Dragon Age: Origins – Truth about Recruiting Loghain

Loghain MacTir of Denerim is one of the bad guys in Dragon Age: Origins that can join your party in pursuing the archdemon. We’ve seen how f*cked up he is when he abandoned King Cailan and the rest of the Grey Wardens in the fight to slay the darkspawn. Well, recruiting him is indeed worth it but it will ask for something to sacrifice; that is to kick Alistair out of your party.

After his defeat in the Landsmeet, spare his life and force him join and become a Grey Warden. Doing this will make Alistair leave the party. It’s really a hard choice; it’s either Loghain or Alistair. Let’s take a look on the base stats of each of them:

LOGHAIN’s BASE ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 28
Dexterity: 23
Willpower: 32
Magic: 14
Cunning: 18
Constitution 24

Can teach a “Champion” specialization.

ALISTAIR’s BASE ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 20
Dexterity: 17
Willpower: 16
Magic: 14
Cunning: 11
Constitution 13

Can teach a “Templar” specialization.

There you have it, it shows that Loghain has a lot advantage than Alistair. I prefer Alistair over Loghain but if you want to see something new, then go ahead and pick Loghain.

35 thoughts on “Dragon Age: Origins – Truth about Recruiting Loghain

  1. But at what level is Loghain recruited? It seems unlikely that this comparison is at the same level. Is this Alister’s lvl 8 base stats vs. Loghain’s Lvl (something much higher) base stats? If so, while leveling Alister it seems I could pick these attributes and they would be even, thus making it only a plot choice.

    Also- Is Loghain a romance option? Gamer girls need to know! :) Alister is sweet but a bit of a whiny, emo, wuss. I’d love a manly-er option.

  2. I honestly didn’t like Loghain. Compared to Alistar, Loghain died ALOT. I used to keep Alistar in my party the whole game and I figured based on stats and gear, Loghain was the better choice. I was wrong. He dies to stupid creeps and his attacks aren’t that strong. In my humble opinion, keep Alistar, if not for his moral choices.

  3. I only bothered with him in the playthrough where Alistair’s approval was already in the toilet (because I’d defiled the Urn of Andraste, mainly). Loghain’s like a nice little bonus for an “Evil” playthrough, since you’re going to be missing so many opportunities by being a jerk to people.

  4. Vianki is correct, this comparation sucks, alistair at level 4~8 have such atributes, and Loghain at level 15~20 will have better atributes, but take a PC with 15~~ auto levels up…only if your Alistair have a lot of disaproval, and Vianki, Gohren is a lot menly :D.

  5. Mmm. Menly is good! Though now that Alister is saying “Something you need my dear?” I seem to have softened a bit. Maybe I’ll save Loghain for a second playthough where i decide to be a wee bit more evil.
    /pets cat
    /cues evil soundtrack

  6. Thats the best part about this game…Recruiting Loghain ain’t “evil”, its for the greater good. Killing a general right before a war is simply stupid, gaining a new Grey Warden, when they are so few of them is of much greater importance. Alistair acts like a selfish jerk and doesn’t agree and thats his problem…

  7. Killing an experience soldier who is devoted to his country to satisfy a whining companion, who places his own emotions ahead of his country’s interest, is ridiculous.

  8. (To Lyansidde’s comment)
    Agreed, but I don’t like Loghain, so I’m going to kill him just for the hell of it. :D

  9. Are you sure Loghain won’t betray you or all your friends again after what he had done to his dear son-in-law and his own daughter? I killed him everytime largely because he is too dangerous to be left alive.

  10. I killed him because I went and killed all the Revenants to get the Juggernaut Plate which was on Alistair, and when I chose to keep Loghain alive and Alistair left he didn’t give me my armor back so I had to reload the game and fight Loghain again to keep Alistair so I could have my awesome super-shiny armor of doom.

    Warning: if you want Loghain, equip Alistair with alternate equipment which sucks first and then give Loghain Alistair’s old equipment.

    I’m not going to pick Loghain over Alistair for his personality anyway. Alistair is loyal, funny, and good comic relief. He also has the Templar dispel magic ability, which is EXTREMELY USEFUL. I suppose if I ever play through the game again (it’s so long that by the time I play through it the first time I’ll be an old man) I will keep Loghain over Alistair though. There are just so many decisions to make in this game…

  11. I still don’t understand why you’re forced to make a choice – when Alistair has his hissy fit about not staying if Loghain lives – why wouldn’t Riordan have had a quick word in his ear to tell him that Loghain would be the one to kill the archdemon, thus dying in the process.

