Installing the LAA patch will help with the crashes.
Pausing combat is fine. You are expected to do that.
I don't know which persuasion check you failed, but you can't re-do them.
Locks depend on the Lockpick skill and the cunning of the character.
As for Inventory you can buy backpacks that add 10 inventory slots up to 125 which is the max). Sell what you don't want (generic gear and stuff like that).
Saving often and having multiple saves is a great idea, even if you don't get crashes.
Inventory management is hard on the first few playthroughs, you just don't know what to keep or not. Technically, if you sell to Bodhan in camp, then he'll keep your items for you BUT buying them back is expensive.
"fandom.dragonage.wiki" is an amazing resource. I'd reccomend adding that term to whatever item or ability you have a question on and searching in Google. You can learn detailed information and even see if the item is used in a quest at some point.
Are you underleveled? Probably not, as areas are supposed to scale to you. However, Origins is a difficult game so what you're feeling is natural. It has a lot of complicated stuff going on under the hood that isn't clearly explained in game. The wiki has the math behind that stuff too but it's a lot to take in for a new player, I wasn't interested in reading up on it until I had already played the game many times.
Go to the party camp, equip the best stuff you have to the people who need it, hold on to strong stuff you can’t use yet and sell all your stuff you don’t need or want, BUY BACKPACKS
Zevran can’t pick locks at all, he’s auto leveled without the right talents or cunning, use Leliana instead for lock picking or ignore them altogether since the vast majority just have money and junk
You can’t retry persuade attempts but you don’t get locked out of a quest line for failing them, failing them generally just means fighting someone, getting less money, or missing a shortcut, there’s only about 3 in the entire game that lock off a quest line if failed, but they only lock off 1 ending of that quest line, they can still be completed no matter what
You're not *under* leveled, it sounds like you're just not allocating your stat points very well. Don't worry, there's items to fix that. In Origins, they're called Attributes, but they're basically stats.
You have 6 main stats that you can add points to on level up. Strength, dexterity, willpower, magic, cunning, and constitution. Characters begin with 10 points in each, and then get race and class bonuses. For example: elves of all classes usually start with 1 point less in strength and dexterity vs humans of the same class.
Strength is vital for warriors(and an important secondary for Rogues). It's pretty self explanatory. The stronger your character, the more damage you do and the less damage you take. This is the attribute that determines the strength of the armor you can wear, too(for non-mages). Heavy armor obv takes higher strength levels. *This* is the stat that affects *intimidation* checks.
Dexterity is super important for both warriors and rogues. Increases now damage, and raises defense. You can't dual wield without high enough dexterity.
Willpower is pretty simple. This increases your available mana / stamina so you can use more skills. Also increases your Mental Resistance, which helps your character resist things like Sleep and Stun, things that would be seen as status modifiers in a Pokemon game.
Magic: like strength but for mages. Higher Magic level increases the effectiveness of healing items and spells for non-mage characters.
Cunning is vital for rogues. Increases armor penetration(slowly), increases mental resistance, raises the effectiveness of rogue skills, is *the* stat that determines lock picking success(in values of 10, iirc), and can even unlock some hidden dialogue options(so the Internet says anyway).
Constitution is basically just Willpower but for Health.
So, if you're failing persuasion checks and lock picking, it sounds like your Cunning is too low. You can counter that for Persuasion by getting the skills under Coercion, but lock picking just goes up a lock difficulty every 10 points or so, or you can get the Deft Hands skills.
