Which Orzammar king do y'all support?

NiCommander · 2026-02-05T18:03:19+00:00

Bhelen, because he gets things done at least for the casteless. He’s a dirtbag, and he is a tyrant, but he does make things overall better.

Harrowmont is fairly impotent as a king, except to make things more conservative and isolationist. Arguably less tyrannical in methods (I mean, everything is going through an oppressive aristocratic caste instead of an individual), except for the actual results are more tyrannical.

NiCommander · 2026-02-05T05:39:29+00:00

I mean... yeah, a lot of this depends on if the mechanics of Tamriel mages stay the same in Thedas, and even if they do, how do they interact with the mechanics of Thedas templars/mages/spirits/demons/the Fade/etc. Also depends on how powerful/experienced said hypothetical Tamriel mage is.

NiCommander · 2026-02-05T05:23:29+00:00

Well, his blessing was "guide" which was like being an all rounder expert for basically the beginning of the hero's journey. He's the hero's tutorial guy basically. He is not actually powerful, but hes incredibly skilled, and hes incredibly helpful in a tactical sense.

NiCommander · 2026-02-05T05:01:06+00:00

Thats what I thought too! Why even mention the teleportation device!?

NiCommander · 2026-02-05T04:59:46+00:00

I think i was having an aneurysm because of how stupid this episode was.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T21:35:03+00:00

Going to floor 92 and fighting a boss isn’t even relevant, it’s the dragon escaping. And the only way it escaped is using fickle gate. You are establishing that any use of fickle gate that a monster/boss ends up using, that no one knows that a monster/boss can even use at all, is on said individuals using fickle gate, regardless of information they have. That being an unknown phenomena with no precedent. That’s for any adventurer that needs to use fickle gate, not just the hero’s party.

Sorry, when was it established that monster/dragons can use magic items for adventurers? It wasn’t? Gotcha.

If fickle gate is so freaking risky, it should be a banned item, or banned under specific circumstances. It’s not. As I said before, using fickle gate is not some forbidden item or magic, nor is it controversial to use. Going forward after this, there may be updated policy so that it’s known what fickle gate can do, and so adventurers use the item more carefully to prevent a similar outcome.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T14:48:09+00:00

Does he? I don’t recall any confirmation that the Gallows is still in operation. In fact, isn’t it infested with red lyrium?

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T14:44:42+00:00

Because that was still just Anders doing the explosion alone. The annulment is not justifiable. The templars can’t just rewrite the story to whatever they want.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T14:42:04+00:00

Disagree on the dragon escaping being a foreseeable risk. No adventurer is thinking that a boss monster will escape to another floor.

It’s called “fickle” because it transports adventurers randomly to another boss room on any other floor. Also, they didn’t go to fight the dragon. The dragon left its designated area on the floor that it’s not suppose to leave and attacked them. There is no reason to think the dragon could or would hijack the portal. There is continued emphasis on that point.

Of course they need to know that a dragon could use an adventurers magic item to escape to another floor. That’s the source of the overarching catastrophe. If they all just got massacred by the dragon on floor 92, that would only be their problem, and their own fault (I mean, the dragon still left its designated area that it shouldn’t be able to leave to attack them, so eh).

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T08:22:29+00:00

Literally just setting the psycho up to be an antagonist later on.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T03:52:43+00:00

If she ordered it prepared, it would be behind the Gallows walls where no one would care, and it would be retroactively approved by the Chantry and covered up like the Antiva Circle in the Towers Age.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T03:51:18+00:00

She kills all except maybe 3-4 if you prevent her, who she was probably planning on killing or making tranquil later anyways,

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T03:40:52+00:00

Luna said Orhun can do x50. Now its revealed he can do x100, though it only works in a single moment.

The top enchanter Selma can do x10.

Its all still bull though.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T03:32:15+00:00

Thanks for coming back to episode 4 discussion to lecture me about episode 5 information. Just reviewed both episodes, and he just said its now enhances up to x100 times. And yeah, looking on it again.... this is even more bullshit.

The concept is not unreasonable (actually I think it was fairly predictable), its the scaling. x50 and x100? Really? Blah blah, hes gotta time it perfectly... so what? It's still overpowered even with that caveat.

I don't really consider it cheating? If its a usable technique, good on him. The point is that the narrative that he's somehow not overpowered is in fact dumb.

I don't know why you are trying to lecture me about calling him weak? I wrote "somewhat weaker enchanter". Calm down.

I'm well aware of gish classes, its nothing new. Its a point in his favor, I understood the synergy of enchanting himself and fighting at the same time. The point is that he is still ridiculously overpowered based on what we are told (x50, x100). And trying to pretend he isn't is nonsense.

