Not Rift, Dragon Age!Follow

First place through I went with Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan. The dialogue between them all was pretty fun, especially if you get the ladies fighting over you. I also killed Wynne instead of recruiting her by accident, so that sorta limited my options. Oops.

Next playthrough was Alistair, Morrigan, and Wynne. And I was a mage. Easiest time I've ever had; with three mages you completely own the battlefield. And Wynne as a healer meant I could focus more on dishing out pain than healing my party. I don't really like Wynne's character though; she just doesn't strike me as interesting as the others. Unfortunately she's almost a necessity if you aren't a mage or don't want Morrigan in your party.

Next one through I played a slums dwarf warrior. Probably the toughest playthrough. I eventually made myself into a decent tank, and tried to switch it up a bit; used Zevran, Wynne, and Oghren. It was more interesting... but tough.

Final playthrough was as a noble human female rogue. That was a lot of fun; all the extra points let me take every ability I could ever dream of. Took Alistair as a tank, Wynne as a healer, and Shale as a buff-bot; went straight ranged after finding that melee felt kinda limited. By the end of the game I was dishing out death left and right. Imported that character into Awakening... good Lord. Archery is unexpectedly powerful; only way I could have made it better was a Leliana + Zevran + Shale party. I watched a few videos of that combination absolutely ripping up the bosses of the game.

Granted, its power is comparable to a blood mage, but the mage will also have CC and heals and potentially the best armor in the game. Really, mages are broken.

As for companions, I suggest romancing Morrigan first, breaking it off and seducing Leliana, then rekindling the romance with Morrigan using her second specific-item (a mirror bought off a vendor in the dwarf city). It seems DA's designers didn't remember to close the logic loophole that an ended romance can be restarted with it.

As for female Wardens, I'd go with Alistair over Zevran any day.

And if given the option, "harden" both Leliana and Alistair. Makes Leliana more badass, and Alistair more decisive. Also gives better endings no matter what you choose during the game (IMO).

Leliana for sure. Morrigan skeeves me out!

Stop judging men who want to get creative with her shape-shifting.

Oh, for whoever was just starting the game (Ugly? I'm too lazy to scroll up), you really don't want to choose Shapeshifting as a specialization. I suppose you might be able to find a fan-made fix, but it's damage calculations have been broken since the game launched. Basically, the game doesn't use your spellpower stat (a derivative of your magic) to calculate attack accuracy or damage. So you pretty much can't hit squat unless you invest heavily in dexterity.

You might also think that it melds well with Arcane Warrior, but all your powerful sustainables are deactivated when you shift.

Don't take it, and don't invest in it with Morrigan beyond what she has initially. Unless, of course, you patch it. Or randomly want to make them useless.

I found this mod which is really nice because it means I don't have to worry all the time about making mistakes

FYI for ugly. None of my content aside from the main game and awakening was actually working, apparently you need to upgrade to 1.05, which is what I'm doing now.

http://social.bioware.com/page/da-patches



Edited, Apr 7th 2012 11:13am by Xsarus

Yeah I didn't find out about hardening Alistair until after I already tried to comfort him. I wish there was a second option of how to harden him, but oh well. I guess if I play through a second time as a rogue, I'll know. I think I must just suck at this game, because almost any time I even have the settings on normal, if it's a tricky encounter, my entire party gets wiped out. But then if I have it on casual, I'm bored out of my mind. My character is a blood/spirit healer mage. I don't know if I have my party members tactics messed up or what, but Wynne usually ends up dying really quick, and then Alistair goes down almost immediately after, and then me and Leliana are dead shortly there after. It's annoying.

No wonder TLW doesn't want me romantically. . Looks like Joph and I end up together, religious differences notwithstanding, after all!

Who am I kidding, I won't last a day.

I have it on the 360, so I'm not sure there really are any mods for me, however I was kinda stuck, so I lost interest. I rolled a Dwarf Noble Warrior, and couldn't get past some fight in some tower. I restarted and am now in the Brecilian Forest ready to enter some temple or something.

Sure, if you're willing to wait an hour for each to be 'disarmed'.

Don't you need a surgeon's license for that, anyway?

But...cookies.
While I didn't much care for him on the mission going after Branka, he's pretty much my favorite companion. Especially partied with Wynne.
He won't dump you if youSpoiler happen to be a noble. SpoilerFairy tale wedding and all, then he shows up in Awakening and is all "Hey, I love you, but I can't hang out and help you. So good luck with that."


Edited, Apr 8th 2012 7:03am by Poldaran

I really would like them to change it in DA3 so that having a Rogue in your party is sufficient for opening locked chests with your main. They don't need to change traps, since that's actually a tactical change...

Leliana is even more annoying than when you ask Lydia to carry something...

I like Leliana. Then again, I like pretty much all the characters thus far, except Sten. He's boring. Although the cookie thing was pretty funny. I just met Oghren for the first time, so he's not in my party yet.

It really sucks that Morrigan got stuck with crappy shapeshifting as her specialization. Wynne makes a much better healer, but the conversations between Morrigan and Alistair when you're out exploring are just hilarious. I miss those.

Okay, so maybe she's not THAT bad. But it's a lot closer than it should be.