Actually played Dragon Age

[rob_donoghue]

Cross Posted from hereI ran a game of Dragon Age tabletop on New Years Day, and it went quite well. The positives I expected were there (as were the negatives) but I still ended up pleasantly surprised

Comments

[anonymous]

"who the Player's dubbed "The Cool Customer" because he kept making perception rolls to stay on top of the situation"

Hey, Robert, could you shed some more light on this, please? Because I have skimmed through the books, but I don't see anything in the rules that supports Perception as being a "stay on top in combat" stat. I admit I didn't look very hard, but still.

[rob_donoghue]

The players were performing an ambush from a particular location, and initially this guy was in the worst possible position for the fight (from thier perspective) and he was the one enemy who was not surprised - that last was the main perception bit, but it stuck out in the player's heads, especially as he proceeded to pick his targets in a very clearly methodical method (and then miss them - his rolls SUCKED).

I dislike glass cannons

[ext_220973]

Things like what you say about the mage activate all my alarms. Sure, they might break easily, but when things go wrong, the "tanks" end up being little more than roadblocks so that the mage can do her stuff.

It's like you're being nothing more than a means to an end, which, in the long run, doesn't feel well. Been there, done that.

Re: I dislike glass cannons

[rob_donoghue]

It's a legitimate concern, but some of it _looks_ like it balances with levels through clever use of the stunt system. For example, 2 handed weapon fighters get an ability that reduces the cost of the "do an extra d6 of damage" stunt to 1 point, allowing them to do th ekind of damage that puts a age to shame.

It's also mitigated by a general lack of utility spells. Skill use is pretty much never trumped by spells, which is weird as a color thing, but not too bad in terms of overall utility.

That said, It's a concern I totally have my eye on. I dread the "Mage as Rock Star" phenomena - if that's what I wanted, I'd be playing Ars Magica.