Shapeshifting (Fade)

Possible forms

During your travels in the Fade during Dragon Age: Origins, you can get several shapeshifting forms. Each one has unique abilities and disadvantages.

Golem

Golem

• Gained in Mage Asunder.
• "The golem form makes you very tough and allows you to smash through heavy doors."

Golem form can be very effectively used to heal your character. While in golem form, your character will gain significant bonus to constitution, resulting in almost double health. When shifting from the normal form to the golem form, your health will be calculated as a percentage of your original health. When shifting back to normal, however, your health will be calculated as an absolute value. For example, your characted has 200 health in normal form, and shifts into the golem form. The resulting golem will have around 400 health. During a fight the golem has lost some hit points, and health dropped to 230. If you shift back to normal, the game will set your health to 230. But since that value exceeds your maximum health in normal form, it will be reduced to 200. If you shift back to golem form now, the golem will have 400 health again. This can be done while in combat.

Powers gained

• Golem Form - Bonus to armor, defense, strength, electricity resistance, and physical resistance; gains Slam, Quake, and Hurl.

Note: Contrary to the tooltip, Golem form imposes a 10-point penalty to Defense. In addition, this form gives a large bonus to constitution that is not mentioned in the tooltip.

• Hurl Rock - The golem hurls a rock at the target, damaging all nearby targets and knocking them down unless they pass a physical resistance check. Friendly fire possible.
• Quake - The golem slams the ground three times, dealing damage to all nearby targets and stunning them unless they pass a physical resistance check. Friendly fire possible.
• Slam - The golem slams the target. If the attack hits, it deals critical damage and knocks the target down. This move is very useful for shattering frozen enemies.

Abilities gained

• The ability to hurl boulders through Massive Doors and shatter them permanently. However, the Hurl skill is used and thus cannot be used again until the cool-down time is up.

Mouse

Mouse

• Gained in The Raw Fade.
• "The mouse form allows you to pass through openings that are normally too small for anything else. It also allows you to remain hidden and pass through certain areas unnoticed."

Powers gained

• Mouse Form - While in the form of a mouse, the character suffers penalties to strength, constitution, damage, health, defense, and physical resistance. The mouse is also very unlikely to hit an opponent in combat.
• Stealth - (same as rogue)

Abilities Gained

• Travel through Mouse Holes.

Spirit

Spirit

• Gained at Darkspawn Invasion.
• "The spirit form makes you more resilient to magic, but is vulnerable in physical combat. It also allows you to see things that are normally hidden in the folds of the Fade."

The Spirit Form's melee attack does equally as much damage as you would using your ordinary weapons. This makes it good for warriors using two-handed weapons, since the Spirit Form has a higher attack speed.

Powers gained

• Spirit Form - While in the form of a spirit, the character gains a large bonus to fire resistance, as well as bonuses to spellpower, magic, and armor.
• Winter's Grasp
• Crushing Prison
• Regeneration

Note: Despite the tooltip, there is no Armor bonus while in this form.

• Benefits greatly from high dexterity.
• Despite the in-game description saying that you receive a bonus to Magic, you do not, though you still gain 10 spellpower in this form.

Note: Despite having a large bonus to fire resistance, this does not allow you to walk through fires.

Abilities gained

• Able to use Essence of Willpower
• Able to use Essence of Magic
• Able to use Spirit Door

Burning Man

Burning Man

• Gained in Burning Tower.
• "The burning man form grants you immunity to flames, allowing you to walk through fire. However, it is susceptible to cold attacks."

Powers gained

• Burning Man Form - While in the form of the burning man, the character suffers a large penalty (-75%) to cold resistance, but is immune to fire damage.
• Fireball - (As per mage spell.)
• Flame Blast - (As per Mage spell.)

Abilities gained

• Able to pass through Fire Barriers.

Note: pc The flame barriers are passable without this form using a Greater Warmth Balm. However the player must continually "push" against the barrier to pass through it and may have to drink a health potion halfway through. When pushing against the barriers, transition through it slows, which may result in death in some cases unless the full 75% fire resistance is attained (which lets the Warden move through all barriers safely). The balm provides 60%; the remaining 15% can be attained by briefly equipping items with the ability, or by casting Heroic Defense if playing a mage who has the spell.

Bugs

Bug! The player normally loses the ability to shapeshift into these forms upon leaving the Fade; however, if a form is assigned to 2 or more quickslots, only 1 will be removed when the player leaves. While this will grant the ability to use the form outside the Fade, it may cause the game to freeze.

Bug! The game may crash when attempting to access the Character Record screen while shapeshifted.

^{[confirmation needed]}

Bug! pc As of patch 1.05, if the player character gains a level while shapeshifted, they may become unable to level up or gain experience. The only known solution is to load a previous save and ensure that the character is in their normal form when they gain the level.

Bug! pc Shapeshifted characters sometimes gain the correct abilities but do not change their appearance properly. Quitting and restarting the game seems to be an effective fix.

See also

• Fade Pedestal, travel through the fade.
• The Fade: Lost in Dreams, the main quest line in the fade.