Gaming The Inquisition's Here and It's Here To Stay: The Dragon Age Series

Sten hates me. I've never taken him out of camp because I needed a better tank, and then I exhausted all his conversation options and he still hates me. Oh well. Maybe he's got some cool history but I haven't discovered it.

 

I think it helps to realize that Sten is a very, very literal fellow. I haven't played very far, but I've managed to inch him into the positive ground (that and it helps that I know what gifts he likes).

If you try to push answers out of him, get too wordy, or (heaven forbid) get all whiny, he's not going to take to it very well. If you take his clipped answers for what they're worth (that he's being very literal and only giving out as much info as needed to answer your question) and that he's a very no-nonsense, why aren't we sticking to the mission type, you should be able to come away with some approving points from him.


Still, I much prefer Slate as a party member. Always ready and willing to squish things and seemingly very resistant to being set on fire.

 

Tips: Really the fight came down to three things for me: use bows/magic, spread out, and use your army. You don't really want to engage the archdemon in close quarters as he has a pretty good chance of raping everyone when he wants to. For me, at the start of the battle, I used the Redcliffe soldiers to deal with the darkspawn that would appear and keep the archdemon busy while my party attacked him at range. Like I said, make sure your party is spread out cause, if I remember correctly, the archdemon has that attack to create a giant, purple vortex which can hurt your party and you want to make sure that all of them won't get caught in it and any that do are moved out quickly. Other then that the only other danger is when the archdemon flies into the air. You gotta keep a constant lookout cause this is when he'll drop near a party member and you'll want to get them as far away from him as you can as quickly as you can.

When the archdemon drops to...fifty percent health I believe...it'll retreat to a collapsed section of the roof where you'll only able to hit it at range. If your Redcliffe people (or whoever you're using) die then get your ranged in there to help do the damage and keep the darkspawn busy. At a quarter health the archdemon will fly back over and you pretty much repeat the process. At this part though you might want to help your army thin out the ranks of the darkspawn cause trying to get decent firing positions and attacking the archdemon unmolested will be difficult where the darkspawn spawn. I suggest you save your heavy melee (like Dwarves/Golems for me) for this part because this is where the archdemon will actually detonate darkspawn which you'll have to watch out for since, if your party is a little too close to too many darkspawn, they may very well just outright die.

If you follow these basic steps though you should be fine A final note though is that there are ballista on the roof that you can use on the archdemon but I didn't know about them 'till after I beat the game. I did pretty fine without them though; the key is just to stay back and keep constant vigilance over your party.

As for my party setup, I had mostly used Sten, Wynne, and Morrigan with my character being the tank. When I got Oghren though I switched Sten out with him. Once in a while I brought Leliana out to replace Morrigan though part of the reason was because of her lockpicking when I wanted the loots

I managed to at least be friendly with everyone thankfully so I managed to get a lot of their abilities and personal quests. Morrigan was the selected lover for me character

......

 

I remember reading somewhere that when fighting the archdemon, there are some bastillas in the area which you can use to fire upon him. One post seemed like you mainly use them after he takes off out of range. Another as if you can use the weapon to keep him from flying off.
Can't say from experience since I'm nowhere near that part yet.

 

I think I managed to break the game during the final battle. After a long fight with the archdemon and all the darkspawn, my party was all dead, my army wiped out, and it was just me and my summoned bear (rogue/ranger) left.

My health was so low I couldn't see any red left on my health bar, and while I was focused on the dragon the remaining darkspawn just stood at their spawn locations and didn't do anything. So I just stood there and continued to spam my bow attacks until the dragon finally died. It was a bit anticlimactic.

 

Yeah... I figured that out a bit late, that's all. It was only after I'd half managed to antagonise him that it dawned on me he was simply taking everything literally, but by then I was out of conversation options and also couldn't figure out how to bribe him. Oh well.

Anyway, I just won the game! Clocked in something like 43 hours, which is pretty insane - I think I did too many sidequests.

Regarding the finale... I admit: I played the game on Easy. Thus the Archdemon battle was, well, easy. It also helped that I have 3 ranged people in my party - I use Alistair, Leliana and Wynne and my PC is a mage - so it was a matter of spamming ranged attacks and potions and poultices until it died. I didn't catch on to the ballista thing until near the end, and by then it was a foregone conclusion anyway.

Alistair was my romantic target. The ending = ! I turned down Morrigan's ritual idea, so in the end Alistair sacrificed himself to kill the archdemon. (I have to say though: the impact of that was reduced by the constant "I'm king!" insistence. I installed Queen Anora, dammit!)

