Modding Dragon Age Origins

I play a LOT of Dragon Age Origins. I’m always on my final,  final campaign, definitely the last one 😁 While I have now started BG3, and am thoroughly enjoying it, I am still sneaking in an hour or two of DAO whenever I have the time and still enjoying it thoroughly. So, I thought I’d create a post about the mods I am personally using with DAO in case anyone was interested. 

I generally play as a female Noble warrior or rogue so my gameplay Mods tend to be tailored around that type of character, but I use others that are also more generic.

All the mods I use can be downloaded from The Nexus, which has recently seen an upsurge in new DAO mods. I’m not using any mod manager. All the mods I use are either override folder mods or dazip files incorporated by using the built in DAUpdater exe that you can find in the bin_ship folder. All the mods I have listed here have been tested by me in game playthroughs. I have recently added some more, but they are untested at the moment. I’ll update the list once I’ve done so. 

Because I have to work out conflicts myself I don’t use any mods that may cause issues with character dialogue, so although a mod like Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52 is highly recommended, I don’t personally use it at this point due to possible conflicts with some of my other mods like the romance mods. I do instead use some separate fix mods that the Fixpack supersedes and I’ll tell you if that is the case if I am aware of it. Right, let’s jump into my modded DAO as it currently stands.

I hope this can be of some help and even encourage others to play Dragon Age Origins, an old game, but still a masterpiece! Even playing a relatively limited Origin story I am still experiencing new conversations’ and even quests (though I think I may have finally found them all :)) in the vanilla game. I’m happy to chat about my DAO experience on Mastodon if you are on the Fediverse.

Note: I’ve added some mods with Spoilers to the end of this list – you will be warned – but be careful when scrolling down if you don’t want some of the game’s story revealed to you.

Absolutely Essential

In order to prevent DAO crashing constantly on new hardware, and also required by many mods that upscale the graphics, you’ll need either the LAA (Large Address Aware) patch OR  the 4GB patch, from NTCore, which allow the game to use up to 4GB of memory instead of just 2GB. The NTCore site is separate from the Nexus and is safe to download from. The GOG version of DAO Ultimate Edition is now pre-patched with LAA and I believe it is set to use only 2 CPU cores as multiple cores is also known to cause issues. I patched my own version with the 4GB patch before GOG brought this in and I’ve never had an issue since, despite the game not being core limited. Worth noting that the LAA patch on the Nexus is for Steam. 

If you don’t use a Mod Manager like the DAO ModManager then you’ll also need the Duplicate Search Tool to help you find conflicts. Another recent mod I just downloaded is the Conflict Scanner this shows you where you have conflicts and if you do, which file will take precedence. This tool doesn’t just scan then override folder, but also the compiled .erf files (the ones you install using DAUpdater). I recently downloaded this one and I do have some possible conflicts I need to review, although none are currently affecting my gameplay.

If you prefer to use a Mod manager, and if you are starting from fresh that’s the best time to use one, then The Nexus also does its own – called Vortex – which is worth checking out.

Character Look and Feel Mods

If you want to use mods that change NPC look and feel or add options to the Character Creator you are going to want to download the CharGenMorph Compiler first. This nifty little tool goes through the XML files and merges them for you, so you don’t have to do it yourself.

You’ll notice that I have a number of mods that might affect the look of the companions – that’s because I often change my mind about how I want them to look 😊 Note that you may have to resolve conflicts in companion morphs if you install more than one these, usually by deleting files from the one you don’t want. Because these are generally override mods, they won’t totally break the game if there is more than one file of the same name, but you may end up with a look you weren’t expecting!

Universal Voices  – removes racial restrictions on player sets in the Character Creator, allowing you to choose from the full range of voices available

Dragon Age Redesigned – changes the look of NPCs in the game. You can choose between Lore, Aesthetics and Recommend versions. 

Tucked hair mod. Required if you want to go with the Lore version of Dragon Age Redesigned and is also used by a number of other mods that change companions. Note that this isn’t on the Nexus. The site looks a bit dodgy, but it’s safe to download from.

Jenya’s random hairstyles, Hairstyle day, Hairstyle day Vol  2 and More hairstyles – used in the Character Creator and NPC mods. It’s important to get your hair right! 😁

Pineapple tree’s Vibrant Colours – used in the Character Creator and in various NPC and companion mods. I highly recommend using this one even if just for the light it gives to their eyes.

White teeth – because who wants the default yellow teeth? 😊

Unique Face Textures for Companions DAO Edition – used by a host of companion mods. If you want to use any of Benny’s companion morphs or many others, you’ll need this one. I do and don’t use it depending on which companion morph I’m using at any one time.

Barnzi Face Textures –  used in a number of companion mods and presets. You can see the list of mods that require this one on the mod page. If you don’t use any of those you won’t need this one. I use it because I also use A Charming Bard – a Leliana mod which requires this one.

Lovely Tints – used in a number of companion mods and presets. Again, if you don’t use any of those you can choose not to use this one. I wanted to use the Zevran Master of Shadows mod at one point and this was one of the required mods for that. 

LOTC’s Eye Textures  – there are two versions of this, one for the Character Creator and one for the Toolset. The Toolset version is used in mods like Zevran Master of Shadows. 

LOTC’S Female Eyelashes – Additional eyelash choices for the Toolset (used by some companion mods) and Character Creator. I used this one for the Alistair Prince of the Grey companion mod 

The Warden – used by Alistair Prince of the Grey and a few other companion mods

Trailer Tattoo – used by Alistair Prince of the Grey 

Antivan Golden Vallaslin – used by Alistair Prince of the Grey, Zevran Master of Shadows and a couple of other companion mods.

KH_Creations – contains a number of files for the Character Creator, Toolset and others, including replacement morphs for default games textures like beards and such like if you fancy those. I have both the Toolset and Character Creator mods. The Toolset files are used with Alistair Prince of the Grey, Zevran Master of Shadows and a whole whack of other companion mods.

Dalishious Skin Tints – used in Alistair Prince of the Grey, Zevran Master of Shadows and a whole whack of other companion mods. Note that you need to download the pack under “old files” which contains 45 skin tones.

Eyessss Replace by ViLiSSa NOW for DAO –  needed for Alistair Prince of the Grey

Colorful Hair -Highlighted – used in Alistair Prince of the Grey, Zevran Master of Shadows and a whole host of other companion mods.

New Eyes for DAOT by ViLiSSa – used in Zevran Master of Shadows and other companion mods

Natural Bodies – Makes bodies nude in intimate romance scenes. There are more recent versions of this, and if you want to have full control over the look I suggest using the DAO Modmanager to prevent issues.I just used the realistic look, but be aware that the default male is, um…geared up for action shall we say. I had to manually tweak this without the Modmanager by replacing certain files and it can be a bit fiddly.

Clothed Prisoners – if you use any version of Natural Bodies then prisoners are also going to be naked, and we don’t want that. If you have the Ultimate Edition then you also want to download the optional file for the return to Ostagar DLC. I still haven’t fully recovered from the first time I played that with the default Natural Bodies loaded!

Ser Gilmore Morph – Less Toothy – does what it says on the tin for the Ser Gilmore companion.

Environment Retexture Mods

Dragon Age Origins is a brilliant game, but the graphics have aged a bit, so environment mods are really a treat. The mods I use are not the latest – some new modders have come along recently and completely upgraded everything again – but I haven’t yet worked out the possible conflicts. If you’re starting from a vanilla game I’d highly recommend looking at the recent additions though.

Dragon Age Origins Unofficial Remaster – Upgrades most of the games textures – over 1000 textures and is Ultimate Edition compatible. This has made the game so much better for me in terms of texture. Note, because this changes so many game textures, always check before adding other mods that do the same as you’ll likely need to delete conflicting files if you don’t want them to override these ones.

1080p Cutscenes – remasters the cutscenes from 720p to 1080p. This is one mod that doesn’t go into override or is dazip. You actually copy the new folders over the base game files.

World Map redone – this is a more recent mod that does what it says. I use this one along with World Map icons redone.

Raven replacer – replaces the default raven model with a more realistic looking one

Wolf Replacers – there are four different options for this, but you can only choose one at a time. Replaces the default for both normal wolves and Witherfang.

Clouds retextured – nicer clouds

Shale retextured HD – improves Shale’s overall look. You need to be using the Ultimate Edition for this as Shale is part of the DLC that comes with that.

Ogre HD Retexture Chatacrism – even scarier looking ogres with more detail. Lore friendly.

Archdemon Replacer – replaces the Archdemon model with the Inquisition model.

Glowy Staves – replaces vanilla staves with DAI models/textures and adds extra glow to those that didn’t already have one

Two Moons Circle – a lore friendly mod that adds the second moon, Satina, to the sky

Fantasy Sun – Adds a warm fantasy-like sun instead of the deault. Works well with Clouds retextured.

Eichkater – A revamp of the default grey squirrel to a red one.

It’s worth noting there are some more recent retexture mods that have appeared since I modded my game. One to have a look at if you are starting out from a clean install is DragonTex which is a full upscale of all textures to either 1K or 2K versions. There’s also DragonVid which enhances all cutscenes from 720p/30fps to 2160p/60fps. I can’t comment on how well these work as I haven’t used them myself at this point, mainly because I have other retexture mods already loaded.

Gameplay Mods

These are all mods I use that enhance the gameplay for me substantially. There are many others on the Nexus.

Of Noble Caste – If you are playing a human noble this one is a good one to have. It changes your starting garment to silk so you actually look like a noble, and adds items and equipment upgrades. It also adds some tougher opponents this early in the game so you’re upgraded gear isn’t an over advantage.

Extra Dog Slot – allows you to take your faithful Mabari hound with you even if you already have the other three party member slots filled. This gives you a decent advantage early on during combat too. Gives you a Dog Whistle in your inventory to call or dismiss the dog.  If your dog gets injured, just send him back to camp and then call him back with the dog whistle and he’ll be healed 😊 One thing to note is that if you have this installed sometimes it makes party picking a bit strange and you may need to dismiss the dog first in some cases – usually when you are forced to take on a party member such as Wynn. Also, if you want two party members to come to your rescue at Fort Drakon you will need to disable this mod and Force Load the game again, otherwise just one will appear.

RL’s Mabari Madness – provides wearable armours and collars for your Mabari companion

No Helmet Hack 1.6 – removes the helmet graphics from party members so you can see their faces when they are talking. The helmet and its stats are still there so you don’t lose out in combat. It gives you a No Helmet Rule Book in your inventory to turn this off or on in game. 

Dance Party – this is such a fun mod!. You can either go to the Gnawed Noble Tavern and speak to Lily behind the bar to get the party started or click on Lelian’s lute in camp. The dance party uses all of your companions, so it’s probably best to have recruited them all before you use it if you don’t want to break the immersion. Watching the Thriller dance is especially fun 🙂

Extended Dog Talents – adds four new talents for your dog, two passive and two activated. 

Make your companions very noisy and talkative – makes them a lot more talkative than normal, especially during battle, when revived from death and so on. It’s a really fun little mod to add.

Less Barking Dog – I should add this to “Absolutely Essential” ‘cos there’s nothing worse than cosying up to your romantic interest, or even having a serious conversation with a companion, with that Mabari barking all the time. This mod changes the default file so that the dog only barks occasionally.

 Ser Gilmore companion NPC – Fully Voiced – this mod brings Ser Gilmore back into the game as a Companion. You can even romance him and there is even a First Knight mod available if you want to go down that path. He is also interactive with your other Companions and a pretty great fighter to take on early in the game. There are lots of appearance change mods for him and a mod to take him into Awakenings too. Just search the Nexus for “Ser Gilmore”

Improved Atmosphere Standalone Resources Pack – I specifically downloaded the Party Ambient mod from this one. It allows all of your party to comment on something when you hit specific trigger points instead of just one.

