A look at Dragon Age's character creation

My review copy of Dragon Age has arrived, and I have begun winding my way through the game.

However, as this game is long, my plan is to do several reviews of different aspects of the game, before summing up my thoughts in a final overview.

I have to say, from a system standpoint, Dragon Age is extremely strong.

There are three character classes: warrior, mage and rogue. However, each character class has a lot of room for specialization.

My warrior is a sword&board guy who knocks opponents down or stuns them with his shield, but I could also be specializing in dual-wielding, two-handed weapons, or archery.

There are also skills I imagine every character class will have a chance to learn. For example, I have begun dabbling in herbalism, since I liked making potions in Oblivion, and have learned how to make simple healing poultices from wild mushrooms.

Looking ahead, even though the three classes are broad right from the start, each class also have four potential specializations later.

For warrior, the specializations are: Berserker, Champion, Templar and Reaver.

For mage: Arcane Warrior, Bloodmage, Shapeshifter and Spirit Healer.

For Rogue: Assassin, Bard, Duelist and Ranger.

As a tabletop guy, Ranger as a Rogue specialization jumps out at me. I can see that, personally.

In short, there's a lot of depth here. I think more depth on the character creation/development front than was seen in Mass Effect (whose mechanics I also liked).

Next I'll be taking a look at combat.