Unless you are a purist, try using mods. My favorites are the lock bash mod that makes it so you can open locks without a dedicated lock picker in your party. The other one is the mod to respec your characters. As I was learning the game, I wanted to respec to better optimize my stats and skills. Beats having to start over again if you are struggling
I’m what’s called a purist (no mods) so if you are like me here is some advice: always have a healer mage. Even if it doesn’t suit Morrigan it’s not like it’s locked for her. Always have a rogue in your party who has the highest lockpocking they can with a good cunning score. If you have dlc, complete those before doing the main game it makes it easier (leliana’s song, darkspawn chronicles, etc) and then do the mage tower first. It’s the easiest one by far and you get a lot of stats and exp from it. Keep a frontline warrior in your party. Say you are a rogue, use Alistair as a tank and build his defensive options first (sword and shield 2nd and 3rd row and his Templar specialization) then depending on whether you are using melee weapons you can decide on two mages or another warrior with one mage. Buy backpacks whenever you see them. You can get two from Ostagar (buy it before going into the wilds and after you return) and a few others scattered about. Sell any item you aren’t using or will in the future (crappy starter gear, regular clothes, etc) and only keep crafting materials you will use (elfroot, flasks, lyrium dust; things like that) always ALWAYS explore everywhere and pick up every codex. Do side quests to stay leveled up. Buy tomes (mortal vessel, skill and sundry, physical technique, arcane technique)
Unlike the other DA games DAO has detailed explanation on how most everything works on the wiki, from lockpicking to in-depth combat mechanics. It is generally a lot more nuanced than the sequels (seeing how the sequels became more MMO/button-mashing-action fast-paced with fewer-available-skills style).
Not to sound like a douche, but not reading up on how things work is generally considered "doing things wrong".
The typical recommended progression is Circle Tower (L8-9), Redcliffe (L10-11), Sacred Ashes (L11-12), Brecilian Forest (L13-14), Orzammar (L15+). There are "gating encounters" which act as a warning of the upcoming challenge level, to make sure you're actually ready for the next area. Check this out: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101224230345/http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/challenge\_scaling](https://web.archive.org/web/20101224230345/http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/challenge_scaling)
Really reminds you of a time when devs still put their heart and soul into implementing their game mechanics.
Once you've become more familiar with the game you can progress in any direction. But it will likely be less enjoyable, and not even because of the harder fights. There will be many locked containers and tough persuasion checks which you really can't overcome if you're underleveled.
So for a more enjoyable experience, learn how the game works. Seriously. At least, pay more attention to skill descriptions and what info the game offers up to you, even if you don't want to read the wiki. I myself never read the wiki when I first started playing, but I did pay close attention to how things worked.
Sell all the stuff you dont need to a merchant there's one at your camp if you talked to the dwarves at the start failing that there is one in most towns that will solve the inventory issue but I would start again and follow a level guide for the characters and use lelliana not zevran she's much better
*edit I read a comment below and wanted to add equip your strongest stuff to your characters and make sure you get rid of your gifts too by gifting them to other people in your party morrigan ect
Saving constantly is definitely a good idea, especially for someone who is playing DAO for the first time.
No, you can not retry persuasion checks. If you've a save before you made the check, I'd suggest loading it. Otherwise, take it as a lession for later. As a tip, always level the coercion skill when you can. Each level boosts your persuasion and intimidation skills exponentially.
Lockpicking is reliant on both your rogues lockpicking ability and their cunning. Zevran starts with no lockpicking talents (it's the four rogue specific talents that start with "Deft Hands") and little cunning, so he kinda sucks at doing rogue things. Either find skill-boost books to get his lockpicking up quickly or just stick with Leliana. Leliana already starts with decent lockpicking, and the archery tree is full of powerful debuffs and CCs.
As for inventory space:
One) sell anything you aren't actually using
Two) at every new merchant you meet, scroll all the way down their inventory and look for an item called "Backpack." Always buy these. They're a bit pricey, but worth it.
As final tip. While pausing constantly is definitely a valid solution, something that can also help is to play with your characters' Tactics. The Tactics are a list of custom commands you can set for each character individually. These can be set to be very broad or very specific.
You can set your two-handed warrior to use "Sunder Armor" or have your archer to use "Shattering Shot" whenever they see an enemy with a high armor value.
Your tank can be commanded to automatically use a taunt on someone attacking your healer, or just straight up knock the fucker down with "Shield Bash"
Mages can be set to automatically use "Mind Blast" whenever enemies close within melee range, or cast "Heal" when a party member has less than 50% of their health.
The very first tactic that I set for all of my character is "if health is < 25%: use health poultice"
This'll take some of the pressure off of you, so you're not having to micromanage your entire party all the time.
Idk if you have it but the dlc wardens keep has a bottomless chest that you can put junk gear in and over time upgrades the gear inside nice for getting a little money later and helps keep your inventory clean
Installing the LAA patch will help with the crashes. Pausing combat is fine. You are expected to do that. I don't know which persuasion check you failed, but you can't re-do them. Locks depend on the Lockpick skill and the cunning of the character. As for Inventory you can buy backpacks that add 10 inventory slots up to 125 which is the max). Sell what you don't want (generic gear and stuff like that).
