Possible to play a Casual game with just one set of Armor and weapon?

I have been playing in whatever drops for myself and the companions. It's perfectly fine. You don't have to craft anything. You also get hand-outs in "special delivery" crates. I play on Normal, but whatever. The game's rather easy imo, don't worry about it. That's said, I won't play it for the story. It is for the most part exploration/mob grind, sort of like playing an SP campaign in a MMO.

There's this one rift in the Hintherlands that to this day on casual difficulty drives me nuts! It's by the Farm, in a river bank with a water fall. The rift is so high up and there are so many powerful demons my entire party ends up dying before I can close it!

that's because it's a replacement of an invisible wall there to prevent you from going that way till you are level 12+. They are outlevelling you. You will have quests bringing you back into Hinterland in the later game, so... something to do along the way. The rule of thumb in DA:I: Get out of the Hinterlands and win at life. Overall, you do not have to do anything you don't like doing in any of the sprawling areas. They are just mob grinders to level up for the main story.

Beats me. Easy enough to test, though. Load an old late-game save, craft some T1//T/1 gear, and see what happens.

The DLC armors are pretty powerful imo, you should be fine using those for the group. And I think, you might need a few tries on the more challenging fights, but overall you should be getting through the game. I would not have been so optimistic, if you said, you want to stick with the starting armor

I'd be more worried about attack power with the lousy damage from T1 weapons.

Sorry,

i didn't read your thread correctly, i thought it was only question of armor and not weapon....
If you have still difficulties with the rift near the farms, give us some infos, and i"m sure everyone of us will be glad to give his tipp to beat it.
What"s your level?
Wich class are you playing?
What's your party composition?
Do you use regeneration potions?
Wich skill did you choose for your party? i know that's a lot, but personnally, the more infos i have, the better i can advise.

what i can already tell you is: use your barrier wisely
use regenreation pots right before the combat starts
focus the terrors
knockdown the terrors as often as you can
Try to not stay all at the same place if possible
just before the second part of the fight, use dispell to reduce the number of demons you will face if you have
it with your mage
use a fire staff if you have one for your mage
If your character is a rogue you can enter stealth to make ennemies forget you in order to interact with the
rift for massive stunning damage

Until then!