About the revenant: first time he wooped my ass so hard, that on a second try i decided to explore the area first with my stealthed rogue.

I stumbled upon the lever to open the front gates, which turned out to be an excellent option: the knights kept the revenant busy while i cleared the rest of the skeletons and such. Then i could focus all my attention on the revenant, while most of the knights were still fighting him, drawing his attention.

I've done most things the sneaky way

I'm still playing this game... I may be the only one. Still playing with my blood mage / arcane warrior, who, by the way, is a total badass. I did the Brecillian forest fairly recently and decided to side with the werewolves... wiped those pansy elves the hell out. Even better, no-one is really made about it. Zevran was a little less than pleased, but a few shiny trinkets put him back in his place. I guess it helps I let slept with him too.

So anyway, I'm back in Denerim with the Arl. I'm basically trying to power through the remainder of the game before my new box gets built. We'll see how that goes.

Hehe, I'm still playing it you whore, just slowly. And Awakening is right around the corner, too, but I'm gonna wait and see how that pans out.

On a related note: are you going to reinstall all your steam games on your new box or gonna copy the folder to the new PC? Also, don't forget to make backups of your saves this time, so you can benefit from them when the sequels come out (cfr ME2). Would be a shame to lose your Dalish rogue.

yea, I plan on reinstalling my games on the new box. Well, maybe not Dragon Age... after this run I'm through with the original. I know where all the save information is and plan on copying that over.

BTW, totally pwnt the old hag (I'm sure you know who I mean), though had a bit of a hard time with the urn dragon. I ended up getting whittled down to just my main standing before I managed to DoT him to death.

Heh, yeah, the High Dragon is many times tougher than the old bag, mainly cause he moves around more and switches targets. What's your Armor Class if I may ask? Kind curious what an arcane warrior mage would be like AC-wise.

I dunno... my chick is wearing the blood armor (free DLC) and using Branka's shield. So whatever that gives her. :p Oh, plus she uses the arcane armor spell, so add that bonus on top. Then add shale in 'heart' mode into the mix. My chick gets hit a lot, but takes very little damage. Also her con is somewhere in the mid 30s, I think.

However, blood magic is over-rated. The problem is you can't get healed for crap. The blood magic spell to leach your friends' health is woefully underpowered... it barely budges my health bar. And the negative to healing spells is great. The way I end up using it is to turn it on, case the blood wound or whatever, then turn it right back off again. That's a great spell, though.

I also made Morrigan a blood mage, but rarely use it. Spamming blood wound would probably be awesome. BTW, I've picked up a pretty killer spell combination... I can wipe out rooms of bad guys. Having 3 mages helps.

1 - Morrigan - casts blizzard
2 - Satisia - casts blood wound to anchor people in place
3 - Wynne - casts grease to keep people from running away
4 - Satisia - turns off blood power, turns on spell might, then casts tempest... this stacks with blizzard for 'storm of the century'
5 - Wynne - casts death cloud

5 is usually overkill, but if there's an especially tough adversary, it'll fell his ass. This only works when there's like a room full of baddies that haven't been alerted to me. Otherwise it's hard to pull off the necessary spells before I have guys in melee on me. I wiped out whole rooms of people in the bastard Arl's house in Denerim this way.

Hehehe, you forget to throw a little fire in there to set the grease on fire! Or maybe the lightning spells do that.

You should play the expansion (if you get around to it) on hard bro. It might make your first run (with your 'main main') more memorable and challenging, now that you're pwning like crazy. And if I can do it without any prior knowledge of the new skill system and no healing spells whatsoever, anyone can.

expansion? You mean return to ostagar?

True on the fire, but I actually don't have anyone with fire spells. Besides, tempest and blizzard can be cast through walls... if I put fireball on top of that, I'd have to position someone where they could see what they were shooting. I guess if i gave wynne fireball she could cast the grease, then the fireball.

Oh...blizzard actually puts grease fires out. I don't know about storms of the century, though.

I meant DA: Awakening

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47730/

It's very near now, and a 'full' expansion. Still, for that price I might sit it out for the first month...it'll depend on what the critical reception is I suppose. Otoh, I liked DA so much that I might just buy it regardless and shrug some of that cheapness halo I'm carrying off.

You could always use the 4th tier fire spell (column of fire or something) to remotely set grease on fire - unlike a fireball it's not a projectile, just an area of effect like blizzard and lightning storm. If you had it, that is.

yea, I could use that, but none of my casters have any fire spells, so it would require 4 consecutive skill points or whatever. That's not likely to happen at my level.. I think I already picked up all the books.

Here's a video of me doing my stacking spells thing to wipe out a small room of peeps.
http://clankiller.com/stuff/DAOriginSatania.wmv (5MB)

And here's a pic of my character's attributes and shit.

/me doesn't mention Sten taking damage

It's kinda funny to see a fully armored character do the mage animations, you know, the whole fluid cabalistic movements thing. Fun times. I did a lot of that myself in my first game, only it was all Morrigan who did it. Blizzard - pause- Tempest- pause Column of Fire and perhaps a fireball or chain lightning in there for good measure. Also made use of Shale's ranged, very handy. Where is he btw? Didn't fit your party?

I'll try to post pics of Rinox this weekend.

Unfortunately you can't bring Shale into that area. Normally he's part of my party, though.

aight, I finished today. So that's 3 runs for me

1 - Satis - Dalish Elf - Rogue - ranger / assassin I believe
2 - Saliva - Dwarf Noble - Fighter - champion / reaper
3 - Satania - human - Mage - blood mage / arcane warrior

Now I wait for the expansion. I'm definitely done playing Origins... 3 runs is probably 1 too many, at least in the time span I did them in. Still, twas fun.

heh, I'm pretty amazed that you found the time to play three full characters with your work, classes and social life. And sex. You must have liked the game even more than I did! And I LOVED it. Every time I replay the game I'm awed by the skill and craftsmanship that went into it all - the music in particular complements the game so so well. That cutscene of the Battle at Ostagar is just straight up LOTR cinematic sex. And the characters are so great.

Who were your favorite characters overall, after playing the game a few times? I mean personality-wise, but I suppose their qualities as an NPC might seep through into your personal liking. And how'd you like Shale? He made me laugh a few times, which is rare for a game.

And yes I'm still playing my second character. She's so freaking twisted...and her facial expression matches it so well. I'll post a pic some time.

EDIT: oh and what's more, it feels like a PC game. A real, old school, smoothly controlled PC game. That's not exactly the feeling I get when playing ME2 (even if it IS a brilliant game apart from that)

Yea, it's definitely a good game. Regarding the characters, I like a few of them. I think Leliana, Zevran, Shale, and Allistair are very well fleshed out. Morrigan too, I suppose. Not so big on Sten (but he's kinda quiet), or Wynne (she's kinda bossy). Ohgren is pretty one dimensional. Same with Dog, but I suppose that's to be expected. I think my favorite character overall is Leliana. Even if she is a bible thumper.