and mask were merely the physical elements of a general magical upkeep to keep his soulless body together) - and you can change and alter the type of such 'continuous upkeep' magic used, to make yourself even more volatile, play it safe, etc.

 

But no, that would take originality. Pity.

 

The way it is now, though, I don't think mages are overpowered - just tone down arcane warrior, a few select spells like Cone of Cold.

[TheHarlequin]

"They did it that way to make it a low magic world."

 

R00fles!

 

DA is NOT a low magic world.

 

Then bioware lied as they said it was. *shrugs* So which is it?

[Gorth]

Retaining Lyrium addiction to make mages powerful but volatile walking bombs would have been nice. You had the whole magic is feared, darkspawn and somesuch going on, why not go the whole nine yards? i.e. Lyrium exposure deteriorates the physical conditions and mutates them to the extent that the body of a mage is unable to support itself in anything other than specially prepared conditions within the Circle, and you are dependent on magic weaved into special accoutrement (think Irenicus, whose strap-fetish attire and mask were merely the physical elements of a general magical upkeep to keep his soulless body together) - and you can change and alter the type of such 'continuous upkeep' magic used, to make yourself even more volatile, play it safe, etc.

 

But no, that would take originality. Pity.

Hey, it's not like they didn't borrow the majority of the magic concept from Warhammer

 

The Warp Fade, Warpstone tokens Lyrium potions, Demons seeking out Psykers mages etc.

 

Ok, so they have one chaos god more than Games Workshop

[Volourn]

"Then bioware lied as they said it was. *shrugs* So which is it?"

 

What a tool. This should be obvious. Their defintion of 'low magic world' is different than mine. And, sicnce you believe DA is a low magic world, so is yours. *double shrug*

[alanschu]

Forced redownload of Shale DLC to make things work... *sigh*

 

I did say this is what happens with modularity.

 

 

And a boondoggle on our part.

 

I am curious though, are you playing with a digital version or the boxed version?

[alanschu]

From a story/lore standpoint, Mages should be pretty powerful. If they balance the game, I hope it's more because there is a multiplayer component. I definitely agree that non magic users should be balanced, but I'm a bit torn about the mages. Ultimately I guess if they feel the gameplay concession is better, then that is the way to go.

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!

 

I completely disagree with any notion that the game is otherwise NOT fun with any class other than the mage. I also cannot say for certain that the people that enjoy the lore the way that it is (and hence, have more fun with experiencing the story) are outnumbered by the people that find this issue to be significant enough that their enjoyment of the game is significantly curtailed (and hence, have less fun with game).

 

There are genuine issues with the game that hit a large amount of people, but I don't consider this issue to be a significant one, compounded by the fact that (as you mentioned) it's a single player game balanced for a 4 member party. And quite frankly, I like the mages the way that they are. The fact that they have a 4 person party member, completely with two joinable mages in the game, the foundation for complaints starts to become compromised. The game was also NOT balanced for solo play, so the fact that one class finds it easier to solo the game is a side point. No time at all was spent ensuring that that type of balance existed. Will some arrangements of party members be more powerful than others? Sure. This is common across any party based game that I have ever played, original IP or not.

 

 

Their defintion of 'low magic world' is different than mine.

 

Wasn't BioWare's claims of a low magic universe from a long time ago. It seems more to me that, over the course of it's 7+ years of development, aspects of it changed. It'd be absurd to hold the game to claims from that early in the development since a game that takes 7 years undoubtedly takes that long because there are speed bumps along the way.

[Tigranes]

Okay, I give up. Shale items are there; you can see Honnleath; in fact, if I cheat to get out of the Fade and go to Honnleath, the cutscene where Shale stomps the bird plays, as if he was in my party. but he's not back at camp, not selectable, not at his dream, etc. The only solution I can see is install the toolset and mod him back in the party, but damn, installing the toolset will probably break the game completely.

 

Guess I need to start again. Wouldn't it be nice if Bio released all the debug commands so we could at least try and fix everything? Or fix the toolset, but I'm sure they're working on that. I think it'll be faster for me to start again...