I loved the slideshow of 'what happened to who' at the end. One of the things that came up was "the Urn's resting place was also the lair of a high dragon" ... oops ... I realised after leaving that I forgot to deal with the dragon, and couldn't be bothered returning. Oh, well. And everything that came up there - Connor becoming a mage, the dwarven mage scholar publishing a paper, it was all so cool because it's like I did that. The world is the way it is because of me and the choices I made.

So, I'm guessing there will be a sequel in the works. How they'll do it I have no idea, though, considering the sheer amount of possible endings there are... but in the meantime, there are 5 other origin stories to play through.

 

Daw, poor Xani! *hugs*

My Finale: With Morrigan having been the love interest for my character, I didn't have much of a problem for my character participating in the ritual that she had suggested. So when my character had slain the archdemon, woohoo! He lived!

For my choosing of rulers, I had it so that both Anora and Alistair would rule though Anora would do all the governing with Alistair doing the battling and socializing. At first I hadn't been sure about my decision especially with how Alistair wasn't exactly happy with the decision in the beginning. But he seemed to fall into the role easy enough and I think that may be what Bioware was hoping to go for considering what Xan has said about it. When the the ending slideshow came through it mentioned how Anora governed Ferelden justly while Alistair made many appearances with the common people which made everyone happy.

As for Morrigan...I was sad face Though when I look at it it's exactly the kind of thing that Bioware would do...and it does seem to somewhat promise a sequel It was one of those situations where she did come to love me character but knew that this decision of hers would be for the best. So she's now pregnant with me character's child who has the soul of an Old God and my character has sworn to find her again while helping reform the Grey Wardens in Ferelden

I think that may've been the best ending I managed to get in my opinion

 

Question regarding your endings...

How the heck did you people manage to get Alastair to stay if Anora was queen or for them to jointly rule? For me, they were so split over the Logain joining/execution thing that if Anora was Queen, Logain joined and Alastair left forever, or if Alastair was king, he killed Logain and locked up Anora.

 

Answer...

From what I read there are a few ways to do it. Concerning the Loghain thing, you have to execute him yourself. If you have Alistair do it, Anora won't want to jointly rule with him for...obvious reasons. If you decide to spare Loghain, Alistair will hate it and thus will leave. And before the whole Landsmeet you'll want to talk to the both of them and convince them that ruling jointly would be a good thing.

The only other thing that I think can screw up the arrangement is that, from what I read, when you're trying to free Anora and you are confronted by Loghain's people that capture you, she'll betray you to them if you try to bluff your way out. It didn't happen to me though cause I just let myself get captured

 

Not much time to play through even last night, but I finally got my first character up and running. Spent about 15 minutes or so inputting DLC codes, and about another 15 getting my character created, starting my Origin, etc. I was pretty happy with the default name, so I went with that.

Just headed out into the Korcari Wilds from the Ostagar fortress with my companions to retrieve some treaties, where we got jumped by about 10 wolves almost instantly after leaving the king's encampment. Right now, I'm only about a lame Level 3, but I'm hoping for some more play time late tonight. Fun exploration, but got too much enjoyment in setting my party on fire. Also, it's hysterical to have a cut scene with a man and woman talking about getting married while blood is dripping off both of them.

This is where I made it up to last night before I really had to head bedwards. It was surprisingly engaging, to be sure. Having taken the bat to my functioning adulthood that was reading the prequel novels, I knew exactly what the Joining actually involved, and considering I'm doing it with a pair of Ensign Rickys I'd never heard of before, I have a pretty good idea how that's going to turn out. Still, it's great.

I'm playing the Human Noble Origin for my first runthrough -- I already adore the way that the Origin is obviously going to directly affect the entire rest of my game, in that I have specific personal quests for vengeance and the like that have risen out of it. They weren't kidding in saying that no two playthroughs will be the same. My Mabari is ****ing awesome -- I love the fact that he's so far spent the game almost permanently spattered with blood. Since I'm playing as a pretty honorable guy, I don't see much of a romantic spark firing up with Morrigan down the road, though.

Playing this game on a 50" plasma, it looks pretty damn all right, though I can see how those playing the console versions on non-HD sets might have some issues. Still, no complaints.

(And you can only begin to comprehend my sheer joy when I first heard Simon Templeman's voice as the character of Loghain.)

And like Two Worlds before it, they sure love the word "taint." Makes me giggle every time. I'm a 13-year-old boy, what can I say?

 

Regarding endings: I couldn't convince Alistair and Anora to rule jointly. I'm not sure why, but if I can hazard a guess, I'd think it's because I did the Alistair romance quest, and he was like "no I won't leave you for a political marriage!" and I didn't take any points in the skill that influences Persuade, which was very silly in hindsight.

That romance also made the ritual Morrigan proposed a problem. "Convince your boyfriend to sleep with me," can never go down well. And it caused Alistair to sacrifice himself so my character wouldn't do it! Love screws everything up, I tell ya.

