[Turambar]

Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game?

Morrigan, Leliana, Player, and Zhevran?

I hope that's the case, since involving Sten or Oghren could get weird, Wynne's a bit old for that, and Alistair's too shy

[Stormkeeper]

Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game?

Heh. And how.

[NGTM-1R]

Including the golem?

[mxlm]

So I just completed the elven female city opening, and I have a complaint. Specifically, I now want to be playing a game about murdering the **** out of the human nobility, not about combating the threat of darkspawn or whatever. I'm much more interested in the former. Though, well, I haven't done much in Ostagar yet, so that may change.

[NGTM-1R]

Yeah, I did the Elven male version. It's rather more hardcore than the human one, and the game itself seems to acknowledge this.

[Fury]

Let's discuss mages a bit. What you think are the best spells or spell categories to have? I'm a bit miffed I went with elemental because there's not enough opportunities to use these spells, unless soloing, micromanaging or using inferno/blizzard combo to clean adjacent rooms. But I wonder if I had went with another spell school my mage could have been more useful offensively, not just healing all the time.

[Turambar]

Yeah, it's real tough to use the devastating spells, simply because you are going to end up putting the nuke onto your allies.  What I tended to do was use the entropy line to paralyze and weaken my enemies so everyone else could cut them down.  it also gives you the life drain, which is actually a pretty nice spell.

My other plan for my mage is to go for Arcane Warrior, and use all the weapon buff spells (fire weapons, ice weapons, telekinetic weapons) in combination with the combat magic spells and miasma, and have a super strong 3-man front line with wynne in the back (or 2 man front line, with alistair as a proper tank and whichever rogue i take with me to open boxes and doors.)

[NGTM-1R]

Let's discuss mages a bit. What you think are the best spells or spell categories to have? I'm a bit miffed I went with elemental because there's not enough opportunities to use these spells, unless soloing, micromanaging or using inferno/blizzard combo to clean adjacent rooms.

Buff your resists. Or play on easy, where friendly fire doesn't exist. Honestly, this whole thing smacks of the old AD&D fireball problem, where it had to occupy a set space, and because of the size of your average dungeon corridor was too small, DMs like that space to include party members when operating under the Zero Sum Game Theory: RPGs are competitive event between the GM and the players. Bioware's been playing reconstructionist for older concepts in their last few releases, usually to great effect, but this particular thing not so much.

[mxlm]

Weird. On another forum, the board consensus was that mages were way the hell overpowered (some said something about a Morrigan/Wynne combo making everything easy), with no mentions of friendly fire problems at all. These people were playing at normal and up. *shrug*

For myself, my initial experience with mages--letting the AI run that tower mage guy at Ostagar--was about as negative as it could be. I. ****ing. Hate. Burning. Hands (or whatever they called it). However, I then tried driving Morrigan and letting the AI run my rogue and the rest of the party, and discovered I can put out a hell of a lot of (no friendly fire) damage with her, much more than the AI does. I think because I burn through mana a lot faster than the AI is willing to.

[TrashMan]

Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game?

Morrigan, Leliana, Player, and Zhevran?

I hope that's the case, since involving Sten or Oghren could get weird, Wynne's a bit old for that, and Alistair's too shy

Nope. Leliana (or Allistair), Zevran, the PC and some chick in Denerim.

F'course, you have to get Leli or Allistair in the right set of mind before that....influence them enough, convince them tehsy are naughty..

[TrashMan]

Yeah, I did the Elven male version. It's rather more hardcore than the human one, and the game itself seems to acknowledge this.

both are different.
As female you break out of the cell, see your spouse cut down and careve your way to the lordling.

As male, you break into the castle, witness a very disturbing scene with some guards and a corpse of a dead female elf, and carve your way to the lordling.

[TrashMan]

I play on hard and consider it too easy. Heck, I'm half trough the game playing with a sub-optimal active party aTM and it's the first time I actually got injuries.

Regarding mages - be carefull how you set up their tactics AI. I customize it to my preference and I have no problems when the AI is driving.

EDIT:
Speaking of reviews:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/component/content/article/40-front-page-scroller/13832-angry-joe-dragon-age-origins-review-sex-a-violence

[NGTM-1R]

If you think that scene was disturbing, that's kinda sad.

