Dragon Age--Trades

[cyrano]

Last session I traded in my dog for a crazy Joan of Arc. Today I traded crazy Joan for a homicidal murderer.
See, Leilana had this thing where she kept dashing off into the thick of combat and getting herself corpsified. I tinkered with her tactics, and I checked in with her frequently. The way to keep her alive was to ride shotgun constantly, which I wasn't prepared for just yet.
I finally figured out where the Chantry board missions were located, and that in fact I'd already completed one of them. Yay! And I explored camp and talked to *everybody* although Morrigan is still all frosty. I'd hoped that doing the one thing that she'd insisted we do (no, not throwing Alastair to the bears, finding a way to get Sten out of the cage) would make her a little happier. But if she was, it wasn't happier with me.
I think I'm ready to leave Lothing now.

EDIT Oh yeah, I also hit level seven (Why is everybody in the party a higher level than I? Even the *dog*!) and discovered that you have to do something *besides* hit level seven to take a prestige class.

Comments

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

If you set Leli up with a bow and want to keep her from running in where she's about to get squished, go into tactics and select "ranged" from the behavior menu at the top.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I think I tried that, although it may have been the fight where she got mauled by dogs. I'll give that another shot if I rotate her back in.

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

That's the tactic we used, yup

[tersa.livejournal.com]

The first time you play the game, you have to 'unlock' the prestige classes. Some of them, you can learn from other party members; some require certain interactions with NPCs you haven't reached yet.

For where you're at in the game:

Warrior - Templar - Alistair
Rogue - Bard - Leliana
Mage - Shapeshifter - Morrigan

I think there are three more prestige classes you pick up from party members (one more for each class). The rest are from NPCs.

FWIW, you don't *have* to spend the specialization points as soon as they become available. If there's a certain prestige class you don't want to get for your character(s), you can just save them until later.

Once you've unlocked them with one character, they'll "automatically" be unlocked for any subsequent characters you play. So if you were to play a 2nd character, it'll be unlocked already when you hit Level 7.

Even after nearly three full run throughs, I haven't unlocked two of the prestige classes, though, as they require evil acts (with other game ramifications) to do. My mage character's purpose is to do all those. >:)

---

Also also, not every act you do that a character suggests (or voices disapproval of) results in an Approval change. As you've found out. Be thankful for those.

And don't worry too much about their Approval right now. You're pretty early in the game, still in Lothering, and there will be LOTS of opportunity later to max out everyone's Approval throughout game play.

Also also also, as a hint, the Gifts you pick up, some of them are NPC unique (meaning you can only give them to one NPC--the other NPCs will refuse them); some are NPC-specific (meaning that although you can give them to any NPC, giving them to one NPC specifically will get you a bigger Approval boost), and some are NPC-generic.

Finding that out made the second run through much easier. :P

If you want me to generate a list of the NPC-specific gifts for the potential NPCs you'll pick up, I can do that so you won't be spoiled by the FAQ. I can either break it down by NPC, or just give you the match-up for the NPCs you have so far and leave the rest generic until you pick the characters up. Let me know.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Since you're playing a Rogue, my advice would be to leave Leliana back at camp keeping the stew hot. You don't need two in the party.

It's more advisable to keep two tanks, one rogue, and one mage.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the main reason to bring her out would be (a) bardy stuff or (b) to hear her talk crazy. (She's got an... odd accent. At first I thought it was French, but now I think it's some variation of toff that I'm not familiar with.)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I'm not terribly enthused by any of the prestige classes offered to me; although, you, know, wtf, free ability goodies, I guess.

I don't know whether it was in the instruction booklet or not, but I knew that some gifts were very specific to one character. I'm hoping it's not too much of a puzzler to figure out who gets what. (I'm gonna give Sten the bone--there's a lot of good meat on that.)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh also. I'm assuming that you have to get friendly with the NPCs to get them to teach you stuff, as the option didn't seem to present itself in camp.

(Also also, I can't imagine they thought I'd use this point right away, given how unfeasible my options are to complete at this point.)

[simonepdx.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, you have to have high approval from the characters to get them to tell you about their prestige classes.

You also have to be the right class to start with to take advantage of any given one.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're mostly good for the stat bonuses they give just for purchasing them, although some of the skills are neat. And one advantage to unlocking them is they make them available for the NPCs to buy.

If you read the NPC codex entries, I believe there are clues in the last paragraph of the types of stuff they tend to like. If you can match those up with the item descriptions...it's not hard. Some of them made me go 'Bwah?' though.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I have some suspicions about "Alastair's Mother's Amulet".

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

And oh! I managed to get Morrigan up to a negative 26 with a nice bottle of wine.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yeah. That one's a unique Gift, though. The unique gifts tend to be hella obvious. (I was just trying to edit my comment to say as such, because I'm a doofus :).

Outside of stuff like that, or the fact that you can't give the items to other party members, they also tend to get brought up in dialogue if you're friendly enough with the NPC (although on my first play through, amusingly enough for one of the NPCs, his unique gift items came up in dialogue after I gave the items to him, both times. :P)

My suggestion was for the NPC-specific gifts, though. :)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Damn. I think -26 is better than I ever did! :)

But, really, she (and Sten) are really tough nuts to crack at the beginning of the game. They tend to slide into negative until you can start finding their gifts and getting them to warm up to you. The rest of the characters tend to hover around neutral or positive.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

So she's not just about to leave the party? I saw the -28 and was panicked. Good. I think Sten's only at a -2 right now.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Erm. Well, she might. But I think the slider goes down to -50. You should start finding her gifts soon, though.

(I'm off to bed now, really and truly. Will be around IM tomorrow.)

[aleaxiactaxest.livejournal.com]

I think she's meant to be the in-game equivalent of the French. Later you find the in-game Italians, the contrast is kind of amusing ;)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain now whether I can't wait or I don't want to think about it. (: