Some spoilers please!

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I've been searching the internet for some decent tips about this game, but haven't managed to find exactly what I'm looking for.
So far, I discovered that mages are set to become powerful later in the game, so I'll try to keep Morrigan and Wynne in the party together. That leaves just one spot open, so my female dwarven rogue will try to become Alistair's queen. Alistair isn't too bad it seems, since the other warriors are 2-handed weapon users, and that seems to suck. I don't think I like the dog, and I'm guessing Shale has just as limited options to use items.

Is there a possibility to get 5 team members? I think I saw some mention of that..

My main question is, are there certain locations I should definitely take certain characters (because they might acquire bonuses that benefit others)? Please tell me of hugely important decisions, because I'm the kind of player who will compulsively do-over hours of gaming progress if I missed out on something big... Don't worry about ruining the story for me, put it in a spoiler box if you must.

I'm looking forward to making my mages into arcane warriors, is that the best way to go with them, or would combat just distract from spellcasting?

And what are the best specializations for a rogue? Duelist, Bard, Ranger or Assassin?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

You can have 5 party members if you use the extra dog slot mod (check the modlist).

Some characters are forced on you at certain points (especially Oghren, Alistair and Wynne).

Alternatively taking different characters when you're travelling around may trigger character specific encounters so if you want to see everything in your first game you'd better rotate characters (that is not true of every follower though).

Arcane Warriors are not as good as Warriors (they don't specialize like Warriors do, they hit pretty hard but they don't enjoy all the bells and whistles that make Warriors good), it's a decent alternative to spellcasting but you should still cast spells. Just bear in mind that some spells requires weapons to be sheathed (unless the Mage is using a staff). So either use a staff or cast spells that don't require your weapons to be sheathed (see the Dragon Age Wiki for more information). You could also use a mod that allows spellcasting with drawn weapons (not that I recommend using mods in a first game).

Rogues are great and specializations depend on the Rogue's role:

-Bard is a very good support specialization for a high Cunning Rogue (I rarely give it to my main characters because I'm fond of Leliana and don't want my main Rogue to be another Bard but it is one of the best specializations to give to a character with a high Cunning).

-Duelist boosts damage and Dexterity and offers a line that can serve as an alternative if you don't want to invest into regular combat talents.

-Assassin is great for Backstabbers and it also helps taking down enemies with Mark of Death (more damage to one foe +20%), Lacerate is cool but Feast of the Fallen is a great talent for a character who will be doing a killing (literally).

-Ranger gets a summon (the strength of the summoned animal depends on the rank). I'm not convinced by this specialization. Some players like it, you may enjoy it if you like using summons.

I'm pretty sure you're going to enjoy this game a lot Coin!

EDIT: with the right spell selection even low level Mages are just fearsome.
Two handed weapons are slow but they get really good later on. Indomitable is probably one of the best talents (at least IMO).
The Dog is a great character who can get you some stuff that you can't get otherwise and believe it or not he actually has his uses when facing certain enemies (I'll let you find out for yourself).
Shale is a very interesting character who can be used in different ways (it takes some time for a player to unlock Shale's true potential but don't let the fact that Shale can't use regular items fool you).

 

Great, i'm gonna try some of this tonight. Thanks again

 

Caradhras did a good job addressing your questions (as usual), so I’ll add just a couple of points:

Mages can indeed be very powerful at low levels. I find that taking arcane bolt, lightning, and the first level cold spell early is a great way to achieve a low level powerful “nuker” build. Since all of these spells are single target nukes, you can stay away from the fray and cast them in basically any and all situations. Because the refresh time on these spells is relatively short, by the time you’ve cast all 3, you’re first spell should just about be ready to cast again. If it isn’t, just attack with your staff once or twice. So by level 3 you can be throwing nearly constant nuke spells at your enemies from a safe distance. Mind blast is another must have spell, as it allows you the possibility to stun all enemies in your immediate area for a short time. A serious life saver. Stone fist is a great early spell against enemy spell casters. See an enemy casting? Cast this on it, and knock it off its feet. Now the enemy can’t cast, and you have time to get your warrior up close to take care of it. Nice.

As far as using both mages as arcane warriors, be careful here. You’re probably going to want to have at least one caster built up as a primary healer (Wynne is the obvious choice here), and in order to do this right, she is going to need to have a good use of her mana pool. Heavy armors add significant fatigue penalties, and usually don’t boost casting abilities like robes do. "Healers" in Dragon age should be healing (heal and group heal), casting health regeneration spells and mana/stamina regeneration spells. Spells like lifeward are also great. But to cast these regularly a fair amount of mana is required.

