Dragon's Dogma

Hey, I'm a super wimp on twitch games. I play on the easiest mode available. I also have no problem with modding out crap I don't like. I've modded out the carry weight for instance. In my game, there are several imaginary pawns that stay a little behind our party and just carry our stuff; the mod allows you to carry 10,000 pnds/toon.

I've also modded the "one save only" deal. I don't want to replay 30 minutes of the game if I die. I found out that was available before I purchased it.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I've also modded the "one save only" deal. I don't want to replay 30 minutes of the game if I die. I found out that was available before I purchased it.

If you die is okay as it was your choice, but if you lose the game because frequent power loss like me…
Link please.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Hey, I'm a super wimp on twitch games. I play on the easiest mode available. I also have no problem with modding out crap I don't like. I've modded out the carry weight for instance. In my game, there are several imaginary pawns that stay a little behind our party and just carry our stuff; the mod allows you to carry 10,000 pnds/toon.

I've also modded the "one save only" deal. I don't want to replay 30 minutes of the game if I die. I found out that was available before I purchased it.

I've actually gone the other way with a self imposed no manual save. So if I die I could lose a lot of progress. I like the tension it creates.

Fortunately I'm 10 hours in and level 22 and have yet to die. I did spend 15-20 hours messing around learning game mechanics and what not before starting my serious play through.

Combat against regular mobs is pretty easy just trigger battle let your pawns wade in then circle the perimeter of combat picking off enemies right after they attack a pawn and leave themselves open to attack. Then just revive your pawns as they drop. I'm a fighter though so I'm not sure how that works fo a Mage.

There is a magik bow for sale in gran Soren, at least in my game I don't know if it's random.

Got through the main quest and turned level 50 right at the end of it. Battles were starting to get rather ho-hum before I started that quest. A pair of armored cyclops? Eh. But now I'm in post-dragon-age and oh my! I don't think I could make it from the small town to the big town without chugging down a lot of healing potions.

It's a lot like being first level again except now I've got lots of skills to play with!

Everyone says that playing a mage is roughest at the start, and I believe it. I have a hard time with bandits wiping my party, but I suck at these types of games. A couple questions if I may:

What type of skills/augments, etc are best for the various pawns. What do you equip them with? The weapon and armor choices are really, really slim if you don't use online pawns….

I'm gonna start again and would love all your input. I'd love suggestions on how best to build my mage too. It seems like I should go 1-10 mage and then 11-end game as sorcerer. I'm getting fairly decent at attacking while using levitate or from height, but my toons always die if left alone. I assume that I'm not building them right, so I'd love to know what you shop for in toons under 10th level and toons under 20th level. I'm trying not to cheese the game by out-leveling the areas.

I'd also like to know how you handle quests. I'm fairly good till Grand Soren, then I start dying by bandits once I leave Everfall. Also is there a reason to attack those tentacles? I wasn't getting any XP so I ran like the little girl my avatar is That seemed to be the correct move because the game showed a cutscene of us running away

Note: I tried a game with assassin and that seems like easy mode. They have quick attacks that do way more damage than my mage. I was mowing through bandits with dual blades, but I'm a mage at heart….

If anyone has a mage save game state at lower levels, I'd love to look at it.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Everyone says that playing a mage is roughest at the start, and I believe it. I have a hard time with bandits wiping my party, but I suck at these types of games. A couple questions if I may:

What type of skills/augments, etc are best for the various pawns. What do you equip them with? The weapon and armor choices are really, really slim if you don't use online pawns….

I'm gonna start again and would love all your input. I'd love suggestions on how best to build my mage too. It seems like I should go 1-10 mage and then 11-end game as sorcerer. I'm getting fairly decent at attacking while using levitate or from height, but my toons always die if left alone. I assume that I'm not building them right, so I'd love to know what you shop for in toons under 10th level and toons under 20th level. I'm trying not to cheese the game by out-leveling the areas.

I'd also like to know how you handle quests. I'm fairly good till Grand Soren, then I start dying by bandits once I leave Everfall. Also is there a reason to attack those tentacles? I wasn't getting any XP so I ran like the little girl my avatar is That seemed to be the correct move because the game showed a cutscene of us running away

Note: I tried a game with assassin and that seems like easy mode. They have quick attacks that do way more damage than my mage. I was mowing through bandits with dual blades, but I'm a mage at heart….

If anyone has a mage save game state at lower levels, I'd love to look at it.

My pawns die most of the time as well. They just aren't smart and wade in to combat and get surrounded and killed. Not sure if any build will prevent that. Even Rangers and mages go right in to the combat rather than staying back.

I can definitely see mages being harder. I went fighter-strider-assassin and have yet to die in 20 hours, my pawns die all the time though. Also as an assassin, sneaking with pawns is impossible. I can't believe they don't have a stay command so I can scout ahead.

Have you tried starting as a fighter and then switching to a Mage? It will ease you into the early game and build your strength and HP so your a bit more sturdy when you start your Mage vocation. Grabbing the augment for 100 extra HP would help as well.

Not sure if I would play a Mage. While I like the magic after playing for a while I see having only 6 slots for spells and not being able to swap in the field too limited. You almost need to know what monsters your going to run into before you run into them to make sure you have the right elemental spells ready. Combine that with needing to rely on your AI challenged pawns more and yeah, Mage seem like a tough road to take.

How to get the right element: bring fire until you go after the dragon. Seriously. The only thing it has trouble with are hell hounds and I only saw them on Bitterback before going after the dragon. Holy works better than fire (I think) against undead but fire still works well.

