Lago's Dragon Age RPG Review

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, I just read the Dragon Age RPG DMG right now. My thoughts are below. I'm not going to comment on everything, just the things that caught my attention. But since this puppy, sans sample adventure, is only 45 pages long I may have covered more than I intended to anyway.

No Table of Contents or credits, huh? I see an index at the back, but no ToC nor any credits. Brilliant editorial decision. Way to start out on my good DARPG. Also, not all of the pages have numbers on them. I know that it's a petty complaint, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

In my opinion, DragonChild kind of exaggerated on how awful the DMG advice section was. Now granted, that part about encouraging the GM to fucking fudge die rolls if it'll make the game better is bullshit of the highest caliber, but if you ignore that part it really isn't that bad. It does have some novel advice, such as the problem with running Assumption Clashes.

Flight is handled in an abstracted but still functional way. The advantage flight gives is large but not dominating, since it eats up your actions. It earned some brownie points here.

I was not very pleased with how broadly they sketched the resolution system. Like DragonChild noted, the difficulty cap is kept very small in line with low-key heroics (typical resolution is 3d6 + focus (a +2) + relevant ability (kept in low single-digits) +/- 1-3 points for situation. A nigh-impossible task (highest listed in the book) is listed as having a difficulty of 21 so I am definitely feeling DC on the difficulty cap. That said, a low overall power doesn't necessarily make a game bad, it's a preference issue; I only get pissed about low power levels when the game bait and switches me as being able to play an uber-heroic hero of heroism like in D&D 4E. I've never played Dragon Age: Origins so I don't know how well this reflects the setting; someone else will have to get angry for me. The game is only designed to go up to level five, however, and the DMG continually makes promises about about more shit being released in expansion material in the book. I do not approve of this, because if the Epic Level Handbook has taught us anything is that it's really goddamn hard to copypaste new advancement on top of a system--and considering how strictly this RPG seems to control the power level, I can't see anything good coming of this. (edit: in the advancement system the Dragon Age RPG promises new levels in expansion sets 2, 3, and 4. Oh my.)

Advanced Tests are done in a stupid way. If you've played Shadowrun it works mostly like Extended tests there where you roll dice a finite number of times until you have enough successes on individual die-rolling instances until the plot advances, only they have to stick their Dragon Die dick into something that should be easy. Oh, have I mentioned Dragon Die? Remember that basic 3d6 resolution roll I mentioned? Well, one of the die is a 'special' one that is a Dragon Die that normally does nothing special. But occasionally you'll have a test (like this one) where the number you roll on it is important.

Extended tests, like in Shadowrun, have two separate benchmarks. One is the Basic Test Difficulty, which is like the TN in that game. The other is the Advanced Test Difficulty, which is like the number of 'hits' in Shadowrun. But instead of just counting the number of times you succeed, you need to keep recording the value of what you get on the Dragon Die on successful tests until the total sum of what you rolled on Dragon Die equals the Advanced Test Difficulty modifier. Was something wrong with just hits? If there was a way to modify what you rolled for your Dragon Die I could see the point of this--and there may be, I haven't read the Player's Handbook yet--but if there isn't it's just extra complication for no fucking reason. Yes, it adds extra granularity to the system, but for a game that's as low-key as Dragon Age it's pointless. It'd be an acceptable (but overly complicated) idea for a game with a wide range of possible results like Dungeons and Dragons, but for a Grimdark Bodice Ripper: The cRPG? Why?

The monster system in the book isn't awful, but it's pretty close. If you're familiar with Shadowrun or 4E D&D's monster manual, you've seen them here. Monsters are about as diverse as those in those books, take from that what you will. There are two little blurb about altering monsters at the beginning that is basically 'make the numbers bigger', but you're clearly supposed to copy-paste monsters out of the book unless you're making Humanoid Bandit With No Superpowers, which you can create on your own. Monsters are not assigned a difficulty rating, which is a huge problem for beginning DMs. The reason they didn't assign a difficulty rating will be revealed in the next paragraph, but still, they should've fucking done it. The typesetting for the monster manual is really, really bad. Seriously, whoever did this should be given a pink slip. Like, they'll have the description for a Giant Rat and then do a description for two more monsters. THEN they give the power card for a rat after wasting three paragraphs describing other monsters.

