Dragons Dogma for Beginners

Let me begin by saying that I have way more hours in this game than appears on my Steam Account having previously gotten to the start of the Second Act on PS3.

I have noticed a LOT of `How do I do x` and `Why did bad guy y kill me so quickly` type questions on the Forums lately and have tried my best to dole out advice on a case by case basis. I figured it would be much easier to collate all of that in one place so I can give a quick reply and link rather than re hashing old advice all the time.

That said this is by no means meant to be an exhaustive guide to the HUGE amount of secrets, tips and strategies that could fill these Forums specifically and the World Wide Wait generally probably from now until the Internet implodes under its own weight of knowledge.

I hope you find this useful and please excuse any E&O.

Cheers

Monkeydude :)

AKA Psiax - Half Orc Assassin and her faithful Dökkálfa (Dark Elf) White Mage Pawn Psyclapse

Published as of 26/1/15 - Draft One

Updated and revised 27/1/15

More Brain Farts to come as I think of them

Pawn Stars

Ok I admit it I really could NOT pass up the opportunity for the pun. Anyhoo now the inner 11 yr old has been quelled let me get on witht the business at hand.

The Golden Rule in DD:DA is thus:


I really cannot state just how important and addition your own Pawn and Support Pawns hired via the Rift are. If you want to capitalise the knowledge of a horde of other players that allow online open access to their main pawns then make sure you do the same.

When you rest at an Inn a copy of your pawn gets uploaded to the Pawn Guild, think of it as a Clone.

Another Arisen hires said Clone and goes off adventuring. That clone goes with them and learns enemy tactics, knowledge, quest details etc. They will not level up but in this game knowledge is power.

When you next rest at an Inn if your Pawn is no longer needed by the other Arisen they will `come back from adventures in another realm with another Arisen` and a screen will pop up giving you feedback on their looks, helpfulness and combat skills in the form of 1-5 stars for each catergory.

Most importantly of all is the knowledge gained by your Pawn. You may go to a new area, see some great big `I am going to tear your head off` monster only for your Pawn to shout precise instructions on what to do, what it is weak to and where best to hit it and then copycat what it saw its recent travelling companion do with great success.

You may also get a comment from a variety of pre-set comments kind of like the templates on E-bay .. well obviously not `could have been wrapped better` or anything lol. Possibly you will get some sort of curative or tool as a gift too.

If you are very lucky that Arisen may have equipped them with anything from a better weapon up to and including a full set of matching armor. This is something I do all the time bacause someone gets better equipment and I get a more effective companion. Win/Win.

Finally you will get Rift Crystals the number of which depends on a set formula which you can then use to Hire other peoples Pawns or get Rift Crystal only items.

So... There is literally no reason NOT to play in Online mode with open hiring for your Pawn set to on.

You're simply the best, Better than all the rest...

To min/max or not to min/max that is the question...

If you have spent any time at all on the Forums you will have seen countless mentions of min/maxing. This is basically an attempt to make the `best` character by playing and maxing all the character classes in order to unlock all the core skills etc in the hopes that you will be a lean mean killing machine.

I recently found this chart which should pretty much give you an idea of the pros and cons:


As you can see it doesn't make a huge deal of difference which route you take. Still there are those who like to plan the perfect character and who am I to say that they shouldn't.

If you are minded to do that then I say Good luck to you Ser !

For a comprehensive stat planner you would be well served to use the one by Stackover: which can be found here[stackoverflow.github.io]

Know your Surroundings

Tactics are not some sort of Mint..

Apart from your travelling companions your best weapon in this game is not some Magical` Sword of Foe Twatting` or a pair of sweet `Hah I Stabbaya Face` Daggers. No dear friends it is in fact your Brain.

Despite the fast action oriented combat tactics are everything. The most dangerous enemies in this game are those that stay at range. If you get ambushed have a look around the battlefield for sneaky rangers and mages. There is no point hammering away at a heavily armored melee fighter if a Mage is sitting at the back of the Fray Merrily healing all and sundry or even worse casting debilitating spells on you or your companions.

Nothing will ruin your day quite as fast as an expert marksman putting a couple of well placed Full Bend Shots with posion arrows right in your kisser.

If you see a cliff, take a look over it and you never know you might see a pack of ne'er-do-wells skulking about. There are plenty of times you will get ambushed in the course of your adventures so a little payback never hurts.

My personal favourite involves a cliff, a sleeping Cyclops and me introducing its face to the business end of my charged Full Bend Poison Arrows a few times. After Knocking its Armor Layer off at leisure I sauntered down to introduce it to the business end of my Enchanted Flame Daggers.

Revenge is indeed a dish best served hot, fast and right in their faces.

Use your eyes and you too will find creative and useful ways to blow things up, set them on fire, kick them off something high or into something dangerous (or even better the former swiftly followed by the latter)

Exploration FTW

This game has a huge world full of scenery to climb up, over and around. Be curious and take your time exploring. In my opinion games like this should always be about the journey and not the destination.