Arcane warriors are a lot of fun (I played one up to level 35 recently), but they require a good amount of micromanagement to be truly powerful. Your best arcane warrior is going to cast spells and fight fluidly. As Caradhras points out, they aren’t great as warriors, as they don’t have any warrior talents to speak of, though they can dish out great melee damage per hit with a very high magic attribute. Instead of warrior talents, you need to make use of spells to maximize their effectiveness. Running into the fray with a cone of cold spell, then letting your party gang up on the frozen-stiff enemies is just one great tactic. If you go the spirit healer route, casting a group heal during a particularly hard battle is priceless (and you don’t have to sheathe your weapons to do it). Lastly, an arcane warrior can become one of the most effective tanks in the game. With a great set of armor, a shield, AND the armor and defense boosting sustainable spells, your arcane warrior will become VERY hard to bring down. Add some good con boosting items and you’re in even better shape. My favorite armor for an arcane warrior is Wade’s superior heavy dragon armor. It has a great armor rating, great stats, and very low fatigue.

One character in particular that you want to make sure to bring along with you at least some of the time is Leliana. Once you get her approval up enough, a side quest will trigger, but only if you are traveling around with her.

 

I like the walking bomb spell, at earlier levels it can be pretty nasty (of course it makes enemies target your mage but don't worry too much about friendly fire, once everyone is dead if your mage is still standing you still win the fight ).

Check out spell combos. Some are really good and bring a whole new level to Mages.

Since I find direct damage just too easy, last time I played a Mage I went for the Hex line. They are amazing in order to take down bosses.

Experiment, you'll have some good fun trying things out for yourself and see how they play out.

Btw I second Marceror's suggestion of having Leliana in your party (if only for a while).

 

I have developed a house rule that I have to win every fight with all party members still standing. I'm just not good with the idea that if my character dies they are actually just injured. What?

But Caradhras is correct that there are a lot of ways to build your mages. You appeared to be looking for power... and the build I mention gives you that (and possibly goes a little too far with it by making the game pretty easy).

 

Nothing wrong with your rule Marceror I just enjoyed playing a callous Mage who didn't care that much about "killing off" his followers.

It's pretty easy to make a really powerful Mage (probably hard to mess things up with a Mage given that most spells have their uses even if some of them are just better).

I must be in the minority but I'm glad Cone of Cold was nerfed.

Mana Clash and Crushing Prison are awesome spells and I'm very fond of Mass Paralysis (to name but a few).

 

I know you like to play as characters that are total bastards, and your tactic certainly reflects that.

Not sure if that's because you just want to see how the other half lives, or this is the perfect complement to your real personality. And on second thought, perhaps I don't want to know the answer to that.

Crushing prison is probably one of my favorite mage spells, even in its nerfed state. A truly glorious mage killer, that one.

 

Not always, but playing real bastards is fun (I try my best to be a decent person and I think I'm a rather nice guy irl so I guess part of the fun is going for things I'd never do in real life )

By the way, I like the fact that DAO is more about grey areas (Grey Wardens) rather than a black and white, Evil vs Good dichotomy. The absence of alignments makes the game more interesting and less restrictive.

Crushing Prison is awfully nice and a good reason to keep Alistair around (or having another Templar since Cleanse Area can't be cast by a Templar under the effects of Crushing Prison).

I haven't tried Glyphs yet, are they any good Marceror? It seems a bit situational to be that effective IMO (but I may be wrong).

 

I've not used glyphs overmuch, but have certainly experimented with them. They have their uses. I think of them as low maintenance traps. My favorite tactic is to use a paralysis explosion by casting a glyph of paralysis on top of a glyph of repulsion. If you time it right, you can paralyze a whole lot of baddies for a fairly good duration (careful, friendly fire is possible). If anything, this tactic is overpowered, but it's fun to play with.

In reality though, glyphs work like other spells that are in the game, so their effects in combat can be easily replicated with other spell lines. The obvious advantage with glyphs is the "set it and forget it" feature. Oh, and the paralysis explosions, of course.

 

Oh gawd - glyph of repulsion and glyph of paralysis... friendly fire possible almost 100% of the time! I wasn't paying attention when I set Wynne's tactics once, she had both of those, and she almost regularly would cast those one on top of the other and the whole frakkin' party was virtually always paralyzed along with the baddies... I'm more careful now

 

Hehe, definitely not advisable to let the auto-tactics AI handle that combo!

When I use it, it's generally at the beginning of a fight. I turn off auto follow, send my mage forward and cast a glyph. Get the enemy's attention, and drop the second glyph just before they set off the first. Once the baddies are paralyzed, I send in my party to take out priority targets first. It's rather sad just how easy this can make a fight.

