Exploits (Origins)

An exploit (AKA glitch) is a vulnerability that that can be triggered within a game. This vulnerability allows the player to use a bug to give the player an unintended advantage within a video game. Some of these bugs get patched, so the patch version where they occur is noted where it is relevant.

= Known Exploits =

Unlimited Morrigan Approval while in Lothering
While in Lothering speak to Sten and tell him you will talk to the Chantry Mother and see if she will release him. Before you enter the chantry it is advisable to remove all party members other than Morrigan so that no one disapproves of your actions. Speak to the Chantry Mother and ask about Sten's release. When the first intimidate option appears chose it. It should fail and the Chantry mother will tell you she will not release sten and you should leave. Now you can repeatedly talk to the Chantry Mother about sten and she will tell you No and Morrigan will gain +4 approval each time. With this you can easily max her approval and if you still want Sten you can have Leliana lock pick his cage.

Unlimited Leliana Approval in Village of Haven
Once you find Brother Genitivi inside Haven Chantry, you will have a lot of option for discussion, make sure to choose the "Is this the medallion you were talking about?" option to trigger the exploit then ask him if he is sure he can make the journey (option 2), he will insist that he can make it and would endure any pain for the Urn. Then choose (option 3) No, I think you should return to Denerim. At this point, he will insist further on and Leliana will join in the discussion. Choose (option 2) I'm trying to keep him alive, and Leliana will insist that Brother Genitivi comes along and will offer to watch over him. Agree to Leliana's statement (option 1) then choose (option 4) Could you answer some questions for me first? Then choose any options you wish to discuss as long as you do not choose the option to leave just yet. No matter what you choose Brother Genitivi will say to run along and get the medallion and choose (option 4) I'll be back soon. You will gain a +2 approval for each time. Then start the whole process again by talking with Brother Genitivi and talk about the medallion (option 1) Is this the medallion you were talking about? Just make sure not to choose to leave right away until you're satisfied with Leliana's approval rating.

Potent Lyrium Potions
Making Potent Lyrium Potions is one way to make extra money. The following steps are repeatable.
 * 1) Promote one character to master level herbalism.
 * 2) Buy the Potent Lyrium Potion Recipe from Tranquil Proprietor in the Denerim Market District: 11
 * 3) Buy lyrium dust from the Quartermaster in The Circle Tower. The more you purchase, the fewer trips you need to make.
 * 4) Buy concentrator, distillation agents, and flasks at the Gnawed Noble Tavern. (Other merchants sell these at higher prices.)
 * 5) Create potions.
 * 6) Sell to the Gnawed Noble innkeeper (best prices).
 * 7) * Dwarf Nobles should sell to Gorim in Denerim, who offers even better prices.
 * 8) * Parties that helped Lord Dace during A Paragon of Her Kind might also receive better prices from Gorim.
 * 9) Repeat. Gross profit: 20/Potion.

Frequently Asked Questions

 * How many potions must be sold before you begin making a profit?
 * Using the method above, after selling 52 potions, you have a profit of 2130, from an investment of 647870 covering all items.


 * Can I create more than one potion at once?
 * No, unfortunately not.


 * How much profit is there really?
 * A stack of Lyrium can be turned into 216810, for a total investment of 102630, about a 21% return-on-investment (ROI).
 * To make an initial 100 profit, sell 508 potions.
 * You can double your money in 3.6 cycles.


 * Is it really worth selling to Gorim instead (if you are a Dwarf Noble)?
 * Absolutely. The ROI is 142%: for the same effort that others must go through to turn 100 into 200, the Dwarf noble will end up with 1400.


 * Where can I see all the calculations?
 * Lyrium Potions for Profit

'''CAUTION: Overloading a merchant (by selling too many items to them) may corrupt your save files. See: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/67/index/247529/10'''

Pre/Post Camping Bodahn Glitch
You can purchase two of anything in Bodahn's inventory, including some tomes, runes, and an excellent axe.
 * When you first arrive in Camp (after leaving Lothering), purchase anything you covet.
 * Next time you return, his inventory will be completely reset, allowing you to purchase the same items.

Infinite Money Glitch
This glitch essentially allows the player to sell an item twice. Add any item (preferably an expensive one) to your Junk and visit any merchant. When selling the item hit the "Sell All Junk" button and 'immediately' after hit the "Sell" button. You will need to hit the buttons nearly simultaneously, so it might take it bit of practice. If done correctly, you will receive twice the sell price of the item. Simply buy the item back from the merchant and repeat for more cash. The trick on the PS3 (also confirmed on 360) is to make sure the highlight is always on the right side of the screen under "Party Inventory". After you sell the item and get 2x the selling price, buy the item back from the left side and move your highlight back to the right side.