[TrashMan]

I do find necrophilia disturbing, yes. The fact that you don't scares me....


That was a (well placed) squick moment in the game.

[mxlm]

As female you break out of the cell, see your spouse cut down and careve your way to the lordling.

The best part was when your cousin strolls in to your cell.

The guards: "lol"
You cousin: "*slides sword to player*"
The guards: "Oh."

[Fury]

Just completed the game, human mage origin. The final fight was too easy.

[Turambar]

Everyone all decked out




and after the game I took the winning team down to Cadash Thaig for a photo



Nobeard is wearing the Wade's Superior Dragonscale set, the Helm of Honnleith, and wielding The Veshialle and Asturian's Might
Alistair is wearing the Warden Commander's Plate set, using the Keening Blade and Duncan's Shield
Wynne is wearing the First Enchanter's robe, dragonbone splintmail boots (not visible) ancient elven gauntlets (not visible), and the gryphon helm, using the Final Reason staff
Sten is wearing the Armor of the Legion set and wielding the Starfang sword
Morrigan is wearing the Robes of Posession and using the Piece of Wood
Oghren is wearing the Blood Dragon Plate set and wielding the dragon killing blade Yusaris
Leliana is wearing the Wade's Superior Drakescale armor, and the Lion's Paw boots, wielding Marjolaine's Recurve
Zevran is wearing Wade's Drakescale, wielding a crow dagger and "fang" which was my dear mum's before she got killed
Meatslayer (the dog) is wearing the Pure ***** braid and the Kaddis of the Lady of the Skies
and Shale is wearing some brilliant large fire crystals and some brilliant small lightning crystals in the first pic, brilliant large spirit crystals and brilliant small ice crystals in the 2nd pic


It's sad because I had like 3 other unique heavy armor sets and i dont have any strong folks to put them on, even though I could have had Wynne wearing one since she's got Arcane warrior specialization and Combat Magic (felt that she was better off with less fatigue)

[redsniper]

If I loved NWN will I like this?

[gevatter Lars]

Weird. On another forum, the board consensus was that mages were way the hell overpowered (some said something about a Morrigan/Wynne combo making everything easy), with no mentions of friendly fire problems at all. These people were playing at normal and up. *shrug*

For myself, my initial experience with mages--letting the AI run that tower mage guy at Ostagar--was about as negative as it could be. I. ****ing. Hate. Burning. Hands (or whatever they called it). However, I then tried driving Morrigan and letting the AI run my rogue and the rest of the party, and discovered I can put out a hell of a lot of (no friendly fire) damage with her, much more than the AI does. I think because I burn through mana a lot faster than the AI is willing to.

Did you looked into a PC forum or console? As far as I know the friendly-fire has been dissabled on the consoles completly. So yes on a console the mage is pretty devestating. Still you can make use of the area effect spells without harming your party.
I just completed the game with a human mage and it needs a bit of managing the group but worked well for me. Also on normal the AI was sometimes stupid as hell.
I told the group to wait, then walked forward alone, casted lighningstorm (or whats its called in english and run way. AI didn't followed me and there you go. Nice BBC ^_^
Also a idea is to use the icestorm (guess that the english name) to freeze your enemy in a position, then to whatever you want.
Last but not least my favorite.
A room full of evil guys, open the door to look into the room and close the door again. If no one follows you, cast a storm/whatever into the room. Wait a bit then come in an collect the loot.

Something more general about the game.
I have never been a fan of fantasy RPGs or RPGs in general. Still this game entertained me a lot. Enough to spend 70 hours of my life playing it and now I am still interested in seeing one or two different variants of the ending.
A realy fun game and even understandable/playable for someone who don't has any big experiance with RPGs.

[NGTM-1R]

I do find necrophilia disturbing, yes. The fact that you don't scares me....

One oblique reference is enough to bother you? Get some intestinal fortitude man. This is the same game where you end up spattered in ridiculous amounts of blood in every melee combat. Hell, you meet one of your potentional love interests when she's spattered in a ridiculous amount of blood, and it helpfully zooms in for the conversation.