    Alistair gets to see Logahin die, Loghain gets to redeem himself, the people can continue to think of him as a hero and, if you had done the nasty with Morrigan, thus letting Loghain actually live whilst Alistair was still a party member, that could have made for a *very* fun ending. Not to mention, a lot darker and more “real” as that was supposedly the game’s motif.

    just my 2 cents.

  12. even you wear juggernaut or any armor for alistar you can still get it in the treasure box/box in the room of arl eamon

  13. Wrong, jefrey, if Alistair runs away because you convince the all-time bitch-queen Anora to spare him, the chest will not appear. If you got tired of Alistair’s constant whining and decided to kill the moron, bless his heart, the chest will appear.

    That being said, I love killing Loghain simply because I loved Duncan, and I see the only reason Duncan is not in my party is that Loghain ran. Vengeful? Yes, I fight fire with fire.

  14. Spoilers – since I’m a human male I have the option of marrying Anora and becoming king. I spared Loghain because I was sick of Alistair’s whining.

  15. Like Steve said, it would be nice to have the option to persuade Alistair to stay in your party and get Loghain. They could have set the Cunning Attribute necessary to rather high and Coercion on max as necessity for it, but it would have been a nice option.

    A nice option would also have been to spare Loghain and NOT make him a Grey Warden while Alistair stays in the party albeit with a heavy drop in approval.

  16. Base attributes means atrributes without a level. Seriously, this comparision *IS* accurate.

    Sigh.

  17. what Lyansidde & Fishia said was totally true …

    and for loghain haters please try reading Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne. U’ll know why he do that …. he had to do that.

  18. and for loghain haters please try reading Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne. U’ll know why he do that …. he had to do that.

    I read the books, I DO love Loghain as a character but there are still times I cannot comprehend how his love of his country and hatred of Orlais justifies leaving Cailan to die. He makes some pretty awful moral choices, outlawing the Wardens, hiring an asassin to kill you, selling elves into slavery to fund civil war (that is HIS fault to begin with) and having Rendon Howe as his sidekick…

    I usually choose to kill him simply because I love Alistair for his adorableness (and you can’t romance Loghain…pity…) but I truly wish there was a way to reconcile letting Loghain live (and die fighting the blight and saving the country he loves) and keeping Alistair in the party, he acts very selfishly and immaturely if you decide to spare Loghain. :( You should be able to convince him that this is whats best for Ferelden not just his own selfish need for revenge. But I guess killing Rendon Howe is also a bit selfish and was only done out of revenge so maybe that’d be a bit hypocritcal of a human noble charrie to make that argument…

  19. If you’ve read the book and played “Return to Ostagar” – you should realize that actually it was Cailan who betrayed everything his parents and Loghain fought for. Loghain created this country. HIM and not Maric. And yes, if you read “The Calling” you understand why he doesn’t like the Grey Wardens. Damn good reasons.

    Long live Loghain. Great man, great warrior, great companion (ask Anora about her father before the Landsmeet. Talk to him and listen to his random stories after he joins your group). Bummer the love story with him is not possible there. But it was so great to see him in “The Awakening” – smiling :)

  20. I killed him because he was responsible for the death of King Cailan Who I’m madly in love with pity he had to die so early now I will spend the rest of my life searching for a King Cailan head morph for Alister, I do I like Alister though at times he a wuss and crybaby he has a good personalty and gives you a rose with a crappy pick up line and admits to it. Zeveran is nice and awesome and all and I like a man who can kill a crowd of Darkspawn in less then 30 seconds but if I had to choose someone who had a lot of back bone I would choose Stean only if he had more of the look that he did in the Scared Ashes trailer then sure I’d tap that lol. So I would like him if he looked way younger

  21. I have played DA Origins three times now. In those two times i have executed Loghain, but when I read ‘The Stolen Throne’ I got to know how Loghain thinks as person when it comes to battles/wars. I actually started to find him cool as person. So I let him live at the 3rd time of my gameplay and it seems he is not that bad of a man either in Origins. Yes he has made his mistakes! But he admits his wrongs aswell. While Arl Howe did not! Even before he dies he spits at the Warden and says that he deserved more… That is pure evil if you ask me! King Cailan was a good king, but not a good husband to Anora. He was willing to push her aside to marry Celena! Which I find unfair towards Anora, plus the fact that he lived in this fantasy world, thinking he could destroy an army of darkspawn and actually would live through the day…. Loghain knew that they would lose the battle and he was not willing to let all of his soldiers die cause of one mans fantasy… I came to understand Loghain much better when I recruited him in the Grey Wardens. Yes it was sad to see Alistair being betrayed by my character, but hey it is al fixion, so why not try many different ways of playing a game (when possible) :-D

