Dragon Age: Origins, Archery, Multi-Classing, etc... Options

[SubRosa]

Because I only see a topic for DA2, but not the first game. I have made some discoveries while playing, and thought I would share for the benefit of others who might try playing the game, especially as an archer.

I bought DA:O over a year ago, tried it with a Dalish Rogue/Archer, and didn't like it because my character felt useless. I tried the game again a few weeks ago as a Mage, and have been enjoying it. I have tried out a sword and board warrior, and a dual-wielding rogue long enough to play their Origins as well. Then I tried a Dalish archer again, and the blah came right back.

I have done some digging, and found that archery is really nerfed in this game, at least at the low levels.

If you are going with a Rogue archer you are going to want a high Cunning, since your talents depend on it. But that means you have to spread your points between Strength and Dexterity if you want to hit, and Cunning as well for your talents. I believe that ranged attacks are supposed to be dependent upon Dex only, but that is now how it actually works. It is the same as melee attacks, you get a bonus of 0.5 for every point of Strength and Dexterity over 10. I tried experimenting on leveling up, and saw how adding strength raised my ranged attack stat.

The Lethality talent is supposed to fix that, by making Cunning replace Strength. So I experimented by adding it through the console. It did nothing to my attack value. So either it is broken, or it modifies only bow damage, not attacks. I spent a lot of time looking at the attack value because my starting archer was missing more than she was hitting. A typical battle might have her fire 8 shots, and 5 would miss. And that was with an Attack of 60. Pretty abysmal, and the reason why I got so disappointed with the game my first time out.

Backstabs do not work with a bow either, which makes the Rogue archer even less viable.

Then I found This page on Efficient Archery. It all boils down to not using your archer talents because they slow down your attack speed considerably. Instead you need to concentrate upon high attack speed, and critical hits. Of course the one talent that improves your attack speed - Rapid Shot - also makes it impossible to critically hit. So it is useless. (however, there is a bug with the Pinpoint Strike, Stealth, and Death Hex talents that allow critical hits with Rapid Shot. Apparently every normal hit becomes a critical, and every critical becomes a normal hit). Just to make things even more interesting, every character in the game has a 3% base chance for a critical hit. Except the player character, who has none. So unless the PC is using a weapon or talent that adds a critical hit bonus, you cannot get any criticals at all. Thankfully I found this mod to fix that bug.


To enable the command console, do the following:

First go to your Dragon Age Origins\Data folder and find the DAOriginsLauncher.xml file.

Search it for the following line:
<true action="execute" file="${BINARIES_DIR}\DAOrigins.exe" path="${BINARIES_DIR}" autoquit="true" />

replace the entire line with this:
<true action="execute" file="${BINARIES_DIR}\DAOrigins.exe" path="${BINARIES_DIR}" arguments="-enabledeveloperconsole;" autoquit="true" />


Next go to your {User Name}\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings folder and find the KeyBindings.ini file

Find the lines (probably at the botton) that say

OpenConsole_0=(UNASSIGNED)
OpenConsole_1=(UNASSIGNED)

and change them to this:

OpenConsole_0=Keyboard::Button_Tilde
OpenConsole_1=Keyboard::Button_Tilde


I did some experimenting, and used the Console to change her from a Rogue to a Warrior. Her Attack instantly went from 60 to over 70, and the missed shots went down considerably. But I was hoping for your basic stealthy, bow using, lockpicking kind of character. Then I found out how to create a multi-classed character with the console (toward the bottom of that same page above). You can use the console to add all the talent trees from Rogue to the Warrior, and vice-versa, including the specializations like Bard or Assassin. It only matters what class you "officially" are because that is what determines your starting stats, base attack (Warrior is 60, Rogue 55) and how much health, stamina, etc... you get per level.

Multi-classing a mage is a bit tricker. The way the game is made Mages cannot use talents, and Warriors/Rogues cannot use spells. So you can use the console to add the Core Mage class, but it has no effect. However, you can still start with a Warrior or Rogue and use the console to add individual spells. They do not show up in your character sheet. But they do show up in the quick button bar at the bottom of the screen. You can move them around to different slots there as normal. They work just fine too, and use your stamina instead of magicka. I have not tried it, but you are supposed to be able to start with a Mage and do the same with Warrior and Rogue talents as well.

So you can create a mage who can pick locks and disarm traps, or a rogue who can cast spells, etc... I am going to play my newest character Banba as a hybrid of all three this way, using the Warrior as a base for the better health and to hit scores. I have already added the stealth, lockpicking, and dirty fighting talent trees. I found the first Dirty Fighting talent is handy for enemies that close to melee. A swift kick in the nards stuns them, without having to equip a shield or melee weapon. I doubt I will use any of the other talents in that tree though. I might specialize her as a ranger or a bard. I don't see her needing a lot of magic, but I expect to use some glyph spells, and maybe healing ones as well.

Finally, I just did some modding, and changed the Aim and Defensive Fire talents to remove their attack speed penalties. That should help make an archer more viable, hopefully without having to go through all of the acrobatic exploits listed on the Efficient Archery page. When I was going through the script file (talent_modal.ncs), I did not see any other archer talents that added a speed penalty. So either those two are it, or they are in a different file. Edit: Pinning Shot, Critical Shot, and Crippling Shot are in a different file - talent_singletarget.ncs - and they do slow down the attack speed as well. But when I looked in the script file, I did not see anything adding the slowdown. So back to the drawing board. Also, I see Arrow of Slaying is in talent_arrow_slaying.ncs, and Scattershot is in talent_scattershot.ncs. But I have not had time to look at those.

I am also using this mod that improves the stats of bows a little bit, but not overpoweringly so.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 27 2020, 10:37 AM