Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General What makes Sourcerers so feared/powerful?

Beyond "attracting Voidwoken" which seems to be a relatively new development what makes Sourcerers so special, or so powerful?

They get a few powerful abilities but just 1 to 3 shots depending on the power then you have to do questionable, potentially immoral things to replenish that source in most situations.

Beyond that everyone in the game world has access to the same powers and abilities so they only thing that really seems to set sourcerers apart from regular people is those 1-3 pips of source which really aren't all that special.

For example - one regular person Mage and a Sourcerer Mage are not all that much different. Same for a regular Warrior or a Sourcerer Warrior.

Furthermore the player characters aren't just Sourcerers, they are Godwoken. Beyond the story saying you're special, just how are they different from any random combat worthy person? NPC sourcerers get cool abilities and perform feats that seem to dwarf ours. I guess you could say that they win even when decently outnumbered but that hardly seems to really account for everything they should be.

You could probably go through a game without ever using source (expect when forced) and not notice THAT much more difficulty. At least perhaps not on max difficulty.


Seems like the players should simply be more powerful and the game should give you more source points and/or better ways to replenish them, and just throw more enemies at you. Otherwise.. Just how special are they?

well aside from attracting big scary fuck off demons, they are simply different. people fear others who are different. but mostly its just the voidwoken thing. as for the difference between godwoken and normal sourcerers, godwoken can become divine, normal sourcerers can't

Nor skills like demon´s stare, the necro cloud or dome of protection, I am sure...

I think when you found people like Hannag, Windego, Mordus, Ryker, Alison Alisceon or Karon it is self-explanatory why they are feared of special. I think the problem is with the godwoken main chars. When normal people think of sourcerers they depict those kind of monsters and as stated, their skills attract the devourers of men, the voidwoken.

Because Braccus Rex, whose actions resulted in the creation of the Source Hunters

Source is a cosmic boost for nearly everything : it turns your spells Super Saiyan, it can summon physicaly your inner soul (the wolf of Ifan, it's shit but he makes his soul taking form in the physical world when you think about it, that's badass), it can bend space and time...
In our real world, classic magic would be a gun, source magic would be a rocket launcher : same stuff, but... not quite the same capabilities.

Unfortunately, a lot of crazy people used Source to do crazy shit (Braccus Rex, Braccus Rex and Braccus Rex), so people tend to be afraid of the "Source" (huehuehue) of their power.

--> In the end, people are scared of a power capable of boosting spells to unfathomable highs... aaaand of the world ending Voidwoken too.


About the player's powers, I think OP is confused : gameplay =/= lore.
In the lore, characters in combat games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter are not at the same level of power BUT for gameplay reasons, they can all win their matches.
In Divinity it's the same : Larian can't break their game with OP spells "because characters are Godwoken lolz". Just add mods if you want it that way.

The quick snarky answer? They're sourcerors.

The longer answer? Right, so, source as a gameplay mechanic in D:OS2 is not what source is as an aspect of the lore. From what the OS series has established source is a special kind of magic that works on different principles than "normal" magic, and is drawn from a completely different source of power. In D:OS2 source is like the force in Star Wars, it's everywhere and in everyone and it congregates in various amounts. Sourcerors can tap into this power and unleash absolutely terrifying magical powers beyond the scope of simply throwing fireballs. Magic turns you into a chicken, source turns you into a burning pig for all eternity which requires divine intervention to undo.
So the reason they're a big deal is that source is functionally absolute power; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.