 

I am curious though, are you playing with a digital version or the boxed version?

Boxed DVD version, regular, which gave Shale for free. The most likely explanation was that the downloaded DLC was faulty, which is why I redownloaded; maybe clash with mods, so I got rid of all mods and overrides; now I'm stumped. do you know if Dragon Age keeps a cache somewhere? If I can clear that I can try and re-load the Shale Nightmare area...

[Gromnir]

From a story/lore standpoint, Mages should be pretty powerful. If they balance the game, I hope it's more because there is a multiplayer component. I definitely agree that non magic users should be balanced, but I'm a bit torn about the mages. Ultimately I guess if they feel the gameplay concession is better, then that is the way to go.

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.

Edited December 2, 2009 by Gromnir

[TheHarlequin]

"Then bioware lied as they said it was. *shrugs* So which is it?"

 

What a tool. This should be obvious. Their defintion of 'low magic world' is different than mine. And, sicnce you believe DA is a low magic world, so is yours. *double shrug*

 

I am a tool? Pot meet kettle.. *chuckle* If only you could read half your posts removed from your own POV.

 

As for your comment, your opinion of 'low magic' is just that. Your opinion not fact. I love how you are trying to walk a very thin line of being 'right' and yet not saying bioware is wrong since both are contrary to one another. As I said before you are entertaining in the text gymnastics you try to pull off. Fail at, but hey, A for effort fruity.

[Volourn]

"Wasn't BioWare's claims of a low magic universe from a long time ago. It seems more to me that, over the course of it's 7+ years of development, aspects of it changed. It'd be absurd to hold the game to claims from that early in the development since a game that takes 7 years undoubtedly takes that long because there are speed bumps along the way."

 

Absolutely. But, some people don't get that. If someone says something, in their patehtic mind,s it is 100% locked no ability to change or adapt. I think ideally BIO probably wanted a legit low magic game; but quite frankly in a video game RPG dealing with stuff that DA does, and the avriety of quests and what not, it is irrefutably gonna be high magic. Unless you nerf the magic so bad it no longer is magic.

 

 

"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."

 

Like who? Not me, certainly, as I barely gave a crap that Mr. Sawyer was planning to change stuff for the proposed IPLY FO3. So, who you talkin' about wussy? Don't be cowardly, and name names with evidence to back it up.

 

 

 

"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."

 

Mages have weaknesses in DA. They lack hit points so against tough physical opponent, it takes 2-3 hits to kill you. If an opposing mage gets a major spell off on you, you are likely dead. If you happened to get paralyzed, there is a very good chance you won't be alive when it wears off. Opponents who get an overwhelm on you means the mage is likely dead while a high level warrior cna likely survive the attack (albeit missing lots of hit points). You throw a powerful aoe spell like fireball, mass paralysis, etc., you better hope the enmies die quick, as once they recovering half of them are coming for you no matter how much your tanks tries to taunt them. In fact, that's how I beat a revenant with my mage. He chased me all over the place, and ignored the taunting warriors. But, if a revenant decided to force pull a mage to him, you are 90% likely dead.

 

 

Also, it should be pointed out, that non mage talents like scattershot (or whatever tha aoe arrow talent is that stuns/does major damage are) are just as dangerous as 99% of spells. Just look at all the cfrying about bandit attacks people get.

 

The balance of the game is fine for the most part as it is barring a few twinks (like any RPG ever created). It seems to me people whining about DA's 'lack of balance' are conviently ignorinjg all thsoe games they praised have much worse issues then DA.

 

Can anyone with a striaght face that a BG2 thief was the equal of a mage? I sure hope not as that would be absolutely laughable.

 

Also, people make the huge mistake of thinking balanced = equal. It's not. Nor, should it be. Period.

 

P.S. As a game, you can very well use story to focus on whatever you want. Espicially since BIO games are as heavily focused on story as it is on combat. And, the mage lore is awesome.

 

Mages are not overpowered. Rogues are not underpowered. They are balanced pretty darn good. They are, THANKFULLY, not equal.

