Traps are a Girl's Best Friend

Traps are a Girl's Best Friend
Location	Lothering
Quest Giver	Allison
End	Allison
Appearances	Dragon Age: Origins

Traps are a Girl's Best Friend is a side quest in Lothering. Allison has heard that Barlin is setting traps around his land to protect himself from the darkspawn, and she wants to protect herself in a similar fashion. Since Barlin has already acquired all the traps in the village, she hopes someone can make her three Spring Traps.

Walkthrough

Note: If you fail a Stealing attempt in Lothering prior to starting this quest, it will become unavailable - Allison will refuse to open a dialogue at all.

This quest is only available to a group with the Trap-Making skill. If Allison is approached and no one in the active party has this skill, the quest will initially not be obtainable, and the dialogue with her cannot be triggered again. It will become available again, however, if an active party member has the skill.

Completing the quest is simple: convert three Trap Triggers into Spring Traps and give these to Allison. Prior to first passage through Lothering, Triggers are available from the Ostagar Quartermaster, Barlin in Dane's Refuge, and the crates near the area entrance where the party first enter the area.

Rewards

• 50 (for each set of three traps)
• 100 XP (for each set of three traps)

Exploit

This quest is endlessly repeatable (until Lothering is destroyed). The first attempt to speak to Allison after first completion gives another "thanks for the traps I feel a lot safer now" and no dialogue, but after this she will be ready to accept more traps every time you speak with her.

• In the downloaded ps3 version, in the menu wheel, the number of traps (over one set of 99) rarely match what you bought, sometimes appearing to reduce at the same time; it has no bearing on the actual total you have (checking your equipment inventory will show the truth of this).

Problems and mitigation

One very important note to make is that you will receive experience each time you do this as well. You will rapidly gain levels, which can lead to difficulty when you next encounter enemies with leveled gear while you will likely still be using grey iron. Use with caution, specially on the PC version.

Item tier bug

If you unequip everything from your party except for Items that don't scale in level, sell them all in Dane's Refuge after achieving your desired level and gold, exit the building then go back in and everything will have scaled up to the appropriate level so you can have tier 7 equipment at the beginning of the game.

This is the procedure recommended at Exploits_(Origins)#Item_tier_bug. Please note that this method either doesn't work on the PC version, or requires Warden's Keep.