Finished Landsmeet in Dragon Age. Apparently there's very little game left after this. I have clocked 55 hours.
I'm a dwarf noble rogue who specializes in bows and poisons. Grenades (part of the poison tree) are my main source of offense. The only things that outdamage them are the stamina->0 final blow abilities that Shale and Oghren have. They're cheap and easy to make, especially since dwarf nobles get a merchant who pays double gold for your vendor trash, components are plentiful (infinite in the case of the acid ones), and they have a radius that can hit an entire cluster of melee enemies. They cool down individually so you can spam all 5 types in rapid succession. They're also fixed damage and can't be dodged, meaning defense/evade over HP bosses (there are many of these) fear them greatly. All in all an incredible weapon, the only drawback is short range. Apparently thedans don't have great throwing arms. Wish I'd gone melee though, since the crazy range of bows means that sometimes, when I want to bomb something, I have to walk for 5 seconds to get in range.
Core party is Oghren, Dog, Wynne. Before level 18 I used Shale instead of the dog.
Characters:
Alistair's a cool guy. He fights darkspawn and isn't afraid of anything. His wisecracks are funny. He has a bit of Dark Troubled Past issues but he's less obnoxious about them than bioware characters who follow that mold like Valygar and Carth. I guess it's because he either puts them forward in a funny and charming way or just gets royally pissed, instead of going into brooding emo mode. I really don't like him as a PC though. Early he's your only fighter, but... not enough damage, no crowd control, can pull aggro on himself but doesn't have enough HP to really tank the onslaught. Giving him blood dragon plate or something can salvage him when the plot forces him, but when I have a choice of PCs give me Oghren or Sten any day.
Morrigan is a cartoonishly evil bitch who is far less developed and believable than any evil PC in say BGs or KOTOR, and not that good a PC. Mages can't really be shitty, but she tries with all those misspent points. Has a really stupid part in the ending from what I hear.
Sten is a deadpan badass warrior type in a game which features meeplish walls of text. The schtick can be amusing sometimes but usually I just find him kind of boring and there. As a PC he's functional but not outstanding: Solid durability and damage, can stun, eventually learns how to sweep groups and do decent stat downs.
The dog is a distinct character despite being, well, an ostensibly ordinary war dog who just barks, growls, and whimpers. It's clear that he's actually fairly intelligent from both his amusing party "banter" and his reactions to things in the main plot. As a PC he's a bit strange. He's a fighter type with good starting techs (MT stun and a really hard hit), and his ultimates are killer, but he learns talents very slowly and the middle ones kind of blow. So he gets used when you first get him, phased out as your party fills out until the slightly nerfed experience gain for benched PCs catches him up to where he can max out both his talent lines, then he's a top tier PC. Overwhelm is practically ID in a game where real ID doesn't exist, he gets a big stat boost from the other one that makes his stats competitive, and he still has the stunning shenanigans. Also he'd probably be the best PC in the DL. Overwhelm -> Charge -> Dread Howl -> Shred -> Physical should kill pretty much any PC who isn't melee immune, status blockers which stop that chain pretty much only exist in Tri-Ace games, and decent durability/damage + high evade and status resistance + some unique elemetal resistors would make him a good spoiling slugfester.
Shale is HK-47 fattened, reskinned, and shoehorned into a setting where he doesn't fit. She's still well-written and enjoyable, if one-note, though. All PCs have thir own unique quests but Shale's is the only one that's sort of interesting, which is a plus. As a PC Shale dominates much of the game. She's really tough, and can do an almost perfect job of making enemies attack her. She has TWO MT stun techniques, one of which does decent damage. Her physicals are okay, and in a pinch she can sacrifice that tanking and stunning for a couple bursts of sick offense. Endgame though the dog catches up by getting actual decent stats and having a better statusin' game to make up for the relative lack of tanking, so here I benched Shale... still, Shale is quite arguably the MVP. She's just too good for the ~80% of the time you have her, and still usable at the end.
Leilana has an annoying accent and I never used her in combat. She's a rogue (my class) and a badly built one. Whatever.
Zevran is the rogue PC I'd consider using. Actually he might have had a better build than my guy, with a specialty in dual weapons instead of bows and the same focus on poisons - bows are fine in a vacuum but don't mix well with the godly poison line. Anywho, he's a pretty boy elf with a latino accent who is flamboyantly queer. It's not implied either, you can actually bone him as a male PC. I gotta say, he's not that bad a choice to go gay for. No homo.
Wynne is cool. A prim, proper, and good-hearted old lady with a bit of a perverse streak. Bit long winded at times though. Would have been a much better romance option than either Morrigan or that other rogue bitch, she even looks alright for a gray haired crone and seems to lack the nasty teeth everyone else has. In combat, if Shale's not the MVP, Wynne is. She's the only specialized healer in a game where potions aren't very good, and while her offense starts out like crap, you can fix that easily. All Morrigan is really good for is ST nuking and status, and 5 or so levels for Wynne make her just as good at those things. A single point in say Ice, max out the right spirit or entropy line, and you're done.
Oghren is a dwarf/dwarf fighter. He likes ale, gold, and wenches. A bit less amoral and cruel than someone like Korgan, but otherwise similar. An interesting case gameplaywise... in combat he's quite impressive. Gamebest damage with a solid 2 hander I'm pretty sure, with the same skillset as Sten (stuns, stat breaks, late MT) and some regen thrown on top, and good durability thanks to his ability to wear massive armor. Runs out of gas quickly but his basic physicals are so good that you rarely care. His REAL drawback is that simply having him around denies you choices in quests. You see, many quests, including important plot related ones, have multiple choices, and any given choice will piss somebody in your party off. But while most party members will keep their mouths shut or maybe lightly grouse if you pick an option they don't like, and give you a slight influence penalty, Oghren will mouth off before you get the chance to pick, and shunt you on a certain path by offending who you're talking to. For instance, there's a part of the main plot where you have to decide what to do with a powerful healing artifact: save a sick knight commander from death so he lends his army to your cause, or bribe a great dragon for her help. When you talk to the dragon cultists to decide what to do, Oghren starts flapping his jaws about you can't pass up an opportunity to slay a dragon in glorious combat, and tough shit for you cultists, maybe we'll leave you a wing or something - I'm not even paraphrasing here. Cult flips shit, and you're stuck on the knight's path. Things like that piss me off, but he's amusing when he goes off like that so I put up with it this playthrough.
That's all of them.
The gameplay design reminds me of BG1 more than anything. Mages aren't dominant enough, in number, power or versatility, for a BG2 comparison to really hold... BG1 and DA focus more on tough, gritty physical combat. Fighter have more tricks up their sleeve in DA though. Wilderness crawling and dungeon crawling also feature heavily, as opposed to the highly urban setting of much of BG2. DA's a lot more polished though. Less dense, ridiculously presented rules, less cheesy exploits, and such.
Great game, all told. Long, challenging but not ball breaking, good writing, bland but inoffensive setting, fun gameplay.
