Item scaling (Dragon Age II)

Item scaling (or item level scaling) is a gameplay mechanic responsible for adjusting item power to the character level.

In regard to scaling, items in Dragon Age II can be split into several distinct categories:

• All generic and some unique items scale to Hawke's level at the time when they are generated and don't improve in quality after the acquisition. Container contents and merchant inventories are generated when you enter the area for the first time. Loot from enemy remains and quest rewards are generated at the time they are received.
• Most unique items have fixed level and always have the same stats.
• Some unique weapons and accessories have Improves with level-up property. Such items re-scale every time your main character gains a level. It happens whether or not they are in your inventory. Companion armor also falls into this category even though it is not explicitly marked as leveled.

Weapon damage

Weapon damage improves linearly with level. There are five basic weapon types that define how damage is calculated.

Damage = (BaseDamage + DamagePerLevel * Level) * DamageScale * PowerScale

• BaseDamage, DamagePerLevel, DamageScale refer to the columns 17, 16, 7 (zero-based) of the item_properties.gda file.
• PowerScale refer to the column 22 of the item_base.gda file.

This formula can be reduced to:

Note: Numbers are rounded to 3 decimal places for brevity.

Class	Weapon type	Damage formula	Property ID
Warrior	One-Handed	1.243 + 1.342 * Level	5000
Warrior	Two-Handed	1.429 + 1.543 * Level	5100
Rogue	Dual Wield	1.557 + 1.682 * Level	5200
Rogue	Bow	4.983 + 5.381 * Level	5300
Mage	Staff	1.714 + 1.851 * Level	5400

For items that scale:

Level = HawkeLevel + ItemLevelOffset

For items that have fixed level:

Level = ItemLevel + ItemLevelOffset

ItemLevelOffset can be any of the following: 2, 0, -2, -4 -6, -10. Additionally most items have minimum and maximum level bounds.

Weapon damage table

Level	One-Handed	Two-Handed	Dual Wield	Bow	Staff
1	3	3	3	10	4
2	4	5	5	16	5
3	5	6	7	21	7
4	7	8	8	27	9
5	8	9	10	32	11
6	9	11	12	37	13
7	11	12	13	43	15
8	12	14	15	48	17
9	13	15	17	53	18
10	15	17	18	59	20
11	16	18	20	64	22
12	17	20	22	70	24
13	19	21	23	75	26
14	20	23	25	80	28
15	21	25	27	86	29
16	23	26	28	91	31
17	24	28	30	96	33
18	25	29	32	102	35
19	27	31	34	107	37
20	28	32	35	113	39
21	29	34	37	118	41
22	31	35	39	123	42
23	32	37	40	129	44
24	33	38	42	134	46
25	35	40	44	140	48
26	36	42	45	145	50
27	37	43	47	150	52
28	39	45	49	156	54
29	40	46	50	161	55
30	42	48	52	166	57

See also

• Combat mechanics (Dragon Age II)
• Item properties (Dragon Age II)