Advancement in DARPG is really, really goddamn slow. Experience rewards are fixed regardless of character level. An 'average' encounter hands out 200 experience--routine and easy encounters hand out 0 and 100 experience while a hard one hands 300 experience. Getting to level 5 takes 11,000 experience. The example box had the players going through a routine, a hard, and an average encounter for 500 experience. Which means if the gaming session plays every Saturday for 5 months they'll be at level 5. And since each level takes an additional 500 experience to gain, this grows unmanageable fairly quickly. Why did they fuck this up so badly? If you have fixed experience rewards you should have fixed level advancement built into the goddamn system. The decision on how fast to level up PCs should be put in the hands of the DM. In a kick in the balls to game balance, PCs get more experience if the encounter was hard for them. Not the objective difficulty of the encounter, mind you, but how difficult it was to accomplish. This means that you get less experience for ambushing and curbstomping a shadowspawn brigade with lucky rolls than your party getting your ass handed to it by a hamlet's militia because the party rolled poorly. GG, Green Ronin. Also, characters gain 1d6+Constitution in health every time they gain a level. Fuck you, game designers.

The magical item system in the game is a joke. ALL of the example items in the game fit onto seriously one page. Worse yet, there is literally no way to get magical items in the game except by DM fiat. There's not even a dinky magical item table that you get to roll on like in AD&D. There's a 1/3rd page of worthless description that talks about how they're forged in the default campaign setting but nothing on how, why, or when the DM awards magical items. Fucking ridiculous. Not that the sample magical items are very good or exciting, 80% of them being 'adjust this number in this direction', but still.

I haven't read the sample adventure yet, but I probably will.

Verdict: It's not an awful purchase for 15 dollars, I have done and seen a lot worse, but there are still some truly baffling design decisions in the game. I wouldn't volunteer to run or play in such a game, but if my players asked me to run it I wouldn't say no.

I guess I'll read the Player's Handbook and the sample adventure sometime soon. The stunt system actually looks kind of interesting.

[areola]

Well, it had potential to be a good intro rpg. Oh well. Btw, may I ask what is your favourite rpg?

[Lago PARANOIA]

*Lago starts to read the Dragon Age RPG gamebook*

Random stats?! Random starting hit points?! Random starting magic points?! Random talents?! Oh, fuck you, DARPG. This review is over.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, it had potential to be a good intro rpg. Oh well. Btw, may I ask what is your favourite rpg?

My favorite RPG currently has to be Shadowrun 4E, though that can be explained by the fact that I blithely ignore the hacking rules and will only play a razorboi or a mage.

The RPG I have the most fondness for however is D&D 3.0E edition. It has a lot of gameplay flaws that I wouldn't enjoy nowadays (like the random stats thing--unforgivable) but at the time it caused a Lago orgasm.

[TheWorid]

Did you read the stunt rules? They are essentially the entire point of the Dragon Die, and are rather clever in my opinion. They don't make the game good on their own, but you should at least take a look.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I read the stunt rules. They fucking suck. You get a stunt around 45% of the time every time you roll dice, which is good, but the stunts themselves aren't all that impressive. Which is bad.

In fact, I read the entire Player's Handbook and... it's really bad. The Dungeon Master's Guide, though I still wouldn't give it a grade higher than a C to C+, is passable and puts you under the impression that you would be playing an alright game to do a quickie campaign in. As far as low-level gaming convention fodder goes, it ain't bad.

THEN I read the Player's Handbook. And this thing is a pile of crap. By the time I got into the talents chapter it safely passed from the realm of 'forgettable garbage' to 'soul-searingly bad'. Yes, the RPG really sucks that much and Green Ronin should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

[Vnonymous]

The computer rpg made a hell of a lot of stupid decisions as well(it had an incredibly bad case of fighters don't get nice things), so I'm not entirely surprised to see that the CRPG didn't do well.

[DragonChild]

The computer rpg made a hell of a lot of stupid decisions as well(it had an incredibly bad case of fighters don't get nice things), so I'm not entirely surprised to see that the CRPG didn't do well.

Huh? While the Arcane Warrior is pretty badass, it's very much a late-game build. Fighters are given the tools they need to tank, and a two-handed fighter build can deal some pretty hefty damage.

[souran]

The computer rpg made a hell of a lot of stupid decisions as well(it had an incredibly bad case of fighters don't get nice things), so I'm not entirely surprised to see that the CRPG didn't do well.

Um, are you crazy? The video game has lots of bad decisions but "fighters don't get nice things" is not one of them.

The video game has the typical problem for video game fighters/warriors:
Invincibility is fucking boring.

Because you have control of the characters in DOA you don't have to split the loot evenly or anything like that. You can just give equipment to characters based on who it boosts in power the most. Becuase there is about 10 times as much useful warrior treasure as there is gear for anybody else its not hard to get a warrior who is so decked out that they are never in any real danger of dying in a fight.

A lot of video games have this problem. They often have very poor itemization for caster types and so even though at the core the casters are probably stronger, when you actually play the game and arm people with the games equipment the fighter types take off and the casters become their buff bitches.