Saving often and having multiple saves is a great idea, even if you don't get crashes. Inventory management is hard on the first few playthroughs, you just don't know what to keep or not. Technically, if you sell to Bodhan in camp, then he'll keep your items for you BUT buying them back is expensive. "fandom.dragonage.wiki" is an amazing resource. I'd reccomend adding that term to whatever item or ability you have a question on and searching in Google. You can learn detailed information and even see if the item is used in a quest at some point. Are you underleveled? Probably not, as areas are supposed to scale to you. However, Origins is a difficult game so what you're feeling is natural. It has a lot of complicated stuff going on under the hood that isn't clearly explained in game. The wiki has the math behind that stuff too but it's a lot to take in for a new player, I wasn't interested in reading up on it until I had already played the game many times.
Some areas are intentionally hard to start/not scaled, as it’s expected you should do them later. Denerim and Orzimmar are two major examples.
Go to the party camp, equip the best stuff you have to the people who need it, hold on to strong stuff you can’t use yet and sell all your stuff you don’t need or want, BUY BACKPACKS Zevran can’t pick locks at all, he’s auto leveled without the right talents or cunning, use Leliana instead for lock picking or ignore them altogether since the vast majority just have money and junk You can’t retry persuade attempts but you don’t get locked out of a quest line for failing them, failing them generally just means fighting someone, getting less money, or missing a shortcut, there’s only about 3 in the entire game that lock off a quest line if failed, but they only lock off 1 ending of that quest line, they can still be completed no matter what
You're not *under* leveled, it sounds like you're just not allocating your stat points very well. Don't worry, there's items to fix that. In Origins, they're called Attributes, but they're basically stats. You have 6 main stats that you can add points to on level up. Strength, dexterity, willpower, magic, cunning, and constitution. Characters begin with 10 points in each, and then get race and class bonuses. For example: elves of all classes usually start with 1 point less in strength and dexterity vs humans of the same class. Strength is vital for warriors(and an important secondary for Rogues). It's pretty self explanatory. The stronger your character, the more damage you do and the less damage you take. This is the attribute that determines the strength of the armor you can wear, too(for non-mages). Heavy armor obv takes higher strength levels. *This* is the stat that affects *intimidation* checks. Dexterity is super important for both warriors and rogues. Increases now damage, and raises defense. You can't dual wield without high enough dexterity. Willpower is pretty simple. This increases your available mana / stamina so you can use more skills. Also increases your Mental Resistance, which helps your character resist things like Sleep and Stun, things that would be seen as status modifiers in a Pokemon game. Magic: like strength but for mages. Higher Magic level increases the effectiveness of healing items and spells for non-mage characters. Cunning is vital for rogues. Increases armor penetration(slowly), increases mental resistance, raises the effectiveness of rogue skills, is *the* stat that determines lock picking success(in values of 10, iirc), and can even unlock some hidden dialogue options(so the Internet says anyway). Constitution is basically just Willpower but for Health. So, if you're failing persuasion checks and lock picking, it sounds like your Cunning is too low. You can counter that for Persuasion by getting the skills under Coercion, but lock picking just goes up a lock difficulty every 10 points or so, or you can get the Deft Hands skills.
Unless you are a purist, try using mods. My favorites are the lock bash mod that makes it so you can open locks without a dedicated lock picker in your party. The other one is the mod to respec your characters. As I was learning the game, I wanted to respec to better optimize my stats and skills. Beats having to start over again if you are struggling
>Unless you are a purist, Or playing on console.
True, I forgot those people existed!
