Dragon Age

Yeah, I think the writers are probably significantly less likely to let you kill off a character they have any intention of using again than before. You can't kill Harding, so I'd say there's a fair chance she'll return, but the same doesn't go for Krem.

Plus, if he comes back I'll kill him myself if possible. Stop messing up Iron Bull's character arc you damn zombie.

Well, there's not much leeway in getting him back anyway. Cole outright says its Krem's final thoughts and 'his end' or something. Cole has no reason to lie so.

Anyway, I don't think that many killed Krem anyway.

Killing the Chargers takes a special kind of heartlessness. (And I don't just say this because of my general "fuck the Qunari" attitude- there is no tactical or political reason to justify sacrificing some of your most elite [and likeable] tropes. An alliance with the Qunari has only tertiary benefit and taking out one shipment of Red Lyrium has no long term benefit.)

edited 18th May '15 5:33:58 PM by LMage

Its really kind of Bioware's fault for not pushing 'Who do you have alliances with?' a bit further.

Honestly, that choice was pretty stupid in the first place. Bioware should know by now that most of the fanbase absolutely adores the enjoyable characters and will never let them die, even if it makes sense in-universe.

edited 18th May '15 5:11:09 PM by LordVatek

I've found very little reason to sacrifice the Chargers myself. The only reason I did so before was so I could get the Masterwork Archon Staff schematic for my mages. It was early in the games release so the locations of the more powerful staffs were scarce in information, meaning I was desperate for a great weapon.

After more information surfaced, I gained the location of more power schematics and lost the only reason to sacrifice the Chargers. Now that the Black Emporium is out, getting powerful schematics is even easier.

Yeah. There wasn't really any need for it, especially considering how easily and quickly the dreadnought took out the Venatori smuggler.

Really, it's a dreadnaught. Why would, like, six Venatori be able to take it out so quickly?

Maybe it's not magically reinforced. Wizards are basically artillery even if the game is balanced so that you can't 1-shot people by setting them on fire.

I guess. But if anyone were to protect their ships from magic, it would be the Qunari.

edited 18th May '15 5:30:10 PM by Mukora

I'm still confused about the entire situation. We can see Krem and the Chargers getting surrounded from across the little small cove. We get the choice to Sacrafice the Chargers or call the retreat and the Qunari Dreadnaught is destroyed.

Why the fuck can't we go down there and help Krem and the Chargers? Its not like they're THAT far away from us and helping them doesn't sound like it would harm anything.

It comes across as... contrived.

And perhaps that's how they do it. By sending a strike force to take out the artillery (mages) so they can bomb what needs the heavy ordnance from safety.

I think it was just laziness or bad scene plotting. If they made the distance seem greater or something, it wouldn't come across as so silly.

edited 18th May '15 5:39:27 PM by HazzyHaz

It's a bad case of Gameplay and Story Segregation. The original plan was a much larger force of Venatori but the engine couldn't handle it so they put like 5 guys and said it was too many.

That would be the case.

Then I still don't see why we can't run across the area to help them? If its a group of 2 people, I'm sure the Charger's 5 and the Inquisitor's 5 could deal some serious damage.

The idea was that there was supposed to be far more in the scenario, but the game couldn't handle rendering more than 5. In reality it's far more than 5 but we can't see more onscreen.

Oops. I meant to say a group of 25 people. Like... The game doesn't make any comment on the size of the group so... how many people are we talking that a group of 10 would be completely incapable of taking them out???

Because it's across a hugeass bay

Speaking of that, the hell did the Venatori even come up from? The Chargers have a mage, why didn't Dalish blast them while they were heading along the beach and undoubtedly around or up the big cliff that the Chargers were on top of?

edited 18th May '15 7:58:37 PM by theLibrarian

Because Dalish isn't a mage, damn it. That's a bow on her back.

Ol' Elven trick. You Shemlen wouldn't understand.

I let them all die because I wanted better gear, didn't care about them at all apart from Dalish and felt it was a better tactical decision. And I actually kind of like the Qunari apart from a few things.

I hope Denerim really was torched if you saved Bull's Chargers. I would find that funny.

I saved the Chargers because I like them, then I rationalized my decision by thinking it's better to have on my side actual allies who completely trust me and who I completely trust in, rather than a shady dictatorial theocracy who's next on my shit list after Corypheus (and whose shit list I'm probably next on after Corypheus).

That would indeed be hilarious.

I never trusted the Qunari at all. I was only willing to go along with this concept of an alliance on Iron Bull's word, but even then I was deeply unsettled by what they had made him. When he told me about turning himself in to the re-educators after questioning his purpose, my exact feelings were, "Wow, that is some serious Cult Indoctrination shit right there." But as long as it made him happy, who was I to tell him it was wrong?

So I agreed to the alliance because I trusted Bull, not the Qunari. I cared about the Chargers, cared about Bull, didn't care much for the dreadnought, and saw tactical pros and cons to the Qunari alliance; what really made the choice for me was Bull and the way he felt like he was chomping at the bit over it. His behavior communicated to me that Qunari Purpose was actively hurting him; he was completely uncomfortable, even angry with the orders he'd been given.

I didn't feel like Bull was asking me to make the choice for him. I felt like Bull had already made the choice, one that seemed completely unthinkable from his Qunari worldview, and was looking to me for permission to violate everything he had ever been raised to believe. I gave it.

edited 19th May '15 7:51:54 AM by TobiasDrake