Sure you have an overarching story to follow and presumably have picked up lots of lovely quests but the scenery and locations in this game are gorgeous and full of loot, secrets and shiny stuff to find.

Presuming you have picked up alot of Kill quests you can be quietly racking up your score in the background and before you know it you will have completed one of them without even thinking about it.

Sometimes slowing down will get you way more rewards than simply rushing from quest to quest in a mad rush to gain levels and experience. You can make plenty of money from selling all your unwanted gear and should really never run out of it if you are careful.

Remember when selling your gear you can access the Storage directly from the shop interface thus saving lots of pointless back and forth.

Fame, Fortune, Brooms and Buckets await !!

Any old Iron

Upgrading to better equipment isn't nessecarily about buying `better` items for gold. If you compare
an item to the one you are currently wearing and it is only slightly better you are better off enhancing your current worn item. This can be done at Armores such as Caxton's in Gran Soren.

See all that weird random stuff you have been hoarding like a manic squirrel? Odds are that you have plenty of upgrade materials.

Upgrading comes in three levels thus:

One Star - Normally just a small amount of Gold
Two Stars - Medium amount of Gold + Regular upgrade material/s
Three Stars - Higher amount of Gold + Rarer material/s

There is a level above the third which is know as DragonForged. This can happen with varying degrees of chance for all the Arisens Gear when slaying a Dragon. No materials are needed, but the gear must have been upgraded to at least level one.

Full wiki on DragonForging :[dragonsdogma.wikia.com]


Every now and then it is a good idea to have a nice relaxed combining session to see what you can make. There are hundreds of combinations and you just never know what you might craft.

Hopefully something explosive and evil to throw at bandits >:) MUAHAHHAHAHAH.....

Food for thought..

Credit to Zamus for this tip

A tip for food consumables (Meat, vegetables,eggs) is that they have 3 states.

1.-Fresh
2.-Moldy/Rank/Sour (Eggs turn from white to golden)
3.-Rotten

They actually restore more health/stamina on their 2nd state, each item has it's own timer and storing it on your storage stops this timer so it's basically a fridge, you can store fresh items and then once you get into an inn take them out and rest, they will start to go into state 2 were you should store them and use air thight flask to kept locked into their 2nd state.

For rotten items mostly giant fishes/ambrosia you can store them in airtight flasks* and then combine them with spring water this will revert them to their fresh state and while they will be locked into fresh they will still restore way more stamina than if you ate them rotted.

*(The airtight flasks can be found as loot or bought in Bulk from the Apothacary in Fountain Square in Gran Soren.)

[GloriousMadness]

I know this post is old as hell but:

``No materials are needed, but the gear must have been upgraded to at least level one.``
Actually not true, or rather that's only true for Drakes, Wyrms and Wyverns & the Ur-Dragon (offline) where it's 0% chance to dragonforge on a kill without a single upgrade level. The Dragon, Cursed Dragon, Online Ur-Dragon and fire/frost/thunder drake/wyrm/wyvern have an actual chance (CD a rather big one even).

``They actually restore more health/stamina on their 2nd state``
Just a note but Moldy healing items (like carrots) actually drain stamina when consumed. Can't remember if that's for all of them but the 2nd state isn't always the best, depending on the consumable.

[Parboleum Loyce]

This literally says nothing about how to actually play though.

[Tickled Pickle]

I've been playing this game since it was released on consoles. (you can't begin to imagine how thrilled I was it was coming to PC. I nearly ran through streets naked for joy.) And I *Still* learned a thing or two from this guide. IMO, that points to both the quality of the game, as well as to the effort put into the guide. Bravo sir. Though, a small mention of how augments affect various builds would possibly be helpful as well. Maybe even a few augment sets/archetypes for new players to try?

[Tophiate]

it's the same old debate about min/max and whether or not to. I personally would rather have a more spontaneous, visceral experience which comes from no planning whatsoever....I don't even open the manuals. But some folks see it as a bonus challenge and I get that too. I'm just too lazy for all that thinking and stuff, so..go GET EM boys!

[Subotai]

Is it possible to sneak in this game?

[Electric Meat]

Min-maxing definitely makes a difference. What that image doesn't account for is how the game handles damage reduction from armour.

That being said if you're just playing to have fun there isn't any point in min-maxing since unless you only play one or two vocations exclusively then your stat gains + gear will make up the difference.

[Joreel]

Thanks for the guide, it gave me thinks to think about and remember. I agree that with these kind of games, one should awlay take the time to explore and enjoy the view.

[Zloth]

Wait, what?? Those golden eggs I have aren't made of gold!?

How about a little mention about Bitterback? It's mostly pretty high level stuff but they show it to you really early on.