WRPG builds

[VoidWanderer]

Depends on the setting and ruleset.

Sometimes I will, but if it is 3.5e I have a build in mind for

2-handed weapon fighter
Cleric - Anti-undead build
Sorceror of Draconic Lineage
Monk
Ranged build Ranger with High Strength
Elven Rogue
Dread Necromancer
Warlock
Dragon Shaman

and I am working on the other classes.

 

[The Harkinator]

I dislike DA:O and its stat building, like how you need to choose almost all of the stats anyway. For a warrior, you need Strength (1st Skill) then Constitution (2nd Skill) then you need lots of willpower (3rd Skill) but the game requires you to put points into Dexterity if you are a sword/shield warrior (get up to 26 points to be effective) then you need points in cunning if you want to roleplay a persuasive and charming character. Thats 5/6 skills you need to put points into if you want to play as a sword/shield warrior and actually roleplay.

Funnily, I really liked DA:O as a game. I think it's an absolute blast, but I totally agree with you in that a lot of things are just badly explained.

See, interestingly, I actually think you're meant to be taking a highish dexterity as a shield warrior. Heck, I found it was more the other way around in that you only want enough strength to be wearing the best armour you can find and pump the rest into dexterity. The reason being, dexterity increases your defence score which makes you harder to hit and improves your overall damage mitigation.

Cunning is another weird stat. I remember when I started playing rogue (my favourite class in the dragon age series) and I figured I'd need loads of dexterity. It makes sense right? Dexterity is the big thing for rogues ever since D&D. Well, wrong.. half a playthrough in and I suddenly realized I should have been pumping just about every point I had into cunning because there's nothing dexterity can do which cunning can't do better.

I love that game for it's story and it's combat system, but numbers are so screwed up. A two handed warrior can out-tank a shield user any day. There's one particular spell (mana clash) which is effectively equivalent to turning the difficulty level down all by itself. Half the mage specialities focus on physically hitting things, which wouldn't be bad but they're not even compatible. There's one ability (arrow of slaying) which calculates its damage based on the difference in level between you in the enemy, and not in a nice linear curve, but using completely random numbers picked out of nowhere. It just.. doesn't make sense.

Everyone said the game was really hard. I'm pretty sure most of that is just because it's just really, really unintuitive.

Don't get me wrong, I very much like DA:O (completed it 5 times) especially love the story, or at least, until you complete the Landsmeet. Loghain was a much more interesting villain than the Archdemon.

Mana clash is probably the only spell a mage needs. I came to know it (on my mage playthrough) as the instakill button. It does ruin fights sometimes though. Whenever a mage appears and goes through the 'Im so ancient and powerful' routine it ruins any dramatic tension to press one button and win.

You are also right about 'Arrow of Slaying' being completely illogical. I never used an archer rogue as a main character but I occasionally had Leliana (a character I didn't realise was an archer until killing Marjolane and getting the high power bow) in my party. Whenever I used arrow of slaying it either did almost no damage or was another instakill button. The highest damage I have ever achieved with one attack is with Leliana getting 2,287 damage with one shot.

The numbers, they never make sense.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Mana clash is probably the only spell a mage needs. I came to know it (on my mage playthrough) as the instakill button. It does ruin fights sometimes though. Whenever a mage appears and goes through the 'Im so ancient and powerful' routine it ruins any dramatic tension to press one button and win.

Yeah, going completely off-topic here, but what were they even thinking with that spell? Depending on the enemy you use it on, it either does nothing or removes them as a threat completely. Key-and-lock design at its absolute worst. Although, in general, Dragon Age: Origins had some terrible spell concepts - how did they not get that removing people from the fight (Crushing Prison, that barrier spell I forget the name of, glyph of paralysis, paralysis explosion, and sleep) is incredibly powerful, and that abilities that remove people from the fight should be balanced somehow? But Walking Bomb is awesome, so there's that.

 

[The Harkinator]

Mana clash is probably the only spell a mage needs. I came to know it (on my mage playthrough) as the instakill button. It does ruin fights sometimes though. Whenever a mage appears and goes through the 'Im so ancient and powerful' routine it ruins any dramatic tension to press one button and win.

Yeah, going completely off-topic here, but what were they even thinking with that spell? Depending on the enemy you use it on, it either does nothing or removes them as a threat completely. Key-and-lock design at its absolute worst. Although, in general, Dragon Age: Origins had some terrible spell concepts - how did they not get that removing people from the fight (Crushing Prison, that barrier spell I forget the name of, glyph of paralysis, paralysis explosion, and sleep) is incredibly powerful, and that abilities that remove people from the fight should be balanced somehow? But Walking Bomb is awesome, so there's that.

Virulent Walking Bomb is better. But they should have made crushing prison and other paralysis spells ones that you had to maintain without getting hit, therefore making them harder to pull off and making the fight more tactical too as someone would need to defend the mage.

The glyphs are some of the best/worst spells in the game depending on which side you're on. That misdirection hex is really good too, especially against 2H warriors who are used to being big hitters. It works best against Boss enemies though.

Maybe they thought people would be distracted by all the boring fire, lightning, ice, earth attacks and forget the less straightforward stuff.

