When I first started playing Dragon Age, I had started with a Warrior character but I hadn’t properly planned my leveling path and I’m paying the price because I’m really struggling.
But thankfully, the PC version of Dragon Age allows you to access to the developer console. However, it’s a double-edged sword as using the developer console can irreparably corrupt your game and character files!
You can activate access to the console by creating a shortcut to the “daorigins.exe” file located in the game’s bin_ship directory.
E.g. E:\Games\Dragon Age\bin_ship\daorigins.exe
Then you add the command line switch “-enabledeveloperconsole” to the end of the Target path/filename (outside the quotes) within the Dragon Age shortcut if you’re running the Windows version:
I.e.
“E:\Games\Dragon Age\bin_ship\daorigins.exe” -enabledeveloperconsole
For a list of commands, you can visit this page. The list of talent IDs is here.
I’ll say again, this is not without risk!
As those pages clearly state, one can irreparably damage your game/character files. Since the game’s story is so tightly integrated with character development, sometimes the consequences of changing skills and talents won’t come to light until much, much further into the game. It’s very possible that changing character data mid-adventure can create a “state of incompatibility” between your character and how the overall story has progressed (or will progress) and this type of damage is irreversible.
As always, backup your character and save files first!
Typically, they can be found in:
C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Characters\
Re-spec Yourself!
The developer console can be used to cheat, but I think the vast majority of Dragon Age players realize that the fun is in the journey. The easier you make the journey with cheats, the significantly less enjoyable the game is.
I’ve been reading various forums and there’s a school of thought among some players that the option of re-spec’ing is bad such that it shouldn’t even be an option. Their philosophy is that it can be abused and that we must live with the consequences of our decisions.
Well, Dragon Age isn’t “Life Simulator 2.0″. I don’t play video games to be “punished” in real life. I.e. Wasting real hours and being forced to restart a game from the very beginning.
In games such as Dragon Age, re-spec’ing should always be an option whose use is restricted to prevent abuse. For example, there’s a maximum limit of three re-specs and/or re-specs cost a lot of money, or you drop a few levels when you re-spec.
Changes
Where my Warrior’s concerned, I’m not going to make any significant re-configuration to the party, just a few minor tweaks to only a couple of skill/spell choices so the party’s skills and spells better compliment each other.
But lesson learned! A very comprehensive game like Dragon Age can’t be played willy-nilly. It requires at least a degree of research so you won’t end up with a “gimped” character down the road.