Note: The value of the "exploited" item will drop significantly from its original price however. i.e. a 4 gold item will be rendered into a 75 silver item. However it has been confirmed at least on the 360, that Evon the Great's Mail which vendors for 2070 can be used indefinately for this exploit with no depreciation, allowing your player to net approx. 41 4 per time this exploit is performed in the trade/sell junk window allowing you to gain money in the thousands in a short amount of time.

Confirmed: Blood dragon plate does not depreciate.

Note:to counter the depreciation effect of the exploit on most items simply exit the store with said items in the vendor junk section and enter again their value will reset in most cases (not verified with all items) works on Xbox360 with latest update

Note: The most effective method is to use the duplicate item glitch below on either tomes sold by Bodhan. These sell for over 2 gold each, and so a stack of 99 sells for over 200 gold.

On the PC version, left-click and drag the item over to sell as usual, but hold down the right button at the same time.

This works best by buying the most expensive item you can afford from the vendor and then performing the cheat on that item. Due to item buyback you will recieve twice the full value of the item rather than the vendor price after which you will then be able to buy the item back again for the vendor price. In this manner you can quickly step up even from an inexpensive item to items such as The Rose's Thorn with a buyback price of over 28, quickly netting huge profits. There is no deprecation for items bought/sold in this manner on the PC.

Note: There are some items which you can not sell back, such as the Ranger and Templar Manuals in Camp, and as such can not be used in this exploit.

Duplicate Items
This glitch is similar to the infinite money glitch above. You must have at least THREE of the item you wish to duplicate. Move all copies of the item to your Junk, and sell all of them to any merchant. Buyback all but one of the items. Then select the two (or more) items now back in your inventory. Hit "Sell All Junk" and immediately afterwards hit "Sell." If done correctly, the merchant will receive twice the number of items you actually sold to them, and these can then be bought back. (Verified for both PS3 and XBox 360)

This will only work if the icon for the item says "x", such as "x2" or "x3" denoting the number of items you have. Some items are shown as "(2)" or "(3)", such as enchantment runes or certain gifts. These items cannot be duplicated, but can be used to generate money using the Infinite Money Glitch.

Take caution when attempting to duplicate certain useable items and save beforehand. Specifically, skill tomes such as Arcane/Physical Technique, Mortal Vessel and Skill & Sundry tomes. If you duplicate any particular tome and reintroduce the lot of them back into your useable items inventory list AND have a set of any other tomes, the duplicated lot of tomes will NOT function and cannot be used at all. When attempting the duplication, make sure you have one and only one set of tomes available to your inventory. For this, the duplication effort has highest results if you have Warden's Keep (DLC) and have access to the party stash chest, for safety. Moving the other tomes into your junk list temporarily should work as well. As long as your duplicated tomes are the only sort of tome in your useable inventory list, it should be fine. Accounts of other items having this unique circumstance are unverified (or rather unstated or unheard at all) as has only been tried with the tomes.

On the PC version, have a stack of at least three items in your inventory (Two if the vendor you're talking to has that particular item in stock). Sell an item to the vendor, with at least one of its type still in your inventory, leave him, and speak to him again. The item will be full price. Left click it to buy it, but hold down the right mouse button at the same time (Similar to the infinite money glitch). If correctly performed, the amount of items in the stack that you already had will be increased by one, and you will also have a duplicate of that item in your inventory, not part of the stack.

This exploit works with 2 items on the PC. It works on all tomes, just be sure to buy the item back holding both mouse buttons, and sell it again while holding both buttons. Duplicating runes with this method does not work however.

Tomes of Mortal Vessal can't be duplicatade this way at the 1.02 version. The tomes will be duplicated at the vendor's store, but after moving them to the player's iventory they will all dissappear.

Unlimited Enhancement Crystals
This bug will give unlimited enhancement crystals for Shale. If Bella is made to own the tavern in Redcliffe, it is possible to get unlimited crystals for free. Sell them at the smith and return to Bella. (known for PS3, XBox 360 ). '''Doing this can corrupt your save file and make your game unplayable (unconfirmed). [This HAS been confirmed - it is overloading the merchant with too many items that corrupts the save files. see: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/67/index/247529/10] To avoid this possibility, save well before you intend to start exploiting Bella's generosity, and then create a second save before you sell stacks of crystals to the smith. If ONE save file is corrupted, it may corrupt any saves around it, so creating an extra save will NOT help you.'''


