Dragon Age level scaling system

[sheek]

Anyone know how exactly does it work? I know creature hp go up, I suppose resistances, and attack values and damage go up. By how much per level?

I have found encounters getting increasingly difficult every level past the 8th. Maybe I screwed up character/party optimization but I don't see how.

Most encounters were still doable with planning, but one encounter I was not able to complete was the Flemeth/Dragon battle. Since you can't take Morrigan, unless the PC is a spellcaster you are left with only Wynne, who doesn't have any effective paralyzing/life-draining/freezing/cursing spells (I shouldn't technically even have had Wynne, she left the party as a result of my choices). Wynne has the nature/stone spell path started, but the most damaging spell Petrify is easily shrugged off by Flemeth a high level "boss" with good spell resistance.

I tried at levels 11 and 13, and it only became more difficult.

Anyone else found this?

 

[Volourn]

Dragonn battles get easier as you level. At least for me. I had to leave both for later on. I don't think their level range is as huge as normal enemies. Go back at higher levels....

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

without spellcasters the only thing you can do is waiting until you are at least lvl18 or something, fireresistant armors and fire resistance potions will be good too

 

[Malakal]

Just get ~100% fire resistance for Flemeth. My mage soloed her.

High dragon was very eay for me, but that may be because I played with a mage and did that quest in the end, before derp roads. Dragons don't scale down so you must have high enough level to even try beating them. Or use OP magic, your choice.

 

[Soulforged]

Anyone know how exactly does it work? I know creature hp go up, I suppose resistances, and attack values and damage go up. By how much per level?

The scaling works as a multiple layered system. First it checks the current area minimum level and maximum level (based on a GDA file, only the first time you enter the area), if the creature is below the minimum or above it, in principle it scales the creature inside the boundaries. Now depending on the ranking of said creature several things can happen: it can be scaled down to your level, the same level as you or up to two levels above you. And then there's the last layer which is creature specific, there are some creatures that will never surpass certain boundaries because they respect their own ranges (rats and wolves come to my mind).

So lets say you enter Lothering for the first time, if I remember correctly the area sets the boundaries to 5-9, so all creatures inside the area without specific rules will scale depending on their ranks (Critter, Normal, Liutenant, Boss, Elite Boss) inside those boundaries.

Then depending on the ranks there's also autobalancing, this means that once the creature has leveled up following a level up table, said creature suffers other artificial modifications to their HP, damage, resistances and even skills. By default a Elite Boss, for example, has fifteen times the HP of a ordinary version of the same creature.

And that's it.

I have found encounters getting increasingly difficult every level past the 8th. Maybe I screwed up character/party optimization but I don't see how.

For what I've perceived on a glance the areas you access from that level on generally have a bigger upper bound, so you might experience difficulties trying to beat them up to level 15 or more (which is the maximum level up to which they will keep up with you).

Most encounters were still doable with planning, but one encounter I was not able to complete was the Flemeth/Dragon battle. Since you can't take Morrigan, unless the PC is a spellcaster you are left with only Wynne, who doesn't have any effective paralyzing/life-draining/freezing/cursing spells (I shouldn't technically even have had Wynne, she left the party as a result of my choices). Wynne has the nature/stone spell path started, but the most damaging spell Petrify is easily shrugged off by Flemeth a high level "boss" with good spell resistance.

Flemeth scales all the way up to level 25, and she is a Elite Boss, so if you're level 23 she will be level 25, and with a lot of HP and more resistances than ordinary dragons.

If you decide to play in Nightmare those artificial modifications I talked about ramp up by multiples.