Dragon Age: Origins - Complete Starter Pack ( Beginner's Guide )

How do I add my Mubari hound to my player? (essentially making them the 5th party member?)

In this game difficulty level affect the AI. And do not add HP to monsters. There is a good piece of information on this matter in DAO wiki.

Im an idiot that played on xbox. Went with a full warrior party with a single rogue because I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Struggled like the stubborn bastard I am up to slaying the wyverns then the dragon. Then looked up shit to see where I was going wrong proceeded to back the fuck out of the game and play fable. Till today.

You've managed to summarise so much tactical info into one section of this video (common mistakes), it's incredibly helpful! Even just the one sentence where you explain that it's about outlasting your enemies, not killing them the fastest. Seems obvious but I've never thought of battle in that way (**hangs up trusty battle axe**). Great video all around, and thank you!

First time I played this game was 10 years ago. I remember hauling my pc almost everywhere I went with my screen, just so I could continue playing this game. It's definitely a 10/10 game with my 2 major complaints being the janky combat animations and some of the armors looking dumb.

Any chance of your mod list

Youre never gonna be "so rich that it doesn't matter anymore" if you hoard stuff you think you might need. You can barely even buy 1-2 of the expensive items over 100 gold if you do sell everything

I rush in and play it without pausing. Its fine. I prefer the faster pace. The combat is already pretty slow so slowing it down every game is tedious and pointless. I only pause to use a potion

You can start steamrolling on any build. Mage just is more op before lothering because of access to all the CC and aoe like mind blast and walking bomb.

Once you get Allistair Leliana Morrigan/Wynne, though, it doesn't really matter (if you start as mage thats your warrior rogue 2 mage party which I agree is the most balanced). Any build is viable though tbh. I took 3 mages and Shale for a laugh

For parties in the Dragon Age series I've always felt 2 warriors, a mage and a ranged rogue worked best. One warrior being a tank, the other dps/two hander, a mage using whatever AOE spell and buffs they have and the Rogue in the back getting crits and causing mayhem with debuffs.

Never had an issue playing like this. I generally play the Warrior myself so I always got to pick two options. Always found Varric to be a solid Rogue option and the Mages all felt like the best love interests for me too so it really worked out best. I really do love this series and am now playing through it for a fourth time. Hopefully by the time I 100% Inquisition and it's DLC's the 4th game will have a release date.

Trying to jog my memory though for how the other classes feel. This video was a nice refresher though. DA has a solid community still more then a decade later.

Where is that intro video from? I've never seen it anywhere before!

I'm so sorry. I can't imagine starting with Inquisition, it's so bad . Dragon Age II is also really bad. They're both a total embarassment compared to what DA:O did for the entire genre. Baldur's Gate 3 is honestly the closest to the spirit and quality of the original game, especially in the aspects of Grand Adventure and companion stories.

Good video bro, God bless

This is beyond false about Dalish elves. In fact, Merril is one of the elves. As well as Keeper Marethari. I have played all backgrounds, and this is the one I use whenever playing through this game. Claiming characters that don't return despite these being some of the most significant returning characters.

Awesome guide appreciate the info. But could u point me to a mod list to make the game a little more palpable for the modern age?

Started playing this after completing Oblivion in 2023 :D This game feels so good!

Good work. I still used potions throughout the game though... Not just healing.

great video! answered basically every question i had, thanks :)

To this day I still dont know why people like this game

can I leave the forest and level my characters in another area? I ve chosen to go lothering, Red Cliff, and then werewolf and I cant beat the dragon. i am trying party members armors and weapons, but still cant kill it.

