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Origins | Ostagar | Lothering | Circle Tower | Warden's Keep (DLC) | Return to Ostagar (DLC) | Stone Prisoner (DLC) | Brecilian Forest | Redcliffe | The Urn of Sacred Ashes | Orzammar | Deep Roads | Denerim | Final Onslaught |
Lake Calenhad | Shopping Around | Apprentice Quarters | Senior Mage Quarters Random Encounters |
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
This page includes a series of videos showing random encounters that occur while travelling over the world map. I can't show every possible random encounter, since some of them depend on triggers that I'll never activate (e.g. stealing from the Templars after the Circle Mages are destroyed). But I do show the typical ones.
The Antivan Crows Send Their Regards
This video is a cutscene of Teyrn Loghain and Teyrn Howe hiring an Antivan Crow named Zevran to assassinate Aldarion and Alistair.
Circle Mages
The next random encounter is when a trio of Circle Mages gets attacked by a horde of Darkspawn. There are two possible ways the Darkspawn can approach.
One possible approach is straight ahead against my party. Wynne puts an Earthquake over the area. Aldarion adds in a Blizzard, and then a Tempest.
The other possible approach is against the Mages on the hill to the left. I thus send Alistair there to act as a bodyguard. Between all of this the Darkspawn are unable to accomplish much and soon fall.
Zevran's Ambush
The next random encounter is Zevran's ambush. The immediate threat is the Mage, but Aldarion dooms her with a Crushing Prison spell. After this, the fight is actually winnable on account of Wynne's healing abilities. She keeps picking the party back up after they take out the melee assassins. Once the up close combat is finished, everybody switches over to missile weapons. They next take down the archers on the ridges by concentrating missile fire on one at a time in order to bring them down as quickly as possible. Wynne of course continues to keep everybody's health on the up and up.
I then interrogate Zevran and accept him as a companion. The video concludes with me searching the bodies and containers for loot.
Friends of Red Jenny
I now show the complete solution for the side quest called 'Friends of Red Jenny'. It starts with the end of Zevran's ambush. I've looted every corpse and every container except for one dead body from among Zevran's helpers. One of the assassins leaves behind a letter that opens up the Codex Entry for Red Jenny.
I then return to the Circle Tower. I go up to Irving's Study on the second floor of the Tower, and loot a Small Painted Box from Irving's Desk. This opens up the Friends of Red Jenny quest.
I then go to the Market District in Denerim. I go to the south side of the District, and west past the Wonders of Thedas shop. At the end of the street will be a door. I click on the door, and choose to present the box to obtain 3gp. The other responses won't get me anything.
Old Tegrin
This time I run into a travelling Dwarven merchant named Old Tegrin. This is a repeatable encounter. You can get this over and over again while travelling over the world map.
Tegrin sells mundane armor and weapons, as well as crossbow bolts. His more notable wares are:
Darkspawn Ambush
The next encounter involves getting ambushed by Darkspawn from all sides. The biggest threats, and thus the immediate priorities, are the Hurlock Emissary and the Hurlock Alpha. Aldarion switches over to his staff, and hits the Emissary right away with Crushing Prison. Wynne makes sure the Emissary won't survive the Crushing Prison by hitting him with strikes from her staff.
Next, Aldarion holds the Alpha in place with a Cone of Cold. Wynne then Shatters the Alpha with a Stone Fist spell. The two biggest threats are gone.
I then take care of all of the Hurlocks that are close up. Wynne helps matters along by using a Glyph of Paralysis on one of them.
After that I toggle to 'move freely' to avoid everyone setting off the myriad of traps that are around me. I have everybody switch over to missile weapons and then take out the Genlock Archers one by one.
I keep the toggle on 'move freely' and have Leliana go around disarming all of the traps.
Twisted Beasts
Now I get attacked by a Bereskarn directly in front of me, and three Blight Wolves from the side. Aldarion positions himself, and then hits the Blight Wolves with his Cone of Cold plus Shock combo. This pretty much allows the party, helped along by Wynne, to outlast the monsters.
Wolves
Now I get ambushed by a lot of Wolves. I position Wynne and Leliana so that their backs will be against a nearby stone wall, with Aldarion and Alistair interposing themselves in between. The numbers are immense, so I need to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Aldarion gets into position and then unleashes his Cone of Cold + Shock combo. Leliana then caps things with a Shock Bomb that's carefully placed to damage as many Wolves as possible without hurting any party members. A good many Wolves die from this onslaught. Killing the rest becomes easier, especially with Wynne there to look out for everyone's Health. The video concludes with Leliana disarming the numerous Flimsy Leghold Traps for xp.
Staff of the Magister Lord
I raise some more gold by crafting and selling Potent Lyrium Potions (which I don't show in this video). I then go the circle tower and purchase the Staff of the Magister Lord (+6 Willpower, +2 / +4 mana regeneration in combat, +6 spellpower, +10% spirit damage, +10% fire damage) for Wynne. This is easily the best staff in the game. The bonus to combat regeneration offsets the mana drain penalty involved with keeping Haste active as well.
Surprising the Bandits
This time I run into Bandits. I have three options, ambush them myself, evade them, or listen in. It is obviously more beneficial to ambush them.
There will be a lot of them in near view to begin with, so Wynne hits them right away with an Earthquake to hold them in place. This buys time for Aldarion to plant a Blizzard and then a Tempest over the area. I then either kill any that come forward in melee combat, or shoot down any that are caught in the crowd-control + damage zone.
I run into a trouble spot where the Bandit Leader is hitting me with arrows from behind a barricade, while my own party members have trouble getting through themselves. I also don't want to chase him lest I bring more enemies into view. I therefore retreat towards the return path and force him to follow after me and leave his barricade behind. I am then able to outgun him.
The remainder of the video consists of me going around picking off one or two stragglers at a time, and having Leliana loot the odd chest.
Five Pages, Four Mages
This quest requires the finding of Torn Pages in the Circle Tower in order to trigger. The Torn Pages can all be found in the small rooms on the eastern side of the Great Hall. Four Mages were evidently ripped off by a con artist named Beyha Joam.
Once all the Torn Pages are found, I will run into Beyha Joam while travelling over the world map. He will attack me no matter what my reply. The real danger in this fight is the Mage to my left, who intends to get my party right away with a Fireball that will both knock me off my feet and continue to score lingering fire damage. If you pursue this quest, you will need a method of either recovering from the Fireball or prevent the casting of the Fireball. In this instance I managed to prevent the Fireball when Aldarion gets him right away with a Crushing Prison. He then adds in a Winter's Grasp, while Wynne also adds an Arcane Bolt. The point is to make sure the Mage dies before the Crushing Prison elapses. After that it's a matter of Wynne helping her comrades outlast Joam and his helpers. Joam himself leaves behind some gold and a Cameo Cowl (+2 Cunning, +0.5 / +1 Health regeneration in combat). I don't really have any use for the Cowl as the Cunning bonus isn't really meaningful to Mages.
My next objective is to complete the parts of the game that are available as Downloadable Content (DLC). I start with Warden's Keep.
