Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Is there a prescribed path to the sanctuary?

I'm considering starting over but, not quite yet. I did many if not most of the inside Fort Joy (which doesn't seem to look anything like the old Ft Joy) tasks then escaped via the "save the elf" path. Once off the boat, I kept trying and trying (and trying, and trying --- n) but all I find are insurmountable foes and dead ends. In the process, I found a lot (Gareth, Slane, etc) but I'm now just going in circles. I can't get past the crocodiles (?), the voidwoken slugs that kill one creates four more, and one party that just appears with a mage, decaying folks, and some sort of dragon-like creature that is likely another type of void monster. I believe I am level four. So, is there a path that is generally used that one could describe to me or do I just have to start over with a better crew and builds?

It sounds like your gear isn't what it needs to be. Also, given your description, you found everything you could in Fort Joy, but there is likely quite a bit you haven't done yet. It takes everyone a few play throughs to find most things. That being said, if your difficulty setting is classic, then you should be fine, yet.

If you haven't done anything with the other origin characters yet, things are easily salvageable. The biggest issue will be getting to Amadia's Sanctuary. From the boat, hug the coast leaving Fort Joy behind. The first bit will be a beach area. Once you get off the beach, you will go through some noxious bulbs. In the bulbs are heads on pikes that will talk/mumble as you go by. Ignore them and don't touch anything. Keep to the right side of things, this should allow you to sneak past the voidwoken encounter where the oil barrels are. Past that, there are two bulbs you need to get through. If you don't have the teleport spell to get them out of the way, you will have to use Armor of Frost and then just run through hoping you have enough magic armor to make it through. The goal will be to either get a character with the Soldier trait or your character with the highest persuasion past the bulbs. Past the bulbs is a bell to ring, which will get you a lizard pointing a crossbow right at you. You will have to convince her, you mean her no harm. A Soldier character has a great dialog option to do this, otherwise a couple points in persuasion should be enough. Once convinced you are no threat, the lizard will lower a rope for you to climb up. This next part is key, once you get to the top of the bridge, you are on the clock. There is no rush, you have roughly 15-20 minutes. Go into the sanctuary and you should find the kid (Han) you took the boat with to get out of Fort Joy. He will be with another lizard. The lizard will will ask you about Gareth. The dialog is short and shouldn't cost you much time. After the dialog is over, this lizard will note Han is injured. Hint. Hint. Wink. Wink. Heal Han and he will tell you others need to be healed as well. The others are the ones with the clock ticking. If you take more than 30 minutes to get to them, they will die and you will miss out on a nice chunk of free XP. After healing the injured, run around the sanctuary and talk to everyone. This should also unlock the quick travel. You can then dismiss your crew. Quick travel back to the fort and pick up the origin characters you haven't used yet. Pick them up and make them Shadow Blades so they have Thieving abilities. Using that thieving, rob the vendors in Fort Joy. This should get you some gold to upgrade your gear and see if there are any skills you want to add to your group. With that done, you can quick travel back to the sanctuary, dismiss your Shadow Blades and pick up your crew again. You will have to run around the sanctuary to find them, but it shouldn't take long. Once they have the better gear and any extra skills, you should be in a much better spot to start wandering the marshes looking for appropriate level encounters.

FYI : If you have decent gear and solid builds, you should be able to handle the crocs for the teleport quest at level 3. The problem is that you are starting for basically having nothing, so at levels 1 and 2 in Fort Joy you should only pick fights where you have a good numbers advantage. Also, on your first play through, Pet Pal talent is extremely recommend for your main character and have your main character put a couple points into persuasion. This should help find and complete a few extra quests. The traits I would recommend for your main character on the first play through are Soldier and Scholar. These are the two most useful traits.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you.

Thanks. Gear? Since first playthrough, I don't really know but I believe you are right. One still has his rags. The Red Prince got most of the armor I could wrangle and the best one-handed weapon and shield I obtained but it still is only 8-9 I believe (an ax). The main character just has basic shoes, teleportation gloves, a belt, and an enchantress' head dress while the other some mish-mash of items.

Are the noxious bulbs/piked heads the place with the bulb circle and chest in the middle? I was suspicious of the layout so teleported the chest out of the circle, opened it, and boom! (but not where I was). Just seeing if I'm getting the initial direction right. I couldn't get around the rocks hugging the beaches on either side of the boat and that seems to be all that is left there. It sounds like the sanctuary is close to the boat but I got nowhere near the flag on the circle map.

