Dragon Age: Origins tips and tricks (mild spoilers) and character creation musings...

So last night I started a brand new character in Dragon Age: Origins.  I also deleted almost all of my other character files.  Additionally, I am going to leave the difficultly level at Nightmare. I have come to the realization that crafting in Dragon Age: Origins is pretty much pointless, unless you create a character who has no combat skills and can only wear the very lightest of armor.  One of my character files was a craftsman, building traps, poisons, and had the ranger/summon animal ability for back up.  I think that may work for some games, in particular a non-party based RPG, but for DA:O it's not a practical skill set.  Sure, you can stealth up to the enemy area, set up traps, chuck a grenade at the baddies and then haul ass back to the party ambush but it's often just as easy to have "clobberin' time".  Plus I got sick having a total wuss as a character who spends more time running away than anything else. Maybe I haven't taken full advantage of the tactical skill sets but most of the time I can have a crew that will put a serious dent in whatever they come across by just sending one poor bastard out in front and having the rest hang back and shoot or spell cast. My new character is yet another rogue.  This time I specialized in the following: Dirty Fighting, Combat Movement Below the Belt, Deadly Strike, Lethality, Evasion Deft Hands I-IV Combined with two hand weapons, dude can slice and dice with the best of them (especially once I get my hands on some better equipment). I also shifted Alistair over to the two hand weapons speciality instead of sword and shield.  Snikity-snak. I will see how this plays out.  I might end up having a rogue based team (Mr.Joshua, Leliana, Zevran, and someone else - maybe Morrigan or Wynne) just to see how it plays.  It might be a bit squishy but I might also have some tactical fun with that set-up. Either that or I might just start another character.