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Dragon Age: 31 Mods You Never Knew You Needed

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The first time I played Dragon Age: Origins was on the Xbox and I had a hard time getting into it because of the crappy graphics.  Well, I recently tried the PC version and discovered that OMFG THE GAME IS AMAZING WHEN YOU MOD IT TO DEATH!  I highly encourage a playthrough with these mods if you haven’t done so already.  Here is my list of the 31 best mods you never knew you needed (but now you can’t live without):

9 Mods for Better Gameplay

3 Mods for Better Character Customization

7 Mods for Better Romances

3 Mods Just for Fun

9 Mods for if You Love Alistair

9 Mods for Better Gameplay

jb3textures

1.  JB3 Textures

This mod gives HD textures to the whole game and makes DA much more beautiful.  If you only download one mod, this should be it.

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2.  Dragon Age Redesigned

This mod redesigns over 500 NPCs in the game to make their appearance better.  You can choose to change them based on Lore (characters redesigned to fit their races better) or Aesthetics (characters redesigned to be more attractive) or a combination of both.  It also includes an optional Morrigan morph that makes her look more like her original face model (ie. super gorgeous).

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3.  Skip the Fade

Ugh, I hate the Fade.  If you’re like me and just want to get on with the story, this is the perfect mod for you.  It allows you to skip the boring parts of the Fade and go directly to your follower’s dreams and then fight the demon with all the Fade transformations already unlocked.  You also get all the item drops using this mod, too!

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4.  Lock Bash

This lets any class unlock chests using strength or magic.  This is great because I find the Rogue class rather useless in DA and hated having to take one with me.

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5.  Extra Dog Slot

Let’s you take your Mabari war hound as a 5th companion.  Super useful.

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6.  Madd Gift Guide

You know when you have a gift in your inventory and have no idea who to give it to?  This mod solves that problem by listing the appropriate gift receiver in the item description.

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7.  No Helmet Hack

This hack makes your helmet invisible unless you’re in a battle.  Crucial if you want your character to look anything other than ridiculous during conversations.

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8.  Advanced Tactics

This mod expands your options for follower tactics so that you can improve your battle strategy.  Super useful and allows your followers to make more intelligent tactical decisions.

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9.  Auto Loot Mod

Automatically adds items to your inventory when you’re looting – saves so much time and effort!

3 Mods for Better Character Customization

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1.  Pineappletree’s Vibrant Colors

Adds a bajillion new color options when customizing your character’s looks.

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2.  Hairstyle Day

Someone ported some beautiful hairstyles from The Sims to Dragon Age and they look great!

whiteteeth

3.  Whiten Teeth

Tired of your character looking like they’ve been chewing on dirt?  This mod fixes the teeth for every character in the game.

7 Mods for Better Romances

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1.  Ser Gilmore NPC & Morph

This mod is amazing!  It allows you to add Roland Gilmore as a follower (he is in the Cousland intro if you don’t remember him) and includes fully voiced banter and conversations, as well as the option to romance him.  This mod is super well-done and feels as complete as any built-in follower storyline/romance.  I like to pair it with the Handsome Ser Gilmore Morph to make the character better looking, because his default is a little homely :)  You should also download Ser Gilmore’s First Night for a touching romance scene when you finally sleep with him.

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2.  Improved Romance Scenes

This allows you to do other things with your LI besides kiss them or have sex with them.  You can give them a hug or spend quiet alone time under a tree and stuff – you know, normal things you would do IRL.

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3.  Better Sex Cutscenes

Bioware is a master at delivering epic romances … with awkward sex scenes.  This mod allows you to change those sex scenes according to your taste for the explicit – you can choose from medium, mild and zesty (you can guess which one I picked!).  NSFW

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4.  Rendezvous at the Tavern

Allows you to do more sexy times with your LI at the Gnawed Noble Tavern in Denerim – NSFW

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5.  More Options at the Pearl

Allows to do more sexy times with a whole range of NPCs at the Pearl in Denerim – literally, dozens of strange combinations that are often quite funny – super NSFW

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6.  Dahlyialynn’s Sleep Until Dawn

This mod allows you to sleep with your LI or Mabari in camp and wake up the next morning to daylight.  Lots of cuddling involved in this one.

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7.  Realistic Look for Natural Bodies

This mod allows you to choose nude options for your character and followers – way better than the default granny panties or the standalone Natural Bodies mod.  My favorites are the Theseus mod for men and the Seductress mod for women (if you opt for full nude, you can even choose what cup size you want for women and what penis size for men!).

3 Mods Just for Fun

danceparty

1.  Dance Party

These dances are hilarious!  This keeps in the Bioware tradition of super awkward dancing and there are dozens of different combinations you can see.

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2.  Slap Morrigan

Sometimes Morrigan can be a bitch and sometimes I just want to slap the shit outta her.  Someone out there made a mod to make my dreams come true.

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3.  A Little Leg

This makes all armor in the game a little more revealing to the degree of your taste.  I like this mod because it’s not over the top sexual – it provides just the right amount of eye candy.

9 Mods for if You Love Alistair

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1.  Alistair Morph

This is the perfect mod if you want to enhance Alistair’s good looks without altering his fundamental appearance.  Very subtle but makes all the difference.

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2.  A Hero’s Sacrifice

This adds a scene if your Warden/Alistair kills the Archdemon and dies.

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3.  Alistair’s Funeral & Funeral Kiss

This adds a  much need funeral scene if Alistair kills the Archdemon and dies.  The kiss version adds a scene where Alistair imparts a goodbye kiss at the Warden’s funeral if she dies after killing the Archdemon.

alistairsfirstnight

4.  Dahlialynn’s First Night

Makes taking Alistair’s virginity super special :)

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5.  Last Night

If you choose not to do the Dark Ritual, Alistair will spend the night with your Warden instead.

