How is the Arcane Warrior meant to be played?

Here is a good guide to playing an arcane warrior

And for the record, not that anyone asked. The Zevran romance is the best romance.

Morrigan is the best

I think it’s Alistair, then when he dumps the PC, Zevran. 2 full romances in one game = win.

Never really did much with AW, just used the sword and put on a magic armor spell. Was okay.

He seems like a cool bro but he can't take a beating to save his life. Me and Morrigan have to constantly save his life. 

Get blood magic, equip awesome armour and weapons, load up on sustainables (combat magic, shimmering shield, blood magic, rock armour, arcane shield and miasma to help draw aggro).

Cast blood wound and cone of cold, kill everything that is still alive, repeat.

Don't worry too much about the amount of damage your weapons do, they are more for style points. You're a tank with deadly spells. Put a few points into willpower for sustainables, a few points into constitution for your spellcasting and everything else into magic.

It depends on the type of Arcane Warrior you want. You can just get the first ability for the ability to equip armor and weapons thats one way that I will use with my shapeshifters.

There is another that adds the third ability the one that is very defensive and for that you will need good mana/stamina regen.

You can also use Combat Magic but that ability drains mana really fast as well. You do want support characters that buff attack a lot because if you don't have them, you will miss a lot against enemies with good dex-even if you hit enemies for 200 points of damage when you do hit.

You can also do all of the above, but in that case you won't be casting spells as often.