Hey thank you for your mind you answers how you deal with crashes i used 4gb patch and i AM playing on all graphic settings low because changing it makes my game crash quickly, so using mods is probably bad idea for me. Do you have any tip how to fix this? Thanks in advance , im playing on win 11

Nice video - thanks!
Recently took this up again as I caught a YT run-through and felt all nostalgic (I've done a bunch of plays, and I think I've covered all the starting campaigns), but the Origin servers are no more, so all my past achievements have been lost 😞
If I may request a topic - The mods that you mentioned are a dark art to me - there's soooo many that I'm not sure what is worth installing and which aren't compatible.
Anyways, cheers for the video, and have a Sub :-)

Thanks for the video it was great! I’m replaying the entire series and I only beat dragon age origins on casual the first time because it was so difficult for me. I’m glad to say I am almost 50% through the game and have been doing so on normal haha

Two words: Arcane Warrior

In terms of party composition, back when I played Origins (at least during the main game and not the DLCs), I rolled with a Warrior, a Rogue, and 2 mages.

I don't remember the exact builds, but I built the warrior to be a monstrous tank who aggro'd everything, the rogue went around flanking... and the two mages were spec'd out to be pure DPS monsters.

The bulk of the damage was dealt by the dual mages raining destruction down upon the entire battlefield.

I love making my warden a blood mage healer. This lets me take control of other party members and have fun playing the tank or stabby rogue etc. I even turn Wynne into a monster dps.

How do you get it running and no ctd?

I love dragon age well fuck inquisition

Like 👍 for Skyrim meme

The difficulty curve of DA:O is comical at times. After a couple of play-thrus I completely destroy almost all the bosses in the game. Now that god forsaken blood mage in Denerim. My goodness that quest aged me in real life. Easily one of the hardest battles in the game, and other games of the genre.

Great guide! Thanks for this.

One thing you missed on the armor vs stat points discussion - rogue armor does have dex requirements, but there's also a strength requirement. The best rogue armors in Origins require 20 strength, and in Awakening it's either 22 or 24, I forget which. Just something for rogue players to keep in mind as they progress.

Also, on Normal, Morrigan is perfectly capable as your offensive mage, either through weather effects or by via curses and support. Because of that, I would actually suggest first-time players play a Dwarf Noble. It's far harder to gimp a warrior or rogue than a mage, and the Dwarf Noble has, IMO, hands-down the best Origin story, and one that really comes into play later on - it completely changes the feel of an entire section of the story, much more than the occasional person looking down on you because you're an elf. (Human Noble and Female City Elf are also some intense stories, I just don't think they're as good and as integrated as Dwarf Noble.)

Thanks for the video

What mods do you use?

I agree that Mage is Op in Origins(probably the entire series).

However Morrigan is very good because she gets basically every early dmg spell , 2 cc spells and a self heal. If you boost her Magic she can solo most earlt enconters as long as you draw aggro with Alistar. She is started early enough that she can be used as a great support too(mostly Entropy but she can dip into every tree on her spells list).

Rogues can be op too as long as you give them a lot of Dex, Warriors are not gonna miss once you give about 28 dex and that sustained skill that gives 10 bonus points.

Nice to see content about this pretty old game.

This is really well-produced. I appreciate all the edits and comedic inserts haha. You deserve a lot more views

Thanks for the Constitution pointer. I was trying to raise Alistair's and my character's. However I did notice that armor made a huge difference when I switched Alistair to the Warden Commander set. Also I would've liked more tips regarding healing, damage types/resistances, and maybe storage as well.

My own personal tip is to get a long-range AoE/DoT/debuff ability as soon as possible. E.g. Fireball+Grease, Earthquake, or the lightning storm one. This allows me to whittle down melee enemies as they come my way, or temporarily disable ranged enemies while taking them out slowly. I'd even go as far as say they're mandatory 😄

Is this spoiler free?

I heard of this, but I chose Mass Effect over DA. Honestly, you couldn’t have gone wrong choosing either trilogy. Now I’m here playing it over a decade later 😅

I have low hopes for dreadwolf..
But I will still replay 1 and 2 properly for the changes in inquisition.

Bro great video, very comprehensive

This was one of the more useful beginner guide I could find. A lot of strong opinions in other videos but the game doesn’t have set metas and you explained that pretty well.

very good video sir! As a new player of this franchise, surely helps ppl like me a lot. There is just so much info that we can achieve from this game, its truly rewarding understanding how it works.