But as for how I did it:
- when breaking Anora out, surrender to the guards, get captured, and then break out of the fort. (I don't know if this is essential, it's just what I did.)
- agree to help Anora, and then tell Alistair so. He'll be all relieved, it's cute.
- have Alistair duel Loghain. Loghain will be executed, naturally.
- install Anora as queen when they ask you.
Alistair then carried on with me as normal, though he strangely kept thinking he was king after that.

Just started a Human Warrior as part of my Quest To Finish All Origin Stories... that Ogre fight at the top of the Ostagar tower is hard with two warriors, a dog and a mage with no heals, I tell ya, especially as I'm playing on Normal this time. The ogre just crushed my characters like they were made of paper. I ended up using a tactic from WoW days when the tank died - have everyone (except the dog, naturally) equip bows and run around bouncing aggro. It worked surprisingly well.

 

Alternative Ending: You could've actually installed Alistair as the king and he would've proposed to marry you and become his queen. I'm not sure if you could've done it with any female character though; might've had to have been a noble but I dunno.

Oh so you didn't do the game on Normal first? I did and ya...the Ogre will kill you a few times I think. The game can be pretty difficult in the beginning but it gets easier later on. You're gonna want to make sure to get Wynne as soon as you can though. A friend of mine hasn't gotten her yet and currently he's fighting off the zombie apocalypse in Redcliffe. Dunno how it is on Easy but on Normal it can be a little difficult even with a healer.

Tip: Speaking of Redcliffe. You're able to set up defenses and boost morale and the like in preparation for the battle with the zombie horde. One thing that you SHOULD NOT do, however, is suggest using the oil barrels to set up a fire trap for the zombies. The mighty army you've gathered will just be idiots and fight the zombies in the fire and thus die. That was a pain in the butt

 

I need to hurry up and beat this game so I can join in on the endgame discussion! I'm in the Deep Roads right now. Already finished Redcliff, the Mages, and the Elves.

The ogre in Ostrigarr gave you guys trouble on Normal? Huh, maybe I got lucky but I took him down first try. In fact, the only time I've had to lower the difficulty the entire game was when I fought the Cult leaders in the mountains looking for the ashes.

 

In my first playthrough, that Ogre took out everyone. Everyone but the greatest of party members: Dethenrir the Mabari Warhound.

With the entire party dead, the pooch took out the remaining half of the ogre's health.

 

I named my Mabari Pooch... but I felt like it needed more punch, so I ended up with Pooch Face.

I never used him though, I might do when I get around to playing as a human.

Oh, and welcome to the party Leto. Better late than never!

 

I just named him Dog That's just how I am though. In WoW, when I was a hunter, I always called my wolf pet Wolf or bear Bear, etc. I even call my pets Cat or Dog.

Course, unlike my pets, this Dog can rip your face off

 

I named my dog Brutus. I hope he doesn't betray me.

 

I also keep naming my dog "Dog." I wonder just what percentage of the people playing the game do that...


I started as a Human Noble Rogue, wasn't too keen on it and rerolled Human Noble Warrior; decided Mages are more fun and now I'm a Mage. I think that I'll go and reroll Dalish Rogue next time through.

 

Dragon Age can even make you question your origins

 

Finished the game. In about 15 minutes I'm going to start a new one. This is the best game I've played in a while, and the only RPG besides Oblivion that I've really gotten into, although I never played the Baldur's Gate games and didn't finish KOTOR.

Out of curiousity, how many of you chose to do Morrigan's ritual? My character was an upright, chivalrous kind of guy, and even though I had a romance with Morrigan the idea of dark forbidden magic didn't sit well with him. What about you all? Also, how many of you sacrificed yourself by killing the archdemon?

By the way, thanks to those who gave me advice on the archdemon. It was helpful.

 

My ending: I turned down Morrigan's ritual and Alistair sacrificed himself to kill the Archdemon. Both those things were basically because I was a human female with Alistair as my love interest - "convince your boyfriend to sleep with me" just doesn't go down well, and apparently neither does "I'm sacrificing myself to kill a dragon, bb". I didn't have to order Alistair to do it - in fact I would have - but he insisted.

Anyway, I specced my warrior to tank, but tanking is rather boring (and I really forsee the solo missions being difficult - they're a breeze on a mage with Paralyse) so I may reroll again and play a rogue or a damage-dealing warrior instead.

 

I thought being a tank was fun. Get your usual aggro-gaining techniques but add some Warrior and Sword and Shield skills that allow you to bash people over the head with your shield like Overpower and I just find it pretty fun And despite how it may seem, the solo stuff I found to be pretty easy with a tank

*points up at a couple posts up for his ending*

 

The thing is, I already have a decent tank in Alistair, so I feel like I should be something else. It'd definitely make the early stages easier.