What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

Not having gone there much, I heard a lot of location-based dialogue I hadn't heard before on my trip, like Bull's remarks about how the Qunari clean up after themselves when they finish a mining operation. (Which had me thinking 'you mean unless someone comes along to blow it up and flood the place, like Lavellan is going to do in another seventy hours of gameplay or so.') Cassandra has some nice comments, too.

The spiders were a nasty surprise since I was only on level nine when I went into that cave to get the ring, but fortunately my rogue was able to stealth in and grab the loot while everyone else distracted them.

You know what I did? I went to Nexus and looked through every single DAI mod listed to find stuff that would negate all the game's annoyances. And, for the most part, it's there. Now I have a list I use for every game. About the only thing I change is the Inky icon and PJs. PJs aren't as important now with the wardrobe added, but having a not beige outfit for the first cutscene at Skyhold is nice.

On the warrior, it looks like metal sheets with the exception of the heavier plate covering the chest. On the rogue, same. I'd like to think of it as akin to chainmail. Full plate is murder unless you're planning to fight on a horse and even then, unseated, you're dead meat on the ground. 


Agree. Nobody except BW is a "warden" so it's rather odd to have anyone except him wearing warden armor.


O.T. I would so love to have the warrior wielding either a longsword or greatsword making those kind of moves. The female warrior was holding her own until she got one in the middle, ugh. Her armor looked like leather though. Interesting three braids at the back btw. Someone could tug her down easily from behind. Female knight with longsword. Woot!    ... but she has a blond braid hanging down her back.   I'll take it as a game "mechanic" to show it's not a guy facing off the other two at the end. She's not alone though, the Viking has a braid too but he's definitely a guy. 



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DD

During the meal, no one looked at the lift though it loomed like a hammer about to fall at the back of their minds. There was not much conversation, everyone was too tired after that last wrangle with the High Emissary. Elvene knew she wouldn't be able to sleep so she fletched more arrows. Solas was off by himself, as usual. Dorian fussed with pebbles that had somehow managed to creep into his boots before settling himself down at his bedroll. Cass sat on her bedroll with her eyes closed and seemed to be meditating. Ren seemed bent on sharpening his axe to curve even the tiniest hair while Valta pored over the book she found.

Around the camp, Inquisition scouts and Legion dwarves quietly cleared away the remnants of dinner. Some went off to relieve the sentries while the rest sat at their bedrolls, murmuring softly among themselves so as not to disturb the party that would be descending to the lower depths.

I loaded up a save from before Doom Upon All the World since I finally got the DLC campaigns and I got to meet Inquisitor Ameridan.

She made sure to bring Solas along on that mission. I headcanon'ed her giving him a ton of meaningful looks after speaking with Ameridan (since this was after .

Unlike the subsequent games, you can arm your warrior with a bow or crossbow. You can carry two sets of weapons which you can switch at any time, so I always had my warriors carry crossbows in addition to the sword and shield set or great sword. This for situations where you want to hit enemies with ranged weapons from a distance rather than have your warrior move in close in an unfavorable situation.

The thing to remember are the attributes important to your PC and his/her companions as you level up.  For warriors, strength is the most important attribute to be able to wield the best swords, shields, axes, etc.  For a mage, upping the magic is crucial.  And for rogues, you want to increase dexterity to be able to use the better bows and daggers.  The rogue will also want cunning to support picking locks and strength has to be gradually built up as well to be able to use the higher level rogue armors later in the game, but dexterity and cunning come first.

So, trying to address your questions, crossbows generally require more strength while bows require more dexterity.  That's why I use crossbows as the secondary armament for warriors rather than bows.  Warriors do have access to archery skill trees and I'll typically give my warriors some of the entry level skills so they can at least shoot with reasonable accuracy.  In the end, it's all a matter of how you want to prioritize.

For rogues, I always give them both dual wield and archery capabilities and they would all carry one bow and one set of dual wield weapons (two daggers or a dagger and a sword).  All rogues will have access to both the archery and dual wield trees.  You, of course, make them specialize one way or the other.  Leliana, more archery while Zev more dual wield.  Also, remember for rogues, they have the poison skill to make grenades and poisons.  Once you get to the second level, you can make grenades.  (Note, the first level of poison will allow a character to use a grenade that's already been made.  I frequently give my warriors and mages the entry level poison skill so they can use grenades.)  Rogues have nothing like Templar skills for taking out mages, but grenades can hurt mages enough so they can be taken down quickly.

Regarding the Dalish elf origin, Merrill, the young mage, will be a companion in DA2 and there will be some further dealings with this particular Dalish clan in DA2.  (Merrill will obviously be fleshed out much more than she is in the origin story.)  Also, the mirror is an eluvian, an ancient elven artifact that will be much more important in DA2 and Inquisition.  (Think of the way the importance of Bilbo Baggins' ring changes from the Hobbit to what it becomes in the Lord of the Rings.)  Duncan destroys this eluvian because it has been tainted.  In DA2, Merrill will obsess over repairing it.

I hope that answers your questions.  You can only do so much with each of the origin stories before they have to converge into the main plot.

Background is a short story, and, well, some short stories are good, and some -not so much. I wish they had done something more interesting for the Elves. I'll check out the City Elf next to see if it is more interesting.

Thanks for the tips on the crossbow, I really saw no point of it because there was not a single magic one I saw throughout the game. But Xbow for warriors makes sense.

Yep, I tried to add some archery to Zev, and some DW to Leliana, but I found that rogues did not have enough points to develop a good second line. I figured it would be easier with a custom character, that you build from scratch. I guess, I'd sacrifice the advanced class points in favor of the ranged specialization.

I always found the Dalish Elf origin to be the weakest one, partly because of the repetitive reuse of the ruins and partly because it has less connection to the rest of the game than any of the others. Ironically, it's turned out to be the one with the most long term impact, between Merrill and the rest of the Sabrae clan appearing in DA2 and all the elfy stuff in Inquisition. I enjoy the story of my Dalish elf Warden far more in hindsight than I ever did while I was actually playing it.

The thing was I did not know Merrill was in that background story, but I knew that she was a companion in da2. So I was expecting a cool character, something that attracted players' and dev's attention and made them pick her for further development. Like you know, all those threads about: what npc you'd wanted as a companion? They usually pick on really outstanding (in some way) characters. But Merrill was bland. okay, I am going to sneak out till I have the chance to play the next background.

Edit: oh, I just saved myself $40, I suppose, as I saw in an unrelated thread that DA:I has no healing spec for mages in addition to being 150 hours long or some such scary stuff.

Antique warden crossbow and sureshot bolts...

I duno, I really like healing, so the whole you have to play a dps and brew potions with 4 characters in the party, with the # of potions for all 4 of them, and the whole role gone is not that appealing to me. So far DA's series main attraction was that it was much like Baldur's Gate for me, and losing healing is not my thing. Well, I will see how it goes, but chances are I have no time for it for a while anyway. Maybe it will become cheaper to buy in a year or so, after ME :A. I have a feeling it is not going to be my cup of tea.

Reading your DAO pt I have a feeling as well that DAI will not be your cup of tea. Anyway, you like MET? Who was your healer there? Still the role isn´t gone. It´s still there but it´s different.