Hell, the most effective thing for casters to do in DOA is to buff up the warrior/rogue types. This shit goes all the way back to FFI where the BEST spell the black mage could cast was haste on the black belt. The second best spell the black mage could cast? Haste on the fighter.

In pen and paper games being the caster is the road to awesome. We know this. However, in the vast majority of video games, they give the fighter way nicer shit than they give the mage. In a video game what you want to be is the fighter so that you can have a pet mage who does nothing but thow spells on you to increase your attacks to the point where they are rediculous. We all agree that it sucks for fighter types to need artifcat swords to compete.... unless the game world hands out super uber swords that you cannot avoid getting.

Video games are the reason why many people do not understand the "fighters cannot have nice things" problem, they are not culprits.

[Kaelik]

Huh? While the Arcane Warrior is pretty badass, it's very much a late-game build. Fighters are given the tools they need to tank, and a two-handed fighter build can deal some pretty hefty damage.

If by high level you mean "Level 7" when the prologue alone gets you to level 6...


Also, Souran, you are fucking retarded.

The best thing that Wizards can do is prevent any enemies from taking any actions whatsoever. Which you know, is what they do in D&D. Which you know, is called winning automatically.

[Blicero]

The Prologue? Level 7? I've played through each prologue, multiple times, and each time I've gotten to maybe 3, at the most.

Fighters are quite capable of doing lots of damage in Dragon Age (the CRPG). When I beat the game, I never used the Arcane Warrior, but I was still quite able to put deadness into everyone. Dual-Wielding rogues with that one Acceleration power or whatever it's called probably do more damage, but I don't have a major problem with that.

Where the game really screws up in caster/noncaster balance is in the number of enemies. Pretty much every spell past the first tier affects multiple targets, but fighters are lucky if they get a whirlwind attack. The best option for mages is to use cone of cold and telekinetic prison and all those spells and then have fighters come around and shatter the frozen foes with the attacks that automatically crit and then mop up whatever's left. But unlike D&D, dudes with swords are still an important part of the game, cuz it tends to be difficult for the mages to actually kill lots of things at once.

[souran]

The best thing that Wizards can do is prevent any enemies from taking any actions whatsoever. Which you know, is what they do in D&D. Which you know, is called winning automatically.

In scrub fights against scrubs

Crushing prison does not prevent most of the games boss monsters from acting. It doesn't the final boss, or any of the games dragons, or the boss who drops the games best sword. So, that makes telekentic weapons, which you get on the way to crushing prison, more useful. Again, another common conciet of video games. Awesome spells of awesome don't have to work against the bosses. If you are losing scrub fights then you suck hard at video games.

Honestly, when you know what the stats of the monsters are, and you know that the game cannot cheat, then optmizing so that you just win is not even hard. Again, all the way back to FFI Chaos is immune to stop, zap, and rub but he is defiantly not immune to double punches in the face.


As a note: Its not that wizards are bad in DOA, its that its so EASY to optimize DOA characters that saying this is better than that is frankly retarded.

An optimized rogue with a Dragonbone bow with rapid aim and a 50/60+ Dex and their script set to do nothing except turn on aim and use critical shot can one or two shot most things.

Optimized fighters can one shot casters and the cast times on spells are long enough that you can manually switch to your berserker, walk him over to the caster, and have the caster be dead before its a bother. Again, you can just adjust their script to only let them do their good moves and never their bad ones.

Casters can also be optimized to be amazing. I agree with Kaeliks crowd control suggestion. However, considering again if you just optimize without being a complete moron you can easily get to where you can sustain any buffs you might want, have the casters priorities be healing, and then STILL distribute CC.

So, if EVERY class can be easily optimized to make the game content trivial, then it would seem it doesn't actually matter what class you play.

[souran]

The Prologue? Level 7? I've played through each prologue, multiple times, and each time I've gotten to maybe 3, at the most.

I think that Kaeliks is assuming a second playthrough so that arcane warrior is unlocked when you first can begin selecting specalities.

Also because you can do the tasks in any order you can activate the arcane warrior as part of your first stop.

Where the game really screws up in caster/noncaster balance is in the number of enemies. Pretty much every spell past the first tier affects multiple targets, but fighters are lucky if they get a whirlwind attack. The best option for mages is to use cone of cold and telekinetic prison and all those spells and then have fighters come around and shatter the frozen foes with the attacks that automatically crit and then mop up whatever's left. But unlike D&D, dudes with swords are still an important part of the game, cuz it tends to be difficult for the mages to actually kill lots of things at once.

