some questions about Dragon Age

[Argyle King]

I've recently started to play in a Dragon Age campaign that a friend of mine is running. So far, the game is pretty easy to understand; there's not much to it. However, there are still some things I have questions about. I was hoping that someone more familiar with the game might be able to shed some light.


1) During character creation, do I need to be able to qualify for a talent to be able to choose it?

As far as I know, all of the classes give you a choice of talents to start with. I rolled rather poorly with my character and do not have the stats to qualify for the choices available, so I'm unsure what to do. In the current game, the GM has simply said I can ignore requirements for starting talents, but I don't see anything which says so. I'm certainly not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I am also curious what I'm supposed to do after I've leveled up to a point where I'm require to choose something else, but do not qualify for the options.


2) What scale is the game on?

The game defines adjacent as being within 2 yards. Currently, the group is playing using the scale of 1 yard per hex. From the few sessions we've had, that seems to make things rather rough on melee focused characters since it increases the amount of enemies who can hit you; especially in situations where we'd normally attempt to bottleneck the enemy in a door or something similar. I'm unsure if we're doing this part right.


3) How balanced is the game at higher levels?

At first level, the member of the party who is a warrior using a two-handed weapon seemed to be killing everything. Now that we've gained a few levels, he seems to have hit a plateau when it comes to growth. Meanwhile, the mages of the party have gotten far stronger. I'm playing a rogue, and while I'm nowhere near (from what I can tell) as strong as the mages, I seem to have gotten a lot better over the last few levels while the warrior hasn't changed much. In particular, one of the issues I've noticed is that the warrior is gaining strength, but opponents are gaining more armor; many spells completely bypass armor and have effects even if the target resists.


4) Can disarm be used with ranged attacks?

Thus far, disarm seems like a ridiculously good stunt, and it only gets better if using it with a ranged attack. Being able to shoot an enemy's weapon several yards in any direction and force them to use unarmed attacks has made a few encounters seem far easier than it seems like they should have been; especially since I'm using a crossbow.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

1) During character creation, do I need to be able to qualify for a talent to be able to choose it?

I haven't seen official word, but I agree with your GM. It might be a design oversight. It seems unfair to penalize unlucky players even further.

2) What scale is the game on?

Two yards per hex. See "Using Battle Maps" on page 58.

3) How balanced is the game at higher levels?

Alas my game fell apart before we reached high levels so I am not sure.

4) Can disarm be used with ranged attacks?

No. Disarm says, "You attempt to disarm the target with your melee attack." (Emphasis mine). Ranged attacks are not melee.

 

[CAFRedblade]

I believe you need to hit the ability score requirements to take certain talents, although it's been about a year since I read through the rules last.

With the random rolling, that may prove difficult if you have a specific character type in mind.

It's one of the reasons the second box set has an ability point buy system you can use to generate characters.

Keep in mind also, that Dark Age is intended for Grim/Gritty styles of play, you and your group may want to give people a stat bump if you want to play it a little more heroic.

 

[Argyle King]

I believe you need to hit the ability score requirements to take certain talents, although it's been about a year since I read through the rules last.

With the random rolling, that may prove difficult if you have a specific character type in mind.

It's one of the reasons the second box set has an ability point buy system you can use to generate characters.

Keep in mind also, that Dark Age is intended for Grim/Gritty styles of play, you and your group may want to give people a stat bump if you want to play it a little more heroic.

It wasn't that I had a specific concept in mind. The problem was that I did not qualify for any of the three choices which were available to me at character creation. When I say that I rolled poorly, I mean I really rolled poorly. Unsure of what else to do with my character, I bought a mule and named my rogue character Folgers Valdez. His backstory is that he was a coffee bean farmer who would occasionally smuggle things for people in his cart (which I also bought.) So far, the character is still alive.

I'm aware Dark Age is intended for gritty play -something I personally like.


Speak of grim, I haven't noticed a way (by the rules) to use my cart as a weapon. Being that my fighting skills aren't exactly the stuff of typical heroes, I've considered trying to run enemies over, but there doesn't seem to be a supported way to do so. Are there rolls for collisions, trampling, vehicles or anything else which would be relevant to wanting to run someone over with a mule-drawn cart?

 

[CAFRedblade]

Yup, it's right in the Example Talent break down:
Classes: Classes that can take this talent are listed here.
Requirement: You cannot take this talent unless you have the specified requirement(s).

Some have ability requirements, some have Focus requirements, and some have none, and
of course you need to match the class requirement.

So, either you need to ensure that the character type you want to create has high enough abilities to take the talents you might want, or
try another method or archetype.

Now, for putting together blunt damage for a cart pulled by a mule, that'll be up to the GM. I'm pretty sure that's off the beaten path enough
that they won't have put anything in there directly.

You may need to take the Animal Training talent, and hope you have at least 1 communication to teach it to 'Attack'.
Actually there is a write up for mule, so I'd use it for a basic trample attack and call it even. Replace Kick with Cart Trample and call it a day.

 

[kelbar]

to you question of

1) During character creation, do I need to be able to qualify for a talent to be able to choose it?

As far as I know, all of the classes give you a choice of talents to start with. I rolled rather poorly with my character and do not have the stats to qualify for the choices available, so I'm unsure what to do. In the current game, the GM has simply said I can ignore requirements for starting talents, but I don't see anything which says so. I'm certainly not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I am also curious what I'm supposed to do after I've leveled up to a point where I'm require to choose something else, but do not qualify for the options.


---
in set 2 we were give a new why of character creation.
all stats start at Zero
your give 10 points to spend on core stars like , str,dex, magic with cap of 3 to any one stat

and on roll table for a origin you get 3 points- focus skill cost 1 point and +1 to say dex cost 2.

talent for 3 classes are still fix from how they showen in set 1.

hope this helps

 

[Argyle King]

to you question of

1) During character creation, do I need to be able to qualify for a talent to be able to choose it?

As far as I know, all of the classes give you a choice of talents to start with. I rolled rather poorly with my character and do not have the stats to qualify for the choices available, so I'm unsure what to do. In the current game, the GM has simply said I can ignore requirements for starting talents, but I don't see anything which says so. I'm certainly not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I am also curious what I'm supposed to do after I've leveled up to a point where I'm require to choose something else, but do not qualify for the options.


---
in set 2 we were give a new why of character creation.
all stats start at Zero
your give 10 points to spend on core stars like , str,dex, magic with cap of 3 to any one stat

and on roll table for a origin you get 3 points- focus skill cost 1 point and +1 to say dex cost 2.

talent for 3 classes are still fix from how they showen in set 1.

hope this helps

That would have helped at the time, but the characters were made with Set 1 and the rolling method. I managed to roll poorly enough that I don't believe I qualified for anything. I know I didn't qualify for the rogue talents which were my options to choose from. I'd have to go back and recheck the other classes. However, I don't own the books myself, so I don't have them here to look at them now. Thinking back, I chose Rogue because my stats were poor enough in strength and magic that Warrior and Mage didn't seem like viable choices. ...though I suppose I could have technically been a Mage with a 0 in the magic stat.