 

If I do that constantly, wont I miss out on XP and leveling, since I'm spreading all my gains out too much? I'd prefer to just know when to bring certain characters to certain areas, so if there are real important ones, I'd be glad to hear them

I'll say:d. I'm in the sloth demon's fade trap/nightmare right now. I was worried about not having enough power to handle the battles (my rogue has focused a lot on talking and lockpicking..). But the shapeshifts give me a lot more options, and they heal me a little every time. Still, my character can handle most of the challenges without it. The graphics are great, and watching my dual wielding dwarf pull off deadly backstabs makes me practically giddy with joy.

Thanks for the warning, that could have been a big mistake, since I was thinking choosing that for Wynne. It could still be an option for Morrigan though. I don't know how Wynne could conscionably justify choosing Blood Mage, but... I want all 4 specializations!

Okay, I'll do that. I'll try to get her approval up to +75 (that's enough?) and kick Morrigan out for a while. You guys made me curious about her sidequest.

I've been looking at the mod list, and I especially liked the idea of character respecialization. I especially want to get rid of Wynne's 4 tactics slots and replace them with combat training ones, because I don't like that my healing mage can be easily disrupted.
But how can I alter all the choices? I installed the "WRK_RESPEC_MOD_16" DLC, but it hasn't added any options to the game, as far as I can see. I feel silly, but I need some step by step guidance here. Thanks for all the handholding.

 

You should find several ravens in the game. Just look for them, as nearly every major area (including your camp) has one. Click on the raven and take the potion of respecialization from it. Then simply have the appropriate character drink the potion, and voila. You can level them up from scratch.

By the way, there's no harm in giving Wynne the Arcane Warrior specialzation, as you get some stat boosts from it, and aren't forced to train the spells and equip heavy armor. That said if you don't give Wynne a melee weapon or bow the +5 attack is going to be rather pointless. Although from an RP perspective, this is MUCH better than giving her Blood Mage.

If you want to have all mage specs in your game, you could give Wynee spirit healer and shapechanger, and respec Morrigan to have blood mage and arcane warrior.

One more thing, unlike in Baldur's Gate, your followers in DA will never be more than 1 level behind you. So there really isn't any major loss associated with keeping preferred characters in the bullpen every now and then, except perhaps to your overall party balance.

 

Silly me. I should've just been patient, since I'm still in the mage tower.
I'm mass-downloading DLCs from the mod list, that's how I like to play. Are there any severe mod conflicts I should be aware of?

 

You'd have to be more specific about the mods you're using if you want some advice.

I strongly recommend finishing an unmodded game first (this way you'll have a good idea of the changes you may want to introduce into your game).

Improved Atmosphere is great but you have to start a new game to fully benefit from this mod.

Other gameplay mods won't harm your first run through the game.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback regarding Glyphs. I'm not really convinced of their usefulness though I should probably give them a try in another game.

Marceror already answered your questions, I'd like to point out that level scaling in DAO will make almost every fights doable (there are some encounters that exist to prevent you from rushing to certain areas if your party is not strong enough... like when you're trying to get to Orzammar early on but once you get a good understanding of the game it's not a problem). Make sure you stack health poultices and you'll be able to go through any encounter on Nightmare.

Although, taking out Revenants at lower levels can be rather difficult on Nightmare (it's rewarding though).

For RP reasons I'd never give the Blood Mage specialization to Wynne. Like Marceror said, Arcane Warrior won't hurt Wynne (besides, Fade Shroud can be useful even if Wynne is still using a staff and it makes a lot of sense RPwise for her to use this talent).

 

Wynne also doesn't strike me as the Shapeshifter type. Wise old lady shapeshifting into a Bereskarn/Corrupted Spider/Flying Swarm sounds more like a scene from a horror/apocalypse movie.

 

I gave her this specialization once, not because I felt it fit her, but because it fit her better than bloodmage (understatement of the year) and I didn't want to give her arcane warrior again (as I had in a previous runthrough). I role played that Morrigan had taught Wynne the basics of shapeshifting during their travels together. I never actually had Wynne train in any of the talents, and certainly never had her turning into other forms -- she effectively became a dabler in this form of magic, not a devotee. At the end of the day, I just chose this for the stats bonuses it provides. I mean, really, no specialization other than spirit healer particularly fits Wynne all that well.

 

Quite right Scythesong. Arcane Warrior is most certainly the best second specialization for Wynne (after all she has seen her share of battles).

 

I read the readme of Improved Atmosphere, and I decided to save it for next time. I noticed you altered the items-mod link, and I see a couple there I hadn't noticed before. So I'm gonna do some installing again.
I have about 70% of the mods in the modlist installed now, the only problem I've had is that all Green Legion Armour and Sexy Mage Robes items keep reappearing in my inventory upon loading a savegame, even though I put them in storage. I guess I can destroy them every time, but I'm worried it might crash my game if I save and then load a game with a full inventory. I'd deactivate the DLCs, but those mage robes are just too stunning. Does anyone know what's going wrong?