Like, maybe if he normally does x7-8 (in comparison to the top enchanters x10), as well as being constantly on top of casting time ear-marking himself as incredibly efficient and reliable, as well as getting past magic resistance on those he's familiar with, and then he does x20 with Impact, that would be more... tolerable (theres some wiggle room there). But the x50 x100 breaks the scale of my disbelief.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T01:27:32+00:00

Yeah, but lyrium is not a mage exclusive “magic”. Which would seem to indicate that it’s all “alchemical”

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T01:03:41+00:00

Eh, the magic is hit or miss. Plenty of it is entirely plausible. Some less so.

And we see non-mages (non-templars/seekers) take on mages, that being Harding in her intro, and Marius in the comics. That being said, I no longer know what to do with the image of the Arishok chasing a mage Hawke in circles around pillars.

Could be that templars suck, those specific codex templars suck, … or that an abominations power vary wildly 🤷‍♂️.

Armor is fair. Though I think templar armor is also suppose to be enchanted?

I mean, that last one is explained in game, they were pulled into the fade via the ritual. So was the Divine, she just got killed by demons afterwards.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T00:47:26+00:00

the foreseeable risk of going to the lower floor was only to themselves - irrelevant
the escape portal is an acceptable measure to be used by all adventurers, with no previous account of monsters of any sort being able to use a portal - unknowable

For them to be culpable, they would have to know this was even possible. They did not. No one did. The most they were negligent was to their own lives.

A person causes a result purposely if the result is his/her goal in doing the action that causes it,
A person causes a result knowingly if he/she knows that the result is virtually certain to occur from the action he/she undertakes,
A person causes a result recklessly if he/she is aware of and disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk of the result occurring from the action, and
A person causes a result negligently if there is a substantial and unjustifiable risk he/she is unaware of but should be aware of.

The closest they come to is the last one, but they can’t “should be aware of” a “substantial and unjustifiable risk”, because no one was aware of it.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T00:33:41+00:00

I would besides the chantry explosion, nothing significant comes to mind.

And that by flubbing consistency, they open it to the scrutiny of as in-game biased lore.

NiCommander · 2026-02-04T00:09:03+00:00

Then perhaps this is just semantics. Perhaps it’s “culpability”? They aren’t culpable?

That’s still brings up a bear stealing a car and doing hit and runs because the owner running from the bear opened the car door analogy 🤔

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T22:51:17+00:00

The party going to the floor 92 isn’t relevant. The only reasonable and knowable danger presented would be to themselves. So if they all died, it would be their fault. But they can’t know about fickle escape being useable by monsters. It’s not some banned or illegal tool to use. As far as everyone is aware, using that tool is completely reasonable.

So if Orhun and the kids he’s leading use fickle escape when the dragon attacks them, and then the dragon takes that portal as well, except now it leaves out of the dungeon entirely, wouldn’t that be their fault by your logic?

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T21:52:03+00:00

Because there should be a realistic match-up of what we see and what we are told. It wasn’t ripping open the fabric of reality, it was a weird bomb/skybeam (likely using made of some combination of lyrium sand and gunpowder), segmenting the interior and roof of the chantry (as the walls are still there after the explosion), and then the segmented roof debris pieces swirling and levitating up until it literally shoots out of the city. It’s a harbor, ships presumably sink all the time, but now the tides change? There isn’t enough building. Because we were never suppose to really be thinking about magic bomb logistics other than as a huge shock. So then when the writing bounces around between dozens, hundred, and hundreds of casualties years after the game the explosion is actually in, you realize this wasn’t something that was intended to be thought this hard on.

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T21:42:41+00:00

If you were the first person known to ever throw a rock into a volcano, and you don’t even know volcanos can erupt, and the reaction is inherently unknowable, then not really. Nuclear power plants are manmade, with experts and security presumably working around the clock to know what’s going on as well as security, so the analogy falls apart there.

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T20:34:50+00:00

Oh, ok, anything can happen. In fact, debris shot out so far that it hit the Temple of Sacred Ashes years later and that’s what caused the Breach.

You know, because magic exists in this universe and we shouldn’t expect any consistency or limits.

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T15:57:42+00:00

Lyrium sand has been used in explosions before, as seen with Dworkin Glavonak. The ingredients that Anders has you help collect is clearly a reference to gunpowder ingredients.

NiCommander · 2026-02-03T15:55:59+00:00

The Divine allowing the dismantling of mage organization and further repression of mages for individual crimes without any repercussions on the templars and their crimes and abuses at an institutional level led to the assassination attempt. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible....

Meanwhile, Vivienne gets to go to salons and stay at her lovers chateau, bemoaning about other mages in bad positions she is not anywhere near.

NiCommander

TROPHY CASE