  22. I, too, wish, there was a way to save Loghain AND keep Alistair in the party. I had no desires of letting Loghain join me, but I agree that in such a situation, killing him is not the wisest decision. Maybe let him fight as a regular soldier, or anything.
    In the end, I went through this dialogue three times, all the while hoping there was a way around it, but in the end, I decided to kill Loghain to have Alistair by my side, but he really was a bit unreasonable in that talk.
    As for Anora, she is a bitch, but good for a ruler so, duh.

  23. You do know , that even thou alistar leaves. if you did his personal quest and “harden him about the real world” . he would become king. Then you take loghain as substitute. I personally want to kill Loghain many times , but i want Alistar to be the King . Thus , Lose one and gain somone that is better for the nation. I recommend you do all the personal quests before the landsmeet. Btw , If i were you guys , save before each major decison in the game . Like good gamers

  24. Loghain a good guy? WTF??? Hes responsible for dividing Ferelden when its more vulnerable! And the worst of it is that he realizes that! Just look the cinematics after Ostagar, you can tell, HE KNOWS HE FUKD UP! I have multiple playthroughs, and i just cannot spare him, hes beyond redemption.

  25. On my first playthrough, I spared Loghain, without realizing what the consequences would be. My thinking was that he fought me honourably, and had explained his actions well beforehand, and I sympathized with his desired ends, of not his means. When Allistair threw his hussy fit, I tried to reason with him, but he was totally unreasonable. I had already decided to do a second playthrough (at least) to get the other achievements, so went with it, and was surprised to find out that he wasn’t such a bad guy. I’m now part way through my second play through, and have some reservations about killing him, but will do it anyway!

  26. i killed loghain because :
    1- he tried to kill me and my party few times by sending assassins after us
    2- he poisoned arl eamon
    3- he is a really bad father
    4- he is ugly
    5- he waited for the signal to withdraw his troops from ostagar, wich is stupid, if he was really thinking that the battle was hopeless, he should have left before instead of giving false hopes to everyone else there. this way, maybe cailan would have withdraw too.
    6- in my opinion, slave trading is not an option for funding anything
    7- he was allied with arl howe, wich i cant accept, hes an asshole
    8- he never respected the grey wardens
    9- he may be a good general but he knew nothing about fighting darkspawn (he nearly killed all the grey wardens without knowig that he needs them to kill the archdemon)
    10- you cant say if he is loyal or not
    11- allistair is funny, and he isnt selfish, hes just emotive (i would also be angry against loghain if he was the man responsive for the death of my “family” (duncan))
    12- i wanted anora and allistair to marry themselves
    13- when loghain saw the crowd on my side when it was the time to chose the next king, he didnt join our cause, he wanted to fight us instead
    14- allistair is a decent tank (not as much as my godly arcane warrior, but still..)
    15- i didnt read the books but nothing will change the fact that i dont like loghain, maybe he was thinking he was doing the right thing for ferelden, but for me, killing ppl and betraying others isnt the way it should be

    and i want to add that i just finished the game on nightmare without any of my party members getting any injury trought the whole game ^^

    arcane warrior > everything else :)

    *please disregard all the mistakes you may see, english isnt my first language

  27. When I first went to the Landsmeet, I spared Loghain, it seemed to make practical sense. Take a man with great tactical skills who despite his crimes still cares for his country and wishes to see to it that it survives, and give him a chance to do something that in part redeems himself. Even the queen understands why he let her husband die, even if it was morally wrong.
    I was annoyed with the script writing of that whole situation, especially if you have full relationship with Alistair, it should be possible to ‘talk him down’ or at least to find him at his sisters house after the landsmeet to try and reconcile.
    There were quite a few bits like that near the end where it suffered from American drama syndrome, where the characters were tweaked just to allow for a certain kind of plot twist.
    Although Alistair’s rage is understandable, it should have been entirely possible for him to take the judgement of a peer of Duncan as that which it was – a sound choice just before battle, one that also helped redeem the Grey Wardens as Loghains supporters could not continue to war against the Grey Wardens if he had become one!

