- Even Ground makes those two Venatori pretty tough for a squishy rogue or mage
- Sigil of the Great Bear can get you into a Stamina-locked situation if you are solo, low on health and no way to restore health or stamina regen
- Use Regen Health potions instead of Healing potions, so you can stay in Stealth and avoid Stamina-lock
- Dorian is practically naked during that first fight and there isn't much you can do about it
- EDIT UPDATE: @R0vena confirmed that Character Record is unlocked for about 2 seconds before the villains aggro, so you can assign abilities to Dorian. However, Inventory is completely blocked, so you still can't gear him up.
With Nightmare and Even Ground enabled (not Walk Softly, thank the Maker), I took my XP Level 8 QF DW Rogue and mandatory Dorian into the timewarp and landed in the dungeon of Redcliffe Castle just like everyone else does. We were greeted by two Venatori warriors. All completely standard.
Except that Dorian guzzled all but 2 of my healing potions in about the time it took me to go into Stealth and maneuver into position for a single Twin Fangs! And then he was dead, so I tried to revive him, he drank another potion and died after one hit. So there I was hanging out in Stealth setting up for another Twin Fangs and ... nothing. My Stamina bar was too low to do a Twin Fangs and didn't seem to want to budge. My health was very low too. When I tried to do some auto-attacks to build up Stamina, I took one hit each from both warriors and that's all she wrote. GAME OVER.
WTF?!
And, since there is no auto-save when that battle starts, I had to replay the entire War Table cutscene and Redcliffe Castle cutscene all over again.
That full party wipe happened twice before I wised up and hit Tactical the moment control came back to me, so I could figure out what was going on.
It all turned out to be a kind of a perfect storm situation that I wanted to warn others about.
- Dorian had only the default armor and default weapon equipped
- Because you immediately start in aggro, you can't equip Dorian with better gear
- Dorian had no ability points assigned
- Because you immediately start in aggro, you can't assign any of Dorian's abilities
- My Inquisitor had the Sigil of Great Bear equipped, which cut my Stamina regen in half
- Even Ground was making both of the Venatori Warriors level 8
- I went into Stealth as soon as combat started
- Because I was in Stealth, all aggro went on Dorian
Because my IQ had the Sigil of the Great Bear, once I took half my HP in damage or more, I couldn't regen Stamina! That forced me out of Stealth and all aggro was on me. My armor and weapon were better than Dorian's, but not as good as the Venatori Warriors. Every time they hit me, particularly from my flank, I'd lose 1/3 to 1/2 my health.
SOLUTION
As soon as the battle started, I went into Character Record and raised Dorian's potion limit to max, meaning, no potions for him. He can't help, so I just let him die right away.
Back in combat mode, I'd do some Twin Fangs and Flank Attacks until I had no Stamina left.
Then I went into a long cycle of 1) Stealth, 2) wait several seconds for enough Stamina to regen to do Flank Attack/Skirmisher, 3) attack one of the Warriors, which put me back into Stealth, 4) repeat.
I couldn't use any of the healing potions I had reserved. If I did, I'd come out of Stealth and would be forced to auto-attack to regain Stamina, but that always lead to me being killed. So instead, I'd take a Regen Health potion right before doing the Flank Attack. Then I'd take damage, but regen would heal me up again while I was still in Stealth.
This took forever, but I finally killed one and then the other Venatori.
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