 

 

Good thing, however, that DA is a party based game, so the key is to take advantage of all the different talents the different classes have to offer. That's what a party is about.

 

Even Grom admits rogues are useful. Others in these threads, have also pointed out how awesome THEIR rogues are. So, what really is the problem other than so called '**** envy'?

 

Case closed.

 

 

 

 

ADDENUM: "As for your comment, your opinion of 'low magic' is just that. Your opinion not fact. I love how you are trying to walk a very thin line of being 'right' and yet not saying bioware is wrong since both are contrary to one another. As I said before you are entertaining in the text gymnastics you try to pull off. Fail at, but hey, A for effort fruity"

 

The problem here is you assume I agree with BIo 100% of the time which we both know we don't. It's hilarious that when I disagree with BIO you instantly have to disagree with me, anyways. Seriosuly, if I thought DA sucked, you probably would claim it as 'best game ever'.

 

I say inventory is too generous so you say it is too tight.

 

I say mana/health regen is lame. You claim it is awesome.

 

*shrug*

Edited December 2, 2009 by Volourn

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Volo is still a gold mine of entertainment I see.

[Oner]

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!

I don't understand why you keep trying after the 'item highlight button' discussion (not having to pixelhunt in an RPG is handholding!!!ROOFLES!!!).

 

 

Why so butthurt over rogues and inventory? Why not whine about issues that actually matter like lame health/mana regen?

Says the guy who spontaneously, out of the blue writes DA>BG2 at the and of his posts.

 

 

You can't truly solo in this game considering some quests force characters on you or you need them. Solo, how silly any way.

 

They need to bump up that inventory, you can't keep enough phat l00t.

And you can't speedrun games because some cutscenes are unskippable. /sarcasm

 

 

I'm still waiting for a Summonable Genie Merchant. Like the one in Hordes of the Underdark.

Am thinking about how a money sink genie could be integrated in a DA-like plot. For instance, you can summon the genie and ask for help in a case that is otherwise unsolvable (in a Good Ending sense) and then having to spend a huge sum of money on the genie, otherwise he takes your soul or something. BUT money is needed to outfit your army (not like in DA). Do you keep your people alive or yourself? There, C&C.

 

 

 

As for mages: does it matter in the end? Had the mages been weaker some DnD power gamers or some such would would cry that the mage isn't as much of a powerhouse as it "should be".

It's interesting though. IMO it's pretty clear Bio wanted to make a fantasy setting, not a backdrop for a computer game, even though they're a game developer company. Then again, writers are writers no matter what they write, and if Gaider or whoever wants to make magi powerful in his setting, then it's his call. What the writes wants vs what the players expect, or something.

 

 

@Harlequin: As alan said, the low magic part was changed after some time, I think this was stated/noticed before release several times.

 

@Vol: Maybe people would've gotten it if your argument wouldn't have been an insult. Or if you had written "Bio changed it" instead of "I define it differently", which, unsurprisingly, isn't the same thing.

So, who you talkin' about wussy? Don't be cowardly, and name names with evidence to back it up.

Hahaha, spoiler spoiler roofles spoiler roofles. Now you know.

[TheHarlequin]

Wasn't BioWare's claims of a low magic universe from a long time ago. It seems more to me that, over the course of it's 7+ years of development, aspects of it changed. It'd be absurd to hold the game to claims from that early in the development since a game that takes 7 years undoubtedly takes that long because there are speed bumps along the way.

 

Please educate me, did bioware ever then RETRACT that statement?

 

If I say to you my hair is black... and if 5 days go by or 5 years and I never say otherwise what color by default are you going to think of if I talk about my hair?

 

If they however did make a new statement, retract that goal then so be it. My bad and I stand corrected.

 

However... last I heard and even at least one recent review I read talked about it being a 'dark fantasy, low magic world'. So either I am not the only one who missed the memo or no memo was given.

 

So you expect us to read minds on whats not valid anymore? Just 'expect' us to know I take it?