 

[Kahunaburger]

But, seriously, all it is is exchanging one form of grinding for another. Do you grind by making 100 knives, or grind by killing 100 wolves? Which one is more dull and repetitive to you, making the same dagger over and over, or killing the same mob over and over?

That's the thing - the alternative to TES-style grinding isn't fighting the same enemy over and over, it's fighting whatever enemies and performing whatever quests you feel like and getting XP. You know, actually playing the game.

Maybe they thought people would be distracted by all the boring fire, lightning, ice, earth attacks and forget the less straightforward stuff.

Yeah, I guess so. That might go a long way towards explaining why some people thought Dragon Age was hard when it had five kinds of "win fight" button.

 

[Moriim]

Like in Grimrock, DEX is basically useless for archers - arrows hit whatever they make contact with, and STR determines arrow damage. This actually makes sense in an IRL context (draw strength = penetration power) but there's not really anything in the game itself that tells you "hey, strength determines ranged weapon damage."

Whoa, I didn't even know this. I always wondered why my rogue did such crap for damage... Maybe I should go back and play it again, this time not wasting points in Fire Magic and having a rogue that actually is useful.

Welp, there goes my next few days.

OT: If the previous portion of this post wasn't clear enough, I don't usually research games unless I start having problems from the get-go.

 

[Wayneguard]

I researched every aspect of my character in Dragon Age: Origins before the game even came out. Any elder scrolls playthrough is always accompanied by hours of uesp searches. Yeah i tend to overresearch before I play.

 

[Terminal Blue]

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Pretty much in agreement here..

The first character I beat the game with was ridiculous. I took all the paralysis spells I could get my hands on, mana clash and death cloud and wore all the +spirit damage gear I could find. I also travelled with Morrigan full time, who was built quite similarly but with shock/frost damage instead (I discovered the storm of the century combo by accident).

That's also the last time I played a mage in Origins. The difficulty curve was just all wrong in that game. Granted, it was wrong when I played a rogue too, but at least I felt like I needed to babysit my character rather than just walking in and stunlocking everyone to death.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Nope, I go "I want this guy to be (insert vague class/weapon use here)" and use dynamic risk assessment for the rest.

 

[Vuliev]

I do it entirely cold turkey, and only change my build if it becomes near impossible to progress. Once I beat the game, I'll consider optimizing my loadout to streamline all the stat/skill points I've invested poorly.

Only characters I've had to respec have been my D2 Pally and Assassin.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

My first few characters, I generally figure it out as I go. I am generally pretty good at building a fairly good character on the fly as I go. Of course, it all depends on what I am going for in that game. I often don't care about making the best character and care more about making the one I want to play.
However, down the line, if I play a game long enough, I will learn more, do more research, and try out the "best" builds just for fun.

 

[Bostur]

I dislike DA:O and its stat building, like how you need to choose almost all of the stats anyway. For a warrior, you need Strength (1st Skill) then Constitution (2nd Skill) then you need lots of willpower (3rd Skill) but the game requires you to put points into Dexterity if you are a sword/shield warrior (get up to 26 points to be effective) then you need points in cunning if you want to roleplay a persuasive and charming character. Thats 5/6 skills you need to put points into if you want to play as a sword/shield warrior and actually roleplay.

Funnily, I really liked DA:O as a game. I think it's an absolute blast, but I totally agree with you in that a lot of things are just badly explained.

See, interestingly, I actually think you're meant to be taking a highish dexterity as a shield warrior. Heck, I found it was more the other way around in that you only want enough strength to be wearing the best armour you can find and pump the rest into dexterity. The reason being, dexterity increases your defence score which makes you harder to hit and improves your overall damage mitigation.

Cunning is another weird stat. I remember when I started playing rogue (my favourite class in the dragon age series) and I figured I'd need loads of dexterity. It makes sense right? Dexterity is the big thing for rogues ever since D&D. Well, wrong.. half a playthrough in and I suddenly realized I should have been pumping just about every point I had into cunning because there's nothing dexterity can do which cunning can't do better.

I love that game for it's story and it's combat system, but numbers are so screwed up. A two handed warrior can out-tank a shield user any day. There's one particular spell (mana clash) which is effectively equivalent to turning the difficulty level down all by itself. Half the mage specialities focus on physically hitting things, which wouldn't be bad but they're not even compatible. There's one ability (arrow of slaying) which calculates its damage based on the difference in level between you in the enemy, and not in a nice linear curve, but using completely random numbers picked out of nowhere. It just.. doesn't make sense.

Everyone said the game was really hard. I'm pretty sure most of that is just because it's just really, really unintuitive.

DA:O is one of my favorites but it did had a bad stat design. It suffered from some of the same bloated stat syndrome as some MMOs, where several stats do the same thing. Dexterity and Cunning being the best example, two stats that both contribute to dps. It leads to a situation where there is a best stat, and the player is left with the choice of doing it right or doing it wrong. That is the point where online communities usually start making spreadsheets for optimal builds.

Bioware never seemed big on balancing gameplay, I think they sometimes like to have more numbers and abilities than needed because they expect people to use them for roleplaying.

As I think of it, this is really the same 'flaw' as the TES games have.