DA:O Stingy, stingy game-very mild spoilers

I find low loot refreshing. I admit, I occasionally get a bit frustrated when I'd really like some nice bit of armour (I'm still in my Dalish armour) or something. But if it's a choice between this and the ridiculous amount of loot in most RPGs most notably Mass Effect then I'll take this any day.

I just wish there were more inventory slots - I know you can buy them, but I need moar! Moar!

Limited inventory is just another aspect forcing player to make decisions.
Even with 125 slots, when in dungeons I have to constantly evaluate what item keep and what not. I consider this a good thing.

You get special items from special places. Superb items do not drop randomly in Dragon Age - they are either quest or boss related, just like in Baldur's Gate 2. Some are even located at vendors for a lot of gold (the most expensive being a very good 1H axe costing 148 gold or so).

You'll get good armor sets of every kind, don't worry, ranging from drake leather to various awesome looking plate armor sets (i.e the ones you get in Watcher's Keep/the Revenants in the forest).

You'll also get special weapons of every kind, if you know where to look.

What makes daggers like Thorn so good is the + damage stat. It applies the extra damage to BOTH equipped weapons. What's kind of weak, however, is the best sword that I found came from the Warden's Keep (the meteor sword), the 2nd best heavy armor came from the Warden's Keep, and the 2nd best dagger came from the bonus DLC (the Edge, with it's ridiculous stats, but is close to the super expensive dagger you can buy). I don't mind if the DLC equipment is useful, but it shouldn't be fantastic, and the bonus loot DLC shouldn't be more than minor at all. It's kind of cheesy.

And there are a few decent loots I've found from locked chests, but not many.

PulpExposure said:

What makes daggers like Thorn so good is the + damage stat. It applies the extra damage to BOTH equipped weapons.

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That's good to know. Are you sure about that?

xSamhainx said:

That's good to know. Are you sure about that?

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Yeah. It's easy to check; replace your dual wield dagger with a dagger or weapon that says + damage, and you'll see the damage stat on the character screen raise for both weapons.

I don't know if I would consider that to be "good" since it's obviously a bug.

JDR13 said:

I don't know if I would consider that to be "good" since it's obviously a bug.

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Why is it a bug? Say you have + strength on weapon, the damage bonus you get applies to both weapons but that's not considered a bug.

lostforever said:

Why is it a bug? Say you have + strength on weapon, the damage bonus you get applies to both weapons but that's not considered a bug.

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Why would the + damage from the dagger be applied to both weapons?

he's thinking about it in terms of that number applying to the total damage output of your character, as opposed to output per item. Dont think of it like the weapon itself is doing +bonus damage individually, it's not. It's granting your character itself an overall damage bonus when wielded, like if you were wearing a belt of +4 damage.

I just did an experiment on the whole thing, and it turns out that he's right. Wielding a run of the mill set of enchanted daggers (4.40 dmg) gives me 12.4/12.4 damage. Arming the Thorn of Dead Gods which is still 4.40 base damage, but adds a +2 damage bonus, takes it up to 14.4/14.4.

Both weapons, otherwise identical in damage output, got the bonus damage. I wouldnt consider it a bug tho, when you think in terms of other bonuses as well. Think of +attack, for instance. You have one attack number, your character doesnt flip between two sets of attack numbers depending on what hand theyre swinging with. Let's take the same enchanted daggers from earlier, they both have +4 to attack, replace one w/ ToDG and I go from 85 attack to 81 total, since it doesnt have a bonus to attack. Same concept

Um, Samhain, may I ask why you use daggers for both hands instead of a sword/axe for your main hand?

Two daggers attack a bit faster and if you have high dex (and have the unofficial dex patch) daggers may actually have higher damage as well.

Hm. According to my character stats page, though, the damage I "officially" deal with my axe, is quite a bit higher than what I deal with my dagger. (Both of them heavily enchanted, of course.)

I have the speed talent too, plus I intend getting the speed spell, so I'm wondering how much I would actually stand to gain if I gave up the extra damage my axe deals for a bit of additional speed?
Now, when I do dual weapon sweeps, are you saying my main hand is slowing down my dagger hand?

And here I was, looking forward so much to my next level up, where I would gain the talent allowing me to use a main hand weapon in each hand...

well, right now I'm equippped w/ ToDG & The Edge, both daggers of course, for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I play rpgs as I want to. I dont necessarily go for the optimized, number-crunched best character or party that I can make. Sure, I'm keeping my eye on the numbers, it's required to some degree, but at the end of the day i'm going with what makes me happy and/or fit's the "role" im playing. I go with what feels right. In this case, i want a shifty-eyed, poison brewing, trap laying, lockpicking, backstabber rogue, and as such I see her using daggers.

As the primary trap-spotter & lock-picker, I need a really high cunning - not strength. Cunning will add to my damage instead of str w/ lethality talent, since i'm already gonna be cranking it up. I'm not ignoring str, I know that I need it for equipment, so it's sitting at 20 until i find a reason to raise it. When it comes to poisons, I'm going for high armor penetration as well (cunning) for heavily armored opponents, to get it in their bloodstream asap. Im focusing more on crits, backstabs, etc than full frontal assault stuff, and the crit rate in daggers is way better than axes.

maybe later I'll have to go swords or something, I dont know, if I start finding myself totally outclassed i may have no choice. As it stands now, I'm happy w/ the dagger thing.

RivianWitch said:

Now, when I do dual weapon sweeps, are you saying my main hand is slowing down my dagger hand?

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Yes, it's an average of the two weapon speeds. Also note that there is a bug with daggers: they're supposed to get 50/50 from str and dex but they only get the str part now (that's what the dex patch is about)

There is a very helpful thread on the bioware forum about the calcs.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/66/index/223777

xSamhainx said:

Wielding a run of the mill set of enchanted daggers (4.40 dmg) gives me 12.4/12.4 damage. Arming the Thorn of Dead Gods which is still 4.40 base damage, but adds a +2 damage bonus, takes it up to 14.4/14.4.

Both weapons, otherwise identical in damage output, got the bonus damage. I wouldnt consider it a bug tho, when you think in terms of other bonuses as well. Think of +attack, for instance. You have one attack number, your character doesnt flip between two sets of attack numbers depending on what hand theyre swinging with.

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Still don't quite understand. Shouldn't it be 12.4/14.4? Why can't they differentiate between the two weapons? Sounds like a bit of laziness to me.

Because it makes you better at attacking. The stat doesn't make the weapon better at attacking, it's just a piece of steel. It's enchanted to make your attacks better. If you had a head-butt attack it would raise it two points as well. At least, that's my 2¢.

crpgnut said:

Because it makes you better at attacking. The stat doesn't make the weapon better at attacking, it's just a piece of steel. It's enchanted to make your attacks better. If you had a head-butt attack it would raise it two points as well. At least, that's my 2¢.

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Like he said - it gives you +2 damage to your attacks. Dont consider it a +2 on that individual weapon, it's just like if you had a necklace w/ +2 damage to it. Youre not taking off the necklace and flogging someone w/ it, it's bestowing a +2 modifier on all your attacks.