Divinity: Original Sin 2 Beginner Tips

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has esablished itself as one of the finest examples of CRPGs in recent years. Its amazing voice acting, fantastic gameplay, and engaging story really overjoyed the fans of the CRPG genre. It's also known as a quite difficult game to get into, considering its many moving parts and sometimes complex dynamics. If you're a veteran player of the game, you'll probably know most of these tips of advice already. However, many aspects of the game may be erroneously overlooked by newer players, and this article is aimed to allow pretty much anyone to start their adventure in the best of ways. Our Divinity: Original Sin 2 beginner tips guide covers animal companions, combat skills, interactions, merchants, and more.

Animal Friends 

Pet Pal was one of the fan-favorite talents in the original Divinity: Original Sin and it’s back in the sequel. Just like the first game, the talent will allow the character to communicate with animals. While sometimes this will only give you access to some extra dialogue and fun comments (which would be worthwhile anyway), it will also allow your party to access extra intel on missions, loot locations, and have access to otherwise unobtainable quests. It’s the only talent in the game that should always be picked. Giving Pet Pal to a character with the highest persuasion stat will showcase the best result.

Team Combat Skills

One of the biggest contradictions of Divinity: Original Sin is in its armor system. Enemies will have two bars above their health bar, one for magical protection and one for physical armor. You can’t damage their health until you deplete one of the bars with the relative kind of damage and will also be protected from harmful status effects. For example, you can’t knockdown an enemy that has physical armor left and you can’t poison an enemy with magic resistance. This means that the players will find themselves in an awkward spot where, on one hand, the game offers a lot of interesting interactions between different skills but, on the other hand, the optimal solution is to focus the party on being either mostly physical or magical. Don’t feel discouraged to try to experiment. After all, that’s why there are free respecs from Act 2 onwards.

Locations

Mobility, planning, and positioning have a huge impact in all the combat encounters. Placing your huntsmen and wizards on elevated locations will give a large boost to their damage and the reach of their attacks. Likewise, you don’t want to find your units being looked down. Many classes have handy skills to move around fast, like cloak and dagger, teleport, or spread the wings. You want all of your characters with at least one of those so they can place themselves where they can deal the most damage to the enemy, while repositioning with ease. Be aware that enemies have access to these options too, so be prepared for any situation and counterattack with optimal mobility.

Pickpocketing

The thief path is usually one of the most satisfying in RPGs and Divinity: Original Sin 2 is no different. The thievery civil ability allows you to pickpocket NPCs, but there are limitations to this. You can only pickpocket from the poor devil’s pocket up to either the scoundrel’s weight or value cap. Both of these caps depend on a number of points you invested in the thievery skill. This limitation becomes more important considering that you can only pickpocket a given NPC once. Sure, you can pickpocket them once with every character of the party but it’s unlikely that you want to invest the points to do so on the whole group, so make sure that when you decide to steal from someone it’s because they have an item you very much want. Also, once the deed is done, leave the area quickly because they’re going to realize pretty quickly what had just happened.

Bedrolls and Shovels

There are some items in the game whose usefulness may be easily overlooked by the fact that they look like the usual trash you find in this kind of game. Some of these, however, are real lifesavers. Bedrolls are a big one. Using one out of combat will instantly refill the health of the entire party, which is great considering that health does not automatically regenerate, and gives the group a buff for three turns. Bedrolls are not consumable so you only need to have one on you at any given time. Just like bedrolls, shovels have infinite uses and are the only way to dig up buried treasures. Be sure to always have one in the inventory unless you have a Lizard in the party, since Lizards can dig without requiring a shovel. Lastly, if you find dismembered body parts around, don’t throw them away. Feed them to the Elf in your party and they’ll be able to see some of the memories of the fallen. They will also, sometimes, gain new skills from these cannibalistic actions.

Main Character Run

Divinity: Original Sin 2 gives the player a decent amount of customization options for its characters. It also provides a roster of 6 pre-made characters to choose from. While the instinct of any veteran of the genre is to create their own avatar, you may want to pick one of the main roster characters this time. These characters will have exclusive dialogues and interactions throughout the game and even a personal quest to complete. You’ll be slightly limited on some of the customization options for them (race and tags can’t be changed), but it’s worth the effort for the extra content they bring. Playing with the Red Prince as the main character is highly recommended and is said that his personal quest is superior to most of the main quest in the game. 

You can always create additional playthroughs, so being able to complete and tackle personal quests through the pre-made characters is an excellent way to get your bearings in the game before making your own custom character.

Eye Out for Interactions

Combining your skills will get you far in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Most spell and environmental effects interact with each other in some way, and learning how to take advantage of these interactions will be pivotal to your party success. Something seemingly tame like a Rain spell can turn the odds in your favor if used efficiently. A wet enemy, for example, will be much more susceptible to electricity and cold, allowing you to freeze or stun them out of their turn. A fireball on an oil or poisoned area can turn the whole battlefield in an inferno of flames. Just be careful to not be caught in the mess.

Treating Merchants 

You can trade with every NPC you encounter in the game but, merchants will be the ones with the most stuff to sell. Their inventory will rotate hourly and also whenever your main character levels up, so you may want to check back with them often. If you find a merchant that sells items particularly useful, you may want to give them a few freebies. Giving free stuff to a merchant will raise the NPC’s attitude towards your character. This means that the next time their inventory rotates, you will get a better price. So if you have extra items you don’t need, you may want to consider selling them at a loss or giving them away. Just make sure that you do it with the character with the highest Bartering skill.

Shortcuts and Tricks

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a challenging game, there’s no doubt about that. Players have found numerous ways to make it easier on themselves, some a bit devious.

One useful trick I quickly discovered is that when an ally is stuck in a conversation with an NPC, the time for them is frozen. This means that whatever buff they have on will not expire as long as they remain in the conversation. What I like to do is, if I think a conversation is going to lead to combat, I buff the character who’s doing the talking with all the possible spells my other party members can muster, so when the fight starts they'll be fully buffed.

Another way you can do to even the odds is if the game is treating you unkindly, make use of summoning spells. Having both a Summoner and a Necromancer in the party will create at least two more targets for the enemies, making the more difficult fights more manageable. Also, a bone widow can create quite a ruckus behind the enemy lines.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has an immense amount of depth and decision-making. Try different skill combinations, plan out your tactics by using the environment, and watch your plan come to fruition This guide should give you a pretty decent headstart into the adventure, and don't forget to head over to the Divinity: Original Sin 2 game page for more articles. 

Be sure to read our interview with the designer behind the board game adaptation of Divinity: Original Sin 2.