Ser Gilmore Companion NPC – Enhanced Voice patch. – patch to raise the quality of the audio files for the Ser Gilmore NPC

Skip the Fade – I actually like the Fade part of the Broken Circle quest, but after replaying DAO umpteen times it’s definitely a part I sometimes choose to skip now. This mod allows you to skip all of the Fade except for the Companion nightmares and still gain all the extra bonus attributes and Codex entries.

Zevran Nights – A camp banter mod – allows you to experience Zevran banter in camp and is compatible with other camp mods.

Zevran the Lockpick – it always annoyed me that Zevran doesn’t come with the proper lockpicking abilities when you first meet him. This mod corrects that by sacrificing some initial combat abilities.

Wynn’s Winter Grasp – Wynn is now recruited with Winter’s Grasp to match her introductory cutscene where she’s shown using it. Note, this is at the expense of Arcane Bolt.

Fix Mods

A Lost Nug Quest Fix DAO – allows the Lost Nug Quest to be completed. Note that this fix is incorporated into Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52  so if you use that you don’t need or want this one.

Ancient Elven Boots Fix – this mod allows you to retrieve the boots so you can actually complete the set. This is also superceded by Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52

Promises of Pride – the unavailable two entries from the six “Promises if Pride” notes found during the Broken Circle events are finally restored. This is a standalone fix.

Give Robbed Elves Money Patch – allows you to actually help the poor things if you have 50 silver available instead of just telling them you got rid of the bandits and leaving them to it.  This is also superceded by Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52

Golem Registry and Shapers Life Reward Fix – fixes the no reward bug for the quests “The Golem Registry” and “The Shaper’s Life”. This is also superceded by Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52

Human Female Cocky Voice  – restores the missing human female cocky voice set in the Character Creator. This is also superceded by Qwinn’s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52

Alistair Romance Mods

I will admit, I am an ardent AlistairMancer as you’ll see by how many mods I have just for that :😊 My warden never really romances anyone else, because I just love the way it plays out with him. All of these mods are designed to enhance the role play of that romance and I highly recommend them. They all work together too, without any clashes. 

Note, if you want to play a male character romancing Alistair you are going to need a mod to allow that. There are some available on the Nexus, but I haven’t tested them with these romance mods as I only ever play a female warden. Most of these mods will work with male wardens, but only for certain races/classes so be sure to check that first. 

A lot of scenes with close ups for hugs and kisses have issues with big armour clipping the faces and such like, so I always keep some light armour on hand for both my Warden and Alistair to wear in camp in case I want to trigger any romance scenes so it doesn’t break the immersion.

Alistair’s Magical Kiss – adds a private, repeatable kiss scene to the party camp once your romance hits Adore stage . 

Alistair Nights – Moonlit Bath – adds a repeatable sultry and sweet moonlit bath scene with Alistair. You have to have had First Knight before this becomes available.

Alistair Romance – the Steamy Bits – adds a repeatable hot springs scene to the camp. Again, it will only appear after First Knight and it doesn’t conflict with the Moonlit Bath.

Alistair Romance – Eavesdropping – a really fun mod that uses existing party banter to create camp scenes around your romance with Alistair. The options update depending on where you are in the romance. I still have a giggle at some of these despite having now seen them a number of times 😊

Alistair Romance – Appetite – adds a repeatable camp cutscene based around the increased appetite the Wardens are supposed to experience after the joining. It’s very sweet.

Alistair Romance – Attraction – Adds a very sweet, repeatable cutscene where your warden can take a stroll with Alistair.

Dahlialynn’s Alistair’s Visible Kiss – provides the female warden with a fully visible, full-contact repeatable kiss when using the “Kiss him” dialogue. There is no clash between this one and Alistair’s Magical Kiss, because that one does not change the main dialogue files.

Dahlialynn’s Alistair’s First Night Love Scene – replaces the default First Knight scene and has more of an emphasis on the fact that as he says he’s “never done this before”. It’s a nice, sweet take on it I think.