DOA doesn't have a lot of caster/noncaster balance issues because it doesn't have any non casters. Everybody is a wizard just with different spell names. Stamina is just a different magic system. Warriors can knock monsters over and make them spend time getting up, rogues can go invisible. "Magics" big gimmik is the spell interactions, which on occasion are actually worth slowing the game down enough to coordinate and do instead of just curbstomping everything with the hit it hard repeadly with your best attack method.

[DragonChild]

If you are losing scrub fights then you suck hard at video games.

Highly disagree here. The hardest fights in DA all involved massive groups of enemies. Even on bosses. Mages were *needed* for the huge AOE stuns and such to keep your party from being torn to shreds. But just the same, you needed the warrior to handle the ogres, golems, and dragons.

Also, while you can get arcane warrior at 7, it's not really a viable warrior replacement at that level.

[Kaelik]

The Prologue? Level 7? I've played through each prologue, multiple times, and each time I've gotten to maybe 3, at the most.

I'm including the part up to the Kings death, and the tower fight against the Ogre. Not just the race specific part.

Also, I said level 6. Not seven.

In scrub fights against scrubs

Crushing prison does not prevent most of the games boss monsters from acting. It doesn't the final boss, or any of the games dragons, or the boss who drops the games best sword. So, that makes telekentic weapons, which you get on the way to crushing prison, more useful. Again, another common conciet of video games. Awesome spells of awesome don't have to work against the bosses. If you are losing scrub fights then you suck hard at video games.

Um... Yes they do. All of the spells work against like all the bosses. Admittedly I never face the final boss, but super wolves, giant corrupted mage dude, epic lulz darkspawn. I totally imprisoned and Force Fielded all of them no problem. So yeah. Even Revenants are subject to that, though not freezing. Every boss fight is hilarious, because you just perma root them, kill all the minions, and then perma root them some more while you archer/cast them to death.

An optimized rogue with a Dragonbone bow with rapid aim and a 50/60+ Dex and their script set to do nothing except turn on aim and use critical shot can one or two shot most things.

Are you... Playing on the Computer with a bunch of patches? Because... That's actually an ass build without the patches to fix range to not suck.

Which they were only working on and hadn't finished when I got bored and started playing Far Cry instead.

[souran]

If you are losing scrub fights then you suck hard at video games.

Highly disagree here. The hardest fights in DA all involved massive groups of enemies. Even on bosses. Mages were *needed* for the huge AOE stuns and such to keep your party from being torn to shreds. But just the same, you needed the warrior to handle the ogres, golems, and dragons.

Also, while you can get arcane warrior at 7, it's not really a viable warrior replacement at that level.

Again, a warrior can use the tuant and the knockdown power from the champion (war cry) to keep the giant groups on him. Then if you have given him the dragon uber armor that you can make TWO FRIGGAN SETS OF, and optimize for agility/dexterity (you don't actually need high hit points to "tank" in DOA) you can keep those big groups missing your warrior.

I played the whole game through and never bothered to have the wizard cast an aoe spell except for the group heal and telekenetic weapons. I used the patented ghost busters "1.2.3. GET EM" strategy on everything except dragon bosses. Only fight I remember that is tough is the fight to get the best sword from the guy whose name is the boss of Baldur's gate backwards or whatever.

editited to try and clarify what I actually mean with the games powers.

[Kaelik]

Souran, what difficulty were you playing at, because, for one thing, you can't even get a single set of that ridiculous armor until after you've beaten 3-4/ths of the game. And for another, taunt is single target, so if you face a lot of enemies, they can still go murder you. And for another... wtf, your Tank with high Dex Taunting the Giant corrupted Magi has nothing to do with the elevendy billion mobs not targeting him, and the autohit huge damage that bosses do.

[DragonChild]

Taunt is AOE. Are you instead thinking Threaten?

[souran]

Um... Yes they do. All of the spells work against like all the bosses. Admittedly I never face the final boss, but super wolves, giant corrupted mage dude, epic lulz darkspawn. I totally imprisoned and Force Fielded all of them no problem. So yeah. Even Revenants are subject to that, though not freezing. Every boss fight is hilarious, because you just perma root them, kill all the minions, and then perma root them some more while you archer/cast them to death.

On the xbox 360 version.
Felemth, the dragon in the mountains, the best sword guy, the final boss, ether of the bosses at the end of the dwarf stage, the magus demon are all immune to force field and only take damage from crushing prison.

Are you... Playing on the Computer with a bunch of patches? Because... That's actually an ass build without the patches to fix range to not suck.

When I got it on the xbox last christmas bows do outdamage other weapons if you push a persons dexterity far enough. That said, bows below silverite level are terrible. However, it doesn't matter because before you get a bunch of silverite stuff the monsters are all pathetic.