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6.  The Proposal

If you choose to make yourself queen during the Landsmeet, Alistair will properly propose to you after the Coronation.

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7.  Dahlialynn’s Alistair Nightmare

This mod works in conjunction with the Sleep Until Dawn mod – if you go to bed in camp with Alistair a second time, he will awake one night with a nightmare – beautifully edited and emotionally charged scene that fits seamlessly within the main storyline.

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8.  Dahlialynn’s The Royal Wedding

This mod shows the Warden and Alistair’s wedding during the Epilogue – a gorgeous and lengthy production :)

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9.  Dark Ritual

This mod adds a scene between Morrigan and Alistair when it’s time to discuss the Dark Ritual.  Quite touching on Alistair’s end.

 

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34 Comments

  1. Just got this on PC.
    Time to ruin everything by loading all of these up at once and seeing what happens.

    Are there any known major issues with compatibility? And what about DA2?

    • Haha don’t worry, I run ALL of these mods, plus like 20 more at the same time. The ONLY conflict I have encountered is the Little Leg mod (the one that shows a little skin when wearing armor) and the Alistair wedding mod – and it’s easy to resolve conflicts anyway, just take one of the conflicting mods out of the override folder. No issues with DA2 because you’re saving the mods into completely different directories for DA and DA2. Not all of the mods for DAO will carry over into Awakening, though. Oh and I’m going to publish a post of DA2 mods tomorrow :)

      • Nice to know.
        Awesome, I look forward to it.

        So with DA2, does the story still mesh together properly? If I take and abuse some of the mods that, oh off the top of my head, one’s that change who can romance whom; does that get carried on?

      • I thinks so. I haven’t tried the gender bend mod which allows you to romance any NPC as any character/gender/race but in my playthroughs with all the bonus romance scenes the stuff has all carried through. Also, in DA2, it’s really easy to use the developer console to change romances or activate all of them at the same time :)

      • I can’t get any of these mods to work. Downloaded and installed No Helmet, but it doesn’t work.

        I’m probably missing something obvious, but can’t figure it out! Help?

      • Does the natural body mod remove the ridiculous granny panties from the love scenes? And can you stay clothed for the parts of the game that are not romance? Sorry im completely new to modding and thanks in advance :)

    • Well, Dragon Age Origins was released in 2009 and there’s a big graphics difference when you look at recently released games, so that mod in itself is invaluable. The game is enjoyable vanilla, but it is even better with all the creative and unique mods that are available out there.

  2. Great article.
    I was just curious about how to mod the hairstyle of Companions, by keeping the face but changing the hairstyle. I’ve been trying to figure it out for a long time…

  3. Cheers for the mods list. Was using most of em already but a few more can’t hurt(maybe!). Time for a playtru i think, must be like the 50th now though I’ll attempt on Nightmare this time. Only done it on Hard so far. Thanks again! HF GL GG!

    • Insanity in campaign mode is 100000x easier than Platinum on multiplayer mode. What do you think you’ll play it as? I did mine as an Adept and it was fun :) The only battle that I had to do over and over again before I beat it was the Citadel DLC clone fight – holy crap, fighting yourself is tough!

      • Have you tried a mirror match in the armax arena? I think it’s harder without the cheap tactics. The AI is brutally cunning too.

      • No I haven’t – if it’s anything like the Clone fight, I might throw my controller across the room :)

  4. I’m super excited I found this. I Loved this game even more than mass effect 2. It has a special place in my favorite games ever place. I cant wait to play the game with a bunch of new things to look for and see and do! ;D if you know what I meanuh. seriously though… I was major bummed at the lack of passion my dude had for Leliana, because I was way more on love with her than he was acting. now I’m just coming off as an internet perv. anyways.
    So my question for you is how many of the 28 or so files do you use from the “Realistic Look” mod? do you need each file for each race and gender, or only the one you want? which ones do you use for that mod? thaaaaaaanks :D

  5. I have a question abt mods i might have missed already answered: Are they always active. Can I download them and pick and choose which to play with at a given time or once they are downloaded, they are all active. I would like to do some of the alistair ones (my favorite romance) and some of the others for other playthroughs. I have played this game so many times now that the change would be so much fun.

  6. I enjoyed what i’d experienced of the collectors edition back when it first same out (back then hard drive crash wiped out my game and save shortly after I’d finished the romance with Leliana, I’m looking forward to giving it another go.

    btw, you mentioned you used around 20 “other” mods in addition to the ones listed here I’m curious after seeing this excellent selection what else you’ve found fun mod wise?

    • If you’re out looking for mods, you should expect spoilers. Next time play the game thru a few times, then grab some mods. Otherwise, be quiet and deal with your decision to look on the web.

  7. Thanks so much for posting these!! I have just learned about modding and dao is one of my absolute favorite games. So excited to try some of these

  8. Is this only for the PC or will it work for PS3? I haven’t got the hardware capacity for PC at this time, but I’ve got it for my PS3. When I try to download, it asks me for a storage device. Can I not use my console for this?

  9. So I’ve had Dragon Age: Origins for a while and I’ve just started to replay it and I found this, I really want to download all these mods but I have a question, does it matter if it’s on PC or MAC? I have a MAC Book Air and was just wondering if these were only suited to PC versions of the game, probably a stupid question but I’ve never downloaded mods before so thought I should check before I download these and can’t use them… Thank you :D

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