 * Note that during the quest The Attack at Nightfall, Lloyd can be seen running around fighting the undead and can be subject to AoE attacks. You can kill him if you wish, and Bella will remain owner of the tavern throughout the game, providing inifinite Enchanment Cystals.


 * The quality of the Crystals will increase as the player increases in levels. The later in the game the glitch is exploited, the more money to be made with each trip.

Level Up Glitch
In Ostagar during the mission Tainted Blood you are asked to collect three vials of darkspawn blood and the Grey Warden Treaties. Collect the three Vials of darkspawn blood first before the treaties and then return to the main camp where you will talk to Duncan. Choose the choice option "We have the blood, but not the scrolls." On exiting the conversation you will collect experience for the mission and can continue to collect experience for this quest by continually talking to Duncan. Once you collect the Treaties you can no longer exploit Duncan for experience. This is an easy way to level up early if you need to. Using this exploit will skew the levelling/experience of future recruited companions. Although the future party members will be of a comparable level to the Warden, they will not have any attributes to accompany that level.

Additional Notes
It is worth mentioning that using this exploit to max out your level will make this quest very difficult to complete, since not only do the monsters scale with your level, so does their equipment, and the player does not have high-end gear sets and weapons to overcome this. Even moreso since only the player and Alistair can level up, which makes Ser Jory and Daveth essentially dead weight. You can however clear all the darkspawn and when you see the cache with the treaties simply return to Duncan and proceed as described above.

Verified for Xbox 360 - You may also use this to get the level 20 achievements and it still works after the new update to the game just allocate(save up and use your skill/talent points when you hit lvl 20. Also works for the PC version of that achievement.

This exploit was 'fixed' with the release of the 1.02 patch for the PC on 8/12/09. Further, this exploit does not work on the PS3 retail version. Still works on PC version(Verified)

Level Up Glitch using Ally Supply Crates
Buying 99er Stacks of Deathroot (1G 60S) or Elfroot (1G 18S) from Varathorn at the Dalish Camp and putting them into the Elven Ally Supply Crates at the Camp gives 880 XP per stack, which is a very cheap and easy way to reach the Levelcap. Note that stacks of 88 of each item give the max XP (880) but there's no way to end up with multiple stacks of exactly 88 roots, thus anyone using this glitch will normally be "wasting" 11 roots per glitch.

''' Below is a less time consuming method. '''

An easier way to take advantage of this includes having the Warden's Keep DLC. (It is best done after you have completed the DLC)
 * Clear your inventory as much as possible before going to buy the Elfroots.
 * Once done, buy as many as you can fit of the Elfroots from Varathorn.
 * Do not travel back to camp, but go to Soldier's Peak instead.
 * Now, take advantage of your Party Storage Chest and deposit all but one stack (x99) of the Elfroots.
 * Go back to your Camp and hand in the one stack. Once done, head back to Soldier's Peak and pick up a new stack from the Storage chest and repeat until you run out
 * The benefits? There is no travel time between Soldiers Peak and the Party's camp, just the loading screen, and therefore no risk of encounters or boredom. Also, if you do not have your stacks seperate, you will hand in all stacks at once, but only receive a total of one stack.

Verified on PC and PS3. Needs verification on 360.

On 360, this can be very time consuming, and using the gold exploit followed by turning in gold at the Ally Supply Crates is much more effective.

Item Tier Bug

 * Storing items in the Party Chest from Warden's Keep and returning later causes many non-fixed-tier items to raise to the tier they would be found at if discovered at the character's current level.
 * This exploit also works when selling items to any weapon/armor merchant except Old Tegrin, exiting the trade menu, opening it again and repurchasing the items. This sub-exploit immediately re-levels items. Although outside of Warden's Keep, you may be required to advance in level before the item level changes.
 * This exploit is notable as it allows levelling of unique items such as Warden Commander Armor Set to Dragonbone even if acquired early in the game, making it useful till end-game.
 * Some non-fixed tier items such as the Antique Warden Crossbow may randomly change tier up or down requiring many trips back to camp and the Keep to obtain the desired tier.
 * Iron tier dwarven equipment may be bought from Old Tegrin and placed in the chest and sold for a small profit at a raised tier later.
 * This Does Not work on PC, for it to work on PC, the player must sell these items to Levi or Mikhael Dryden instead of storing it in the chest.
 * This will Not work on items that have runes in them, for it to work, the player must remove all rune enchantments from the item before storing the item in the Party Chest.