    I replayed the area and let Alistair kill him, but I wasn’t satisfied with that really. But wanted the ‘Grey Wardens went into the sunset’ ending for him and my Dwarf :D (I also think it’s a bit hypocritical that he apparently is difficult to keep in romance if your non-human given his utter certainty in the past that such a thing isn’t a problem, it seems a little inconsistent. Though I could appreciate such a decision by him if it was padded out a little more. But the latter end of the story lacks padding here and there in many respects :D)

    Ah well, still either way I love this game :D

  28. HA ha… but you miss the beauty and justice of this arrangement.

    Unless you really want to have your pal Alastair sleep with Morrigan, and let her use the baby as part of her dark ritual. That’s just cruel.

    But if you are playing a female, and you select to have Loghain join, you will relish in him sleeping with her, and what she’s going to do with his offspring. I was delighted, I laughed so hard at it I cried, and was thankful they put this plot twist in there.

    Alastair is fine – he’s off married to Anora, and if you select that for the outcome, he leaves your party either way, to go marry her, so recruiting Loghain makes sense.

    And you get to take it all out on his kid… LOL. That’s what I did!

    Sweet!

  29. origins is told from the wardens point of view so Loghain looks rather bad. However think of it this way. You were suppose to light the tower at the signal and didn’t because of the dark spawn. The whole plan was based on that. By the time you do manage to lit it, its too late, to save Duncan, the king, or the battle. The cut screens could be seen that way. So of course Loghain retreats in order to spare the remaining troops.

    If you remember Loghain argues against the king plans and requests the wait for the arl’s troops. So its not like he was planning this.

    Considering that it was the grey wardens’ job to light the beacon and they were late and the fact he doesn’t know about the dark spawn taking over the tower, it makes sense that he labels the grey warden’s as traitors.

  30. Base stats show Loghain should seriously kick ass. He dies pretty often when I keep him, which wouldn’t be the case if I had more than 2 or 3 levels to improve constitution and whatnot. The only way I’ve found to make him good enough to survive the whole time is to save as many missions for after the Landsmeet as possible. Definitely Return to Ostagar and Soldiers Peak, at the very least. At least that gives enough time to see his weaknesses in battle and tweak them a bit. Its hard to say which of the 2 is a better warrior in the last battle…

    At the Landsmeet I’ve spared Loghain as many times as I’ve killed him and honestly, I prefer sparing him. It seems like a better political move since he still has who knows how many men that would be at your command since he follows you. Thinking about those two pain in the ass darkspawn generals in the last battle, its actually not half bad to have one of your own. Alistair doesn’t really have anything to offer against that, even though I do like him. Kinda. He’s sweet, cute, funny but that doesn’t win a war. He also doesn’t fully understand what it means to be a Grey Warden since he wouldn’t accept Loghain. Some say it’s understandable, and I guess it is, but that is the WORST time to bail on such a crisis. He isn’t leaving in the very middle of a battle, but that kinda makes him as bad as Loghain in my eyes. Worse than that is thanks to the warden and Loghain’s efforts after Alistair leaves, no one of real importance dies so Alistair isn’t made a villain like Loghain was at the beginning of the game. The part that made me lose A LOT of respect for Alistair is him completely ignoring what Riordan says – The Grey Wardens don’t always choose the best of the best with a golden, shiny heart. They recruit blood mages, kinslayers, etc.

    It is unlikely Alistair would even be as good a ruler as Anora (even though it pains me to say that because I hate hate HATE her) but a marriage between those two seemed like the best option to me because they would keep the Theirin bloodline and have her political prowess. Instead of thinking of that himself when he is made king, he decides to lock her in the tower (would serve her right if someone cursed her with nighttime ogre-ness and Shrek was her only hope for love, but I digress….)

    And am I the only one that liked Loghain LESS after reading The Stolen Throne? I liked how it showed how he’d step up when Maric was going in circles and set the little princeling straight, but other than that I prefer old, grumpy daddy Mac Tir. Hell, by the time I recruited him (wasn’t until my 4th playthrough) and heard everything he had to say, he was one of my favorite characters. Still is! (The reason he didn’t win 1st prize is he didn’t recite lame, dirty poetry like Zev… XD )

  31. Well here’s my take on this.When Loghain had abandoned Cailien and the rest of the Wardens,I was mad.But then I reliazed that in the end,however villianous he was,that he still cares for his land and wants atonement which is more than I could say of other villians.

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