Honestly, why the fuck are we debating this. DOA is NOT EVEN HARD. ANY optimiziation at ALL renders the game trivial. So Kaelik if you think that a party of player mage, old lady mage, crazy barbarian lady mage, and the meat shield warden then FINE. I agree that party kicks ass. I ma just not sure it made the game any easier than when I played old lady mage, lelanna, player tank, and golem/dwarf/talldude.

[souran]

Taunt is AOE. Are you instead thinking Threaten?

Even on hard I never had any trouble keeping big groups focused on my meat shield with threaten + taunt + war cry

Souran, what difficulty were you playing at, because, for one thing, you can't even get a single set of that ridiculous armor until after you've beaten 3-4/ths of the game. And for another, taunt is single target, so if you face a lot of enemies, they can still go murder you. And for another... wtf, your Tank with high Dex Taunting the Giant corrupted Magi has nothing to do with the elevendy billion mobs not targeting him, and the autohit huge damage that bosses do.

The game scales with you, with some elaborate floors. So the dwarf zone is a bit tougher than the mage tower or the human quest unless you have already done the mage tower and human quest. Then its difficulty is right about where it should be.

Also, you can just arm your tank with the best armor you can currently find buy and send him on ahead of the rest of the party. While he gets pummled a bit they come up and start wailing away. The game doesn't have a very impresse "hostitliy engine."

However, DOA is just not harder than baldur's gate. Its not harder than fallout 2. It is probably harder than fallout 3.

[DragonChild]

On the xbox 360 version.

Yeah, this is worth noting. On the XBox version, the listed difficulties are easier compared to their PC counterparts. And this is even from a game where a lot of people complain about different parts being too hard at seeming random.

[souran]

On the xbox 360 version.

Yeah, this is worth noting. On the XBox version, the listed difficulties are easier compared to their PC counterparts. And this is even from a game where a lot of people complain about different parts being too hard at seeming random.

Well, fuck nobody told me that. I can however, verify that DOA on the XBox is NOT hard on either regular or hard. I have not played it on the nightmare difficulty.

[Kaelik]

You know what, so much of what you said makes sense in that light.

Yes, it's really easy if you don't play it on the hardest difficulty. I can't speak for xbox vs PC difficulties, only play differences like:

No wonder you think it takes more work to have mages cast good spells, or that mages get interrupted.

If you play on the PC, you can just hit space bar, and you can play the whole thing like Baldur's Gate in isometric view and just click a character and tell them to do something.

Also, I can personally say that I have Force Fielded and/or Crushing Prisoned all of those except the Final Boss, and possibly Best Sword Guy, because I still don't know who you are talking about when you say that.

[DragonChild]

Looking up the info, the difficulty changes weren't apparently as bad as I thought. The only difference is that friendly fire is one level "less severe" for the console (50% FF -> 0% for normal difficulty).

Also, I can personally say that I have Force Fielded and/or Crushing Prisoned all of those except the Final Boss, and possibly Best Sword Guy, because I still don't know who you are talking about when you say that.

I'm thinking he means Loghain's right hand woman, Lt. Whatsherface.

[souran]

Also, I can personally say that I have Force Fielded and/or Crushing Prisoned all of those except the Final Boss, and possibly Best Sword Guy, because I still don't know who you are talking about when you say that.

Those guys on the console still move and fight, crushing prison always causes damage but you get a LOT of immunes on the console.

Also on the console it is easy to switch characters easily and there are 6 spells you can cast very easily. Using the other powers is not really hard, its just slow becuse you switch to the characters and then cycle through several menus.

That makes it easier to just script everybody except the tank to do exactly 1 or 2 things and go rather than try fancy shit.

The tank is who I usually played just because I could then tell everybody what distance to hold from him and like I said he can be pretty much invincible with a little optimizing so my typical way of bypassing traps was to have the tank get hit with the trap.

I'm thinking he means Loghain's right hand woman, Lt. Whatsherface.

Didn't you follow the side quest about the adventurers who were after the treasure of gems? Looking at the DOA wiki its the "unbound" side quest. You fight Gaxkang at the end of it. He was harder than the final boss imho.

Reward is the Keening Blade, which is the best one handed weapon in the game unless you get DLC.


Kanggaxx is the name of a demilich in Baldur's Gate II you can fight. As I remember he casts Time Stop, then haste, then nemonic sequencer magic missle, then time stop then nemonic sequencer magic missle then another nemonic sequencer magic missle.

If you survive you can then one shot him but he will rinse and repeat in BDII until he smokes your party.