DLC Reappearing items
When DLC-items are sold, they reappear after deactivating / activating the DLC enabling the user to sell them again. (PC)

Traps for Money and XP
In Lothering, there is an NPC named Allison who asks the player to create some traps for her farm to protect against the Darkspawn (Traps are a Girl's Best Friend). The quest gives 50 and some experience as a reward. The hand-in to the NPC requires a minimum of Level 1 Traps on any character active in the current party. Each turn in requires 3 spring traps (materials for these can be purchased from the Inn within Lothering who stocks an unlimited amount of this item). If none of the characters in the current group have the Trap Making skill, then this quest will not be able to be obtained and no further attempts to talk with Allison after the initial dialogue is complete will be possible. Note also that Allison will stop giving this quest (or accepting traps) if the MC's party exceeds some unknown limit of stealing attempts/failed stealing attempts in Lothering. On the XBox 360 version, at least, if you gain the Trap Making skill after initially telling Allison that you can't help her, you will have the option to tell her that you can help her now, and can make her as many traps as you like. Also, on the 360, you get coin each time, but not the experience.

Verified: On the 360 you do receive both the 50 silver and a small amount of experience, it just doesn't give a notification but if you observe your EXP bar it does move after each time you give her the traps.

PC: This exploit was "fixed" in patch 1.02a and no longer works.

PS3: This exploit still works, just after completing the quest for the first time you must talk to her twice and the option to give her more traps will appear.

Avoid Some Denerim Encounters ("go to camp")
This is a minor exploit, or possibly a feature, which can help the PC avoid Denerim random encounters. After opening the Denerim city map to leave a location outside the Market, select the world map and go directly to the party campsite to avoid any immediate Denerim random encounters. This appears to work even for "non random" random encounters such as the Mercenaries attack after they've been convinced to leave the Pearl -- however, this does not prevent the encounters from happening at all but simply postpones the opportunity for an encounter.

Unlimited Experience Glitch (Mountain Top)
As you Enter onto the Mountain Top area from either the Ruined Temple or The Gauntlet, each party member gains 750exp. All that is required is to transition onto the mountain top area so:
 * Enter the Mountain Top, gain 750xp.
 * Turn around and exit to Ruined Temple or The Gauntlet.


 * Repeat as desired

This only works if you Did Not defile the Ashes.

Skip Road Encounters
Sometimes, while traveling from place to place, darkspawn and other enemies may interrupt, which can be rather time-consuming. To skip these, simply go to the party camp. Then, go to the desired destination directly, without interruptions.

-This only works when returning to your previous destination.

Mugging
A quick way for beginner players to get some nice armor and weapons is to simply take them from Temporary Party Members. Most, if not all, origin stories will have a temporary party companion, a companion who, after the origins, will never be your companion again. Simply go to the inventory and unequip all of their items. Weapons, armor, accessories, even clothing can be taken without refusal or any notice at all from the companion. This has no negative affects, at all. Even if your origin story does not have a temporary companion, soon afterward, Ser Jory and Daveth become companions. In fact, Ser Jory is someone from whom you will benefit greatly from this exploit. Note: It is not recommended you use this trick on normal companions, unless they are about to leave or betray you (For example, defiling the ashes will make Wynne leave for good, along with all the equipment she has. It is recommended you "Mug" her  before  defiling the ashes) If you have her in your group at the time. She is a VERY useful healer so i advise you to leave her at the campsite or do this quest before she is aquired.

Note: None of the above is necessary unless the companion "leaves" (i.e. is is not killed). You will receive all weapons and armor from temporary party members after the Origin is over, and if you have to kill one of your normal companions you will be able to loot them, receiving all the gear you have given them. (Verified)

Free Attribute Points
In the PC version, it is possible to get free character attribute points (statistics) during a level up. To do this, first allocate all 3 points to an attribute you do not need. Now select "Reset". The attributes will all return to their original values, with 3 points available, however, you can now deduct 3 more points from the attribute that you previously modified, giving you 6 available points to spend (although no net gain of points yet). Allocate all 6 points to the attribute, select "Reset", and now you will be able to deduct 6 additional points from that attribute. Repeat this process, and when you can deduct more points than the attribute contains, the attribute will stop at zero (or -1 or -2, depending on the character), but the number of available points will continue to increase as you attempt to remove points from the attribute. Now each time you repeat the process, you will net 3 additional attribute points to spend. Note: You do not have to remove the points from the attribute until the end (Just allocate, reset, allocate, reset, etc, until you are satisfied, then press the down arrow repeatedly until the number of available points stops increasing). Then allocate the points to other attributes.