OK, the crocs for the teleport quest. Since I used the save the elf quest to escape, this one didn't happen. However, I did kill three or four crocs on the beach to the northwest of Ft Joy, I think. Are those the ones you speak of? I think the in swamp ones (they may not have been crocs and the "voice" spoke while I fought them) were to the southeast of the (also defeated) decaying hydrophist (I think - she cackles according to the narrator and speaks of a new master that she works for voluntarily), a decaying assassin, decaying swashbuckler, and I think a decaying knight. Note: no void monster here.

My character has scholar and mystic.

I believe this will be of great help. Again, thanks.

You have definitely traveled the Hollow Marshes a bit. The marshes are level 5 and 6 and will be rough for an undergeared level 4 group. You definitely sound undergeared. By the time you leave Fort Joy proper, none of your characters should be in rags and all should have at least level 3 weapons. You have definitely missed some early stuff. At the first way point you unlock in Fort Joy, there is a spot where you can teleport a character to and explore. No fights, but a barrel and chest to loot as well as find a unique sword that is one of the better weapons you will find in Fort Joy. If I recall properly, the sword is call "The Viper" and gives a +1 to Strength and +1 to Warfare, making it great for the Red Prince. The Viper is only level 3, so it will start being a bit underwhelming when you are ready to leave Fort Joy, but should serve you extremely well until then. FYI : If you keep an eye on the minimap, you will be able to tell which areas of the map your characters can get to, it is just a matter of figuring out how to get to some of them.

A good way to tell if you have explored the majority of the island of Fort Joy before leaving is by the collection of Crafting Bible books you have found. On the island of Fort Joy you can find Bibles : 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. Number 14 will be loot in the ultimate fight on the island.

You can still complete the Teleporter Quest and I recommend doing so for a bit of extra XP. However, don't do it right away. Save it until your getting ready to leave the island of Fort Joy. The NPC (Gawin) that gave the quest is an Aerothurge vendor. You can loot him for Aerothurge spells. However, if you have the gold to purchase them it is easier to buy the skill books and the loot the gold. You can just combine the stolen gold with other gold you have and nobody will ever be able to tell you stole that gold from them, even if they catch you and search you, as long as you have joined the stolen gold to some other gold prior to the search.

Yes, we are talking about the same noxious bulbs. The heads on the sticks can be fun to talk to if you haven't. You can also get a bit of useful info from one of them. However, having opened the chest, it is too late if you haven't already. From there, continue keeping to the right side of things. This will take you in basically a U turn and into the second set of just two noxious bulbs. Past the two bulbs is Amadia's Sanctuary. With the teleporter gloves, you can simply teleport these two bulbs out of the way. With the teleport gloves there is a short cut to Amadia's Sanctuary just before the noxious bulbs with the chest. However, that is something you can look for that on a subsequent play through. By the way even after 4 play throughs I can still find things I haven't noticed before.

Actually Scholar and Mystic is great. There is one spot in chapter two (Driftwood) in which the combo will be invaluable. Don't get worried about not having the soldier trait.

Overall, it sounds like you are doing well. If your Spidey Sense went off on the chest in the noxious bulb ring, it should serve you well through the game. Teleporting the chest out of the ring is great adaptive thinking. You should do well in the game. As for equipment, here are my recommendations. For basic (white) gear try to keep it within two levels of your characters. Green and blue gear should be kept within 3 levels of your characters. Purple and unique (gold) can be as far as 4 to 5 levels below your character's level, but try to keep it a bit closer. One character focusing the Lucky Charm ability will allow you to find loot more frequently in the chests, barrels, etc. that you open up. Have one character, preferably a human due to the bonus +1 Bartering, focus on Bartering. Worst case, if the loot you find doesn't have the stats you want and is of no use to your group, at least with higher Bartering you can get more gold when selling it at a vendor.

Ah! If I had only known. Made it to the bell before; just didn't notice it. No wonder I was lost . Anyway, thanks a million. I've played all the Divinity games except "Dragon Commander" and I know there is always a steep learning curve but this was the first time I just kept running in circles and the bell was there all along. Oh well, time to check my eye prescription.