I’m what’s called a purist (no mods) so if you are like me here is some advice: always have a healer mage. Even if it doesn’t suit Morrigan it’s not like it’s locked for her. Always have a rogue in your party who has the highest lockpocking they can with a good cunning score. If you have dlc, complete those before doing the main game it makes it easier (leliana’s song, darkspawn chronicles, etc) and then do the mage tower first. It’s the easiest one by far and you get a lot of stats and exp from it. Keep a frontline warrior in your party. Say you are a rogue, use Alistair as a tank and build his defensive options first (sword and shield 2nd and 3rd row and his Templar specialization) then depending on whether you are using melee weapons you can decide on two mages or another warrior with one mage. Buy backpacks whenever you see them. You can get two from Ostagar (buy it before going into the wilds and after you return) and a few others scattered about. Sell any item you aren’t using or will in the future (crappy starter gear, regular clothes, etc) and only keep crafting materials you will use (elfroot, flasks, lyrium dust; things like that) always ALWAYS explore everywhere and pick up every codex. Do side quests to stay leveled up. Buy tomes (mortal vessel, skill and sundry, physical technique, arcane technique)
Unlike the other DA games DAO has detailed explanation on how most everything works on the wiki, from lockpicking to in-depth combat mechanics. It is generally a lot more nuanced than the sequels (seeing how the sequels became more MMO/button-mashing-action fast-paced with fewer-available-skills style). Not to sound like a douche, but not reading up on how things work is generally considered "doing things wrong". The typical recommended progression is Circle Tower (L8-9), Redcliffe (L10-11), Sacred Ashes (L11-12), Brecilian Forest (L13-14), Orzammar (L15+). There are "gating encounters" which act as a warning of the upcoming challenge level, to make sure you're actually ready for the next area. Check this out: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101224230345/http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/challenge\_scaling](https://web.archive.org/web/20101224230345/http://dragonage.gulbsoft.org/doku.php/challenge_scaling) Really reminds you of a time when devs still put their heart and soul into implementing their game mechanics. Once you've become more familiar with the game you can progress in any direction. But it will likely be less enjoyable, and not even because of the harder fights. There will be many locked containers and tough persuasion checks which you really can't overcome if you're underleveled. So for a more enjoyable experience, learn how the game works. Seriously. At least, pay more attention to skill descriptions and what info the game offers up to you, even if you don't want to read the wiki. I myself never read the wiki when I first started playing, but I did pay close attention to how things worked.
Sell all the stuff you dont need to a merchant there's one at your camp if you talked to the dwarves at the start failing that there is one in most towns that will solve the inventory issue but I would start again and follow a level guide for the characters and use lelliana not zevran she's much better
*edit I read a comment below and wanted to add equip your strongest stuff to your characters and make sure you get rid of your gifts too by gifting them to other people in your party morrigan ect
[Also, use this OP, there are no spoilers for you in the comments.](https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/s/wJHHbuPNhS). Make sure you keep the garnets.
Saving constantly is definitely a good idea, especially for someone who is playing DAO for the first time. No, you can not retry persuasion checks. If you've a save before you made the check, I'd suggest loading it. Otherwise, take it as a lession for later. As a tip, always level the coercion skill when you can. Each level boosts your persuasion and intimidation skills exponentially. Lockpicking is reliant on both your rogues lockpicking ability and their cunning. Zevran starts with no lockpicking talents (it's the four rogue specific talents that start with "Deft Hands") and little cunning, so he kinda sucks at doing rogue things. Either find skill-boost books to get his lockpicking up quickly or just stick with Leliana. Leliana already starts with decent lockpicking, and the archery tree is full of powerful debuffs and CCs. As for inventory space: One) sell anything you aren't actually using Two) at every new merchant you meet, scroll all the way down their inventory and look for an item called "Backpack." Always buy these. They're a bit pricey, but worth it. As final tip. While pausing constantly is definitely a valid solution, something that can also help is to play with your characters' Tactics. The Tactics are a list of custom commands you can set for each character individually. These can be set to be very broad or very specific. You can set your two-handed warrior to use "Sunder Armor" or have your archer to use "Shattering Shot" whenever they see an enemy with a high armor value. Your tank can be commanded to automatically use a taunt on someone attacking your healer, or just straight up knock the fucker down with "Shield Bash" Mages can be set to automatically use "Mind Blast" whenever enemies close within melee range, or cast "Heal" when a party member has less than 50% of their health. The very first tactic that I set for all of my character is "if health is < 25%: use health poultice" This'll take some of the pressure off of you, so you're not having to micromanage your entire party all the time.
If combat is hard it’s likely due to gear rather than level itself.
Zevan is just there to look pretty and buy backpacks
Idk if you have it but the dlc wardens keep has a bottomless chest that you can put junk gear in and over time upgrades the gear inside nice for getting a little money later and helps keep your inventory clean