Duration: 10:17

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The two soldiers who alerted us join our party, giving us a total of four party members. Both of these new party members are only here for the duration of our assault on the Tower of Ishal, and aren’t even given proper names; one of them is designated as “Soldier” and the other “Tower Guard”. Regardless, they’re valuable assets. The soldier is equipped with a mace and shield, and like Alistair appears to be a defensive-oriented tank. The tower guard is range-oriented; he carries a crossbow. Combined with us and Alistair, we have a solid team, and we’ll need it for the challenge of retaking the tower. I take some time to give each of them an amulet and belt from our inventory, and then advance toward the tower. Our first and easiest job is to actually get inside, and to do that we’ll have to clear out the darkspawn on the tower grounds. There are a series of darkspawn parties we’ll encounter on the grounds, but thankfully they’re not overly tough. We’ll also find some surviving soldiers engaging the darkspawn as we go; they’ll definitely make things easier.

Even on Nightmare, we don’t have that much trouble in the courtyard. Our only real trouble spot is the doors to the tower; a hurlock alpha is among the defenders in that area. He puts up a worthy fight and I have to use a Heal spell or two to keep our team fully healthy in this phase of the battle, but we win and successfully clear the grounds. During the battle, Alistair levels up to Level 5; our companions level up and require point distribution just as our main character does, so I stop to do it once the grounds are cleared. Instead of spells, warriors get talents, and there are three basic “models” of warrior in the game: defensive types with Weapon and Shield talents, offensive damage-dealers that have Two-Handed talents, and ranged fighters that make use of Archery talents. As mentioned above, Alistair is very much in the “defensive” category, and I’ll be using him in that role throughout the game. He starts with four talents in the Weapon and Shield school; I give him another one, Shield Defense. Now we can go inside the tower, where it’ll be significantly tougher.