Spells: Ignus attack spell is the first priority for sure. Get it then level it up once as soon as you can. Once it gains another level you can double-charge the spell so it causes much more damage. Also note that you can move (slowly) as the second charge builds up. I would often charge that spell up just out of range, walk into range, then blast the poor critter that happened to be closest.

The fire buff spell is almost more of a pain than a help at first level but, once you can double charge it, it lasts long enough to be worth it. (Note you can target yourself by holding down the left shift key. Your light staff attack can be quite effective when you add an element to it.)

The general order of battle is this: get the enemies mad at my pawns then wander around the fringes and pick things off. Note that, if your main pawn is set up with the "guardian" personality, he's going to be standing right next to you much of the time which is not a good thing!

At low levels I would typically take my fighter (main pawn), a rogue, and another mage. The other mage would do most of the healing and buffing while I played sorcerer-wanna-be. The other mage would be fine with Nexus and/or Guardian but the other two shouldn't have those. Make sure you check pawns before you hire them!

When you do get to the big city, be sure to check the inn storage. The Eternal Ferrystone is there for making travel far more enjoyable. There's also a dress that I've <ahem> that MY CHARACTER has been wearing since she got it. If your main character isn't wearing it, put it on your pawn.

Also, the armorer near the inn does enhancements. That's a key part of the game. You can live without making curatives but you really need to enhance both weapons and armor.

P.S. Here's a battle against a Hydra (*not* the push-over that shows up early in the game). The battle is already in progress but I just was picking off goblins in the first part anyway.

https://youtu.be/VEg_8ft8oDA

@joxer - save manager:

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma/mods/40/?

How exactly does this BBI purification work? Tried switching vocations on both end, but it keeps giving me same weapons( can't get Frammae Daggers and Hallowed Dragon).
Does it need to "run through" lower/basic weapons first, before you get a shot at better ones?

Your vocation matters when the purification is done, according to the Wikia. But it's a choice of three things (a single row in a table), not something random. The only randomization is done when you first walk on to the island which is when the game decides what row to start with in the table.
http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/Purification

Originally Posted by crpgnut
@joxer - save manager:

http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma/mods/40/?

Thanks. Bookmarked.

Gazer…. evil GAZER… jeez that was rough.

I bumped into the Ur-Dragon, too. That was beyond rough and well into "ummm, no" territory.

I have trouble with Ur-Gnats

Finished the game yesterday with level 53, but with many side quests and achievements still open.
Very good sandbox game. The one save policy adds to the fun. Climbing foes to attack them is a rare fun feature. Starting the next game with the level of your old character makes visits to Finstergram easier.

"Finished" is a tricky term in this game!

1. Finished the main quest.
2. Finished the quests after the main quest and opened up the New Game Plus mode.
3. Finished Bitterback Island.
4. Finished Bitterback AGAIN (with everything harder)
5. Got all achievements - which I think would take at least two play throughs, probably three.

Sounds like you had a "type 2" finished, HiddenX.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
many side quests and achievements still open

Didn't know you became fastrunner…

Weird. I kept having trouble with bandits, so I thought I'd do it different this time. Instead of heading towards Gran Soren, I went to BBI right after getting the 4 pawns and hitting level 10.

My goal was to basically switch to sorcerer right at level 10. I did that and then just for fun, I entered the dungeon to see how far I could get. It is fairly easy to clear the first few areas, except for a boss fight with Death. I ran from that. I killed some harder wolves, harder goblins, and a harder cyclops while emptying a bunch of chests. I probably got to level 15 or so before leaving.

I've just entered GS a little higher leveled with better curatives and other made items. I found a better archistaff in one of the BBI chests. I traveled the path to GS with just my toon and my main pawn but combat was a little slow, so I picked up an archer on the way to help with all the harpies.

Got my queenie dress on my toon and the nun outfit on my healer. I went against convention and made my main pawn a mage too. She'll stay mage, while I switched to sorcerer. I'll rent warriors and archers/rogues.

That sounds like a good plan to me. I always get a mage pawn in the rift.

I'm surprised you got through those wolves in the first room! Especially just after switching classes!

I'm a bit stuck right now as I've got to deal with a cursed dragon. I can barely hurt the thing, even when hitting the weak spot. I simply can't generate enough damage to get through the defenses (nor can my pawns) at level 57. I might try switching back to sorcerer (I've been doing the Magic Archer thing) or just going back to Everfall to see what it has in store for me.

Originally Posted by Zloth
That sounds like a good plan to me. I always get a mage pawn in the rift.

I'm surprised you got through those wolves in the first room! Especially just after switching classes!

I'm a bit stuck right now as I've got to deal with a cursed dragon. I can barely hurt the thing, even when hitting the weak spot. I simply can't generate enough damage to get through the defenses (nor can my pawns) at level 57. I might try switching back to sorcerer (I've been doing the Magic Archer thing) or just going back to Everfall to see what it has in store for me.

I got wolves in the first room as well at level 34. Then a room with goblins which I killed rather easily. Then in the same room some shadowy thing spawned so I ran and then I heard my pawns say that was barely a warm up. So I went back and it was gone. Not sure if they killed it or if it just leaves.

Well since I moved from mage to sorcerer, I didn't lose my attack spells. I had high ingle and the wolves and goblins are weak to fire. I couldn't hurt Death much, but I was able to kill a lot of the stuff down there before running into twin cyclops. Those made me decide to visit Gran Soren, so I took Mercedes up on her offer

Tonight I tackled Everfall, and this time Donkey Kong is on the map and he likes to throw my pawns off the ramp to their death. I keep having to trudge upstairs and retrieve them.