 

Or is this the SOP of bioware now? Don't beleive anything we say when we talk about a new game in development. It may or may not change down the road (that part is fine) however we won't tell you what, if anything does. (You especially want to keep something 'small' like the setting ambigious and unclear when it changes. Because you know that makes a lot of sense and wont cause disappointment.)

 

So tell me whats the cut off time. Anything said after x you should consider up for grabs if its still valid on bioware games? Whats x equal too just so I know? 6 months? 1 year? a day?

 

Wow I can have such a field day with this... Sorry got ahead of myself...

 

None the less considering the small amounts of magic this game has *I* consider it a low magic world still. *shrugs* It seems arguming its low magic or not is silly really. It is what it is and its certaily far less then most other D&D type CRPGs.

Edited December 2, 2009 by TheHarlequin

[Tigranes]

I just assumed 'low magic' was shoved under the carpet, as for about the last year they stopped talking about it and went on about how their Lord of the Rings + Blood = Success algorithm should be called 'dark fantasy'. I mean, it's a bloody fun game I can't stop playing but who's kidding themselves? At least they didn't blatantly lie about the actual gameplay, or I'd have whined uncontrollably while sipping Nerd Cola.

[alanschu]

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 am certainly not in that group.

[alanschu]

Okay, I give up. Shale items are there; you can see Honnleath; in fact, if I cheat to get out of the Fade and go to Honnleath, the cutscene where Shale stomps the bird plays, as if he was in my party. but he's not back at camp, not selectable, not at his dream, etc. The only solution I can see is install the toolset and mod him back in the party, but damn, installing the toolset will probably break the game completely.

 

Guess I need to start again. Wouldn't it be nice if Bio released all the debug commands so we could at least try and fix everything? Or fix the toolset, but I'm sure they're working on that. I think it'll be faster for me to start again...

 

I don't think the debug commands would help you in this situation.

 

 

I am curious though, are you playing with a digital version or the boxed version?

Boxed DVD version, regular, which gave Shale for free. The most likely explanation was that the downloaded DLC was faulty, which is why I redownloaded; maybe clash with mods, so I got rid of all mods and overrides; now I'm stumped. do you know if Dragon Age keeps a cache somewhere? If I can clear that I can try and re-load the Shale Nightmare area...

 

If you have a DVD version, this shouldn't be an issue (it seemed to be more of an issue with digital downloads, but here is some possible workarounds:

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/294757

You have probably already seen this one, but just in case: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/81613

 

Sorry that you're having problems

 

The only cache area I could think of is that some stuff might be saved in your "My Documents/BioWare" folder. Outside of that, the only other area I can think of would be the main folder the game gets installed to.

[Tigranes]

I don't think the debug commands would help you in this situation.

 

What few commands we know do help test what is broken, though. I'll never know why devs don't just release the debug commands - I guess for the benefit of those who like to 'discover' them.

 

And yeah, the second link I had looked at to get Shale to work to begin with. Thanks for the one on one tech support alan, but I think I'm probably better off restarting the game - I just hope Bio are working hard and gonna get on top of both DLC issues and toolset issues. I will be scathing if Bio pull a Creative Assembly on that one.

 

edit: actually, to do a creative assembly the same bugs will have to come up on DA2, then DA3 which uses a completely different engine will have the same bugs...

[Aristes]

So, I'm actually finding a couple of tough battles on hard. All of them are in the Dalish area. The one with the

hermit

looked tough, but I wanted to handle it peaceably anyhow, so no biggie. The one with the

headstones that causes a bunch of undead to pop up and attack

is ugly as hell, but it wasn't necessary so I just decided to ignore it. However, the one that's toughest and doesn't seem avoidable is the one with the

dragon in the werewolf lair.

I've gotten him down to a quarter health a couple of times, so I'll try it again with a different party. I used Leilani (or however the hell you spell her name, the dog, and Allistair. That's a mage, rogue, dog, and tank. What I'll do next instead is to bring Morigan instead of the rogue. I think every chance we get for a freeze effect is best. I'll try that, and if it's closer, I'll switch out the mutt for Sten. I mean, I think Sten is an idiotic bastard, but maybe he can swing a sword at least. I'll probably just hold tight on the other orange name battles until later, but I want to wrap up the crit path stuff before I leave the area. Right now, it's fun, but if it gets to be boring, I'll just throw in the towel and lower it to normal difficulty. Of course, what I'll do now is endure tons of folks bragging about how they won all these battles solo with their 3rd level rogue, etc etc.