Dahlialynn’s Sleep Until Dawn  – allows you to go to your tent and sleep until the next day. If you are not in a romance you can choose to sleep alone or with your dog. If you are in a romance and have previously spent the night with your love interest you can then choose to invite them to the tent.

Dahlialynn’s Alistair’s Nightmare – this is a cut-scene that plays one time randomly once you are in a romance with Alistair. It’s a lore-friendly dream sequence that gives you insight into his possible thoughts and fears. You need to have the Dahlialynn’s Sleep Until Dawn installed. I really like these additional cut-scene mods that enhance the story.

Alistair’s Revised Romance – designed to make the romance with Alistair more real and immersive. This is a really good mod and contains far too much for me to write about it here, so definitely check it out. It’s worth noting that if you want to use other Alistair Romance mods like Improved Romance Scenes – Alistair (IRS-A) they will clash with this mod so check the mod compatibility carefully.  You can install both, but only one can be turned on at a time. I personally prefer this one. I once turned on both by mistake (I was trying to turn off the extra dog slot before Fort Drakon and accidentally turned on IRS-A) and it didn’t crash, but resulted in a devastating outcome for my poor female noble Warden after the Landsmeet. I’ll never make that mistake again!

Extra Quest Mods

I have tried a number of these. Some are good for gameplay, but they are AI-voiced (screen reader type of voice) and I don’t like that as it breaks the immersion. The ones I have here are voiced by humans.

Alley of Murders – adds an extra set of quests in Denerim. All character players are fully voiced. I have played this one through and it all works fine.

Pints and Quarts Tavern – adds a tavern near Redcliffe from which quests can be gained. All character players are fully voiced. I will admit I haven’t completed all of this one yet, but what I have played through so far works fine.

I have others loaded, namely : Swamp Tower Adventure and Infested Grounds, but I haven’t tried them yet.. I did try Ancient Elven Ruins. This looks to be a really good quest, but it’s broken for me at a critical part so I haven’t got it installed at the moment.

Extra Cutscene Mods

The modders have done some wonderful work with these and they just give the story something extra. 

The Rescue at Ishal – this is so, so good, but if you have never played DAO before I don’t recommend it as it contains a major spoiler for later in the game. If it’s your second playthrough though, definitely add it.

Fare Ye Well Duncan –  adds a cutscene between Alistair and Duncan before the battle at Ostagar, which I think really adds to the poignancy of the moment.

Farewell Ser Gilmore – adds a nice little interactive scene before you head off and leave him. You can choose to roleplay that you were his friend, or if female, even an old love interest.

Spoilers!

Be warned. If you scroll down this section and you haven’t yet played DAO you will get spoilers for the game story.

Alistair Romance Mods

Dahlialynn’s Alistair Epilogues – The Royal Wedding – A royal wedding scene for human female nobles in Love with Alistair who have chosen to rule beside him provided you both survive the Archdemon. Very fulfilling.

Alistair’s Dark Ritual – if Alistair is “in love” with a female warden it will replace the creepy candle scene with both pre and post ritual scenes, provided your warden has convinced him to do the ritual. The female warden will respond to him with concern, love and acceptance, so if you don’t want to roleplay it that way don’t use this mod, but I personally think it is a good take on that rather difficult situation. 

Alistair Romance – Fear – adds an angry cutscene after Riordan tells the Warden and Alistair what it takes to kill the Archdemon.

The Grey Warden Weddings – Alistair- plus Male Cousland and Anora – Marry Alistair if you both remain Grey Wardens (i.e. he doesn’t become King).

Extra Cutscene Mods

Revenge of the Cousland – adds a cutscene after Howe says “maker spit on you” when you defeat him for the human of noble origin, which I think really adds to the moment. Make sure to have your romance companion in your party for this one.

A Warden’s Sacrifice – adds a cutscene after the death of the Archdemon if either Leliana or Zevran is in love with the Warden, or Alistair is in love with a female Warden and either of them have sacrificed themselves.