Executive Summary:

- Solo play, no level 50.
- Better abilities: more upgrades, increased effectiveness and/or damage, reduced cooldowns.
- 10 attribute and 3 ability points per level. Lower gains at higher levels.
- More enduring and harder hitting enemies.
- Two sets of weapons and action bars.
- Gameplay revolves around control, survivability, maneuvering, timing and battlefield awareness.
- No God mode. You are liable to die. In fact, you are likely to die.


Even though this is meant for solo play, I recommend using your party until you reach Kirkwall, doing Aveline´s and Fenris´ companion quests early on and taking Carver or Bethany for Merril´s Long Way Home. You´ll effectively start solo play at around level 8. By that point, you´ll have enough attributes and abilities to stand your ground with the best of them. Before that, not so much... standing I mean, mostly running and dying.

I´ve played all three classes this way and this is what I found:
Warriors are beasts, as usual, but Reaver´s Devour is almost certainly a must have.
Rogues are tough, control is the name of the game: Miasmik Flask, Confusion, Rain of Arrows, is how you´ll start most of fights.
Mages are grand, as always.



Drag and drop into your override folder: Program Files\Dragon Age II\packages\core\override
This will conflict with any mods that modify the abi_base, passive_abilities or persistent.gda (files relating to abilities) difficulty or creatureranks.gda (files that relate to difficulty) and/or the exptable.gda (anything to do with leveling).


Optional: There is an optional file available for download which gives you a couple of more difficulty options. One file lowers the health of your foes, another their damage, and yet another that lowers both.



Required Mods:
Attribute Cap Extended (no 100 cap on strength, constitution, etc.)
Dalls_Weapons Swap (two sets of weapons and action bars)
Lock Bash (all classes open chests, grants 200xp)


Recommended Mods:
- Sunnie´s item packs
- Looka´s definitive item pack & all items evolve
- Restrictions removal
- Rune expansion pack
- Valuable junk (100)
- Waddi




Other Considerations:
Most changes are self-explanatory, but there are some I should point out.

- Cleave grants a passive 50% damage bonus. Assail´s damage bonus increased to 25%.
- Group Heal and Revival don´t require Healing Aura.
- Sacrifice does damage to enemies instead of allies. Both Sacrifice and Grave Robber have lower cooldowns, so Blood Magic´s health to mana ratio was reduced. The Bloodmage now heals better and hits harder, but he´s constantly dancing with death.
- There are “hidden” upgrades in the Duelist specialization. Its two passives now grant more and better passives. Sure Strikes gives 20% attack, 20% attack speed, 20% crit chance and 20% critical damage. Evasive Maneuvers gives 20% defense, 20% damage reduction, 20% magic resistance and 20 health regeneration rate.
- Mana/Stamina regeneration is no longer an issue, all values have been increased. Spec for it and forget about it.

- Hard is the same as nightmare, but without FF and magic immunity.



That is all.