[Gromnir]

So, I'm actually finding a couple of tough battles on hard. All of them are in the Dalish area. The one with the

hermit

looked tough, but I wanted to handle it peaceably anyhow, so no biggie. The one with the

headstones that causes a bunch of undead to pop up and attack

is ugly as hell, but it wasn't necessary so I just decided to ignore it. However, the one that's toughest and doesn't seem avoidable is the one with the

dragon in the werewolf lair.

I've gotten him down to a quarter health a couple of times, so I'll try it again with a different party. I used Leilani (or however the hell you spell her name, the dog, and Allistair. That's a mage, rogue, dog, and tank. What I'll do next instead is to bring Morigan instead of the rogue. I think every chance we get for a freeze effect is best. I'll try that, and if it's closer, I'll switch out the mutt for Sten. I mean, I think Sten is an idiotic bastard, but maybe he can swing a sword at least. I'll probably just hold tight on the other orange name battles until later, but I want to wrap up the crit path stuff before I leave the area. Right now, it's fun, but if it gets to be boring, I'll just throw in the towel and lower it to normal difficulty. Of course, what I'll do now is endure tons of folks bragging about how they won all these battles solo with their 3rd level rogue, etc etc.

 

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.

Edited December 2, 2009 by Gromnir

[Tigranes]

doesn't seem avoidable is the one with the

dragon in the werewolf lair.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but I am genuinely surprised that you are having trouble with that one. The other examples I can understand, but that

baby dragon right out of mommy's womb

has virtually nothing with which it could trouble you. Either you're horribly under-levelled or... I don't know. Maybe by chance your party is designed to be eviscerated by it. If your mage has anything out of Paralyse, Cone of Cold, Force Field or Misdirection Hex, use them.

[HoonDing]

An annoying problem is my mage doesn't have enough room on the quickbar for all her spells & potions, even when dropping useless spells. NWN 2 had 10 quickbars.

 

Retaining Lyrium addiction to make mages powerful but volatile walking bombs would have been nice. You had the whole magic is feared, darkspawn and somesuch going on, why not go the whole nine yards? i.e. Lyrium exposure deteriorates the physical conditions and mutates them to the extent that the body of a mage is unable to support itself in anything other than specially prepared conditions within the Circle, and you are dependent on magic weaved into special accoutrement (think Irenicus, whose strap-fetish attire and mask were merely the physical elements of a general magical upkeep to keep his soulless body together) - and you can change and alter the type of such 'continuous upkeep' magic used, to make yourself even more volatile, play it safe, etc.

 

I thought lyrium was spice from the very beginning. Raw lyrium being deadly and otherwise turning people insane, and all that.

Edited December 2, 2009 by virumor

[jaguars4ever]

An annoying problem is my mage doesn't have enough room on the quickbar for all her spells & potions, even when dropping useless spells. NWN 2 had 10 quickbars.

 

Retaining Lyrium addiction to make mages powerful but volatile walking bombs would have been nice. You had the whole magic is feared, darkspawn and somesuch going on, why not go the whole nine yards? i.e. Lyrium exposure deteriorates the physical conditions and mutates them to the extent that the body of a mage is unable to support itself in anything other than specially prepared conditions within the Circle, and you are dependent on magic weaved into special accoutrement (think Irenicus, whose strap-fetish attire and mask were merely the physical elements of a general magical upkeep to keep his soulless body together) - and you can change and alter the type of such 'continuous upkeep' magic used, to make yourself even more volatile, play it safe, etc.

 

I thought lyrium was spice from the very beginning. Raw lyrium being deadly and otherwise turning people insane, and all that.

For some reason that pic reminds me of Uthnasta (sp?) from BG2. You know, where you have that psychic, big, blob creature in the glass cage in the Underdark.