Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks New player - how do I not die constantly?

I'm playing with a friend of mine, and once we got to level 5 we pretty much hit a brick wall in terms of getting anywhere. The fights we're running into usually have us outnumbered, and go one of two ways:

1. The melee characters get knocked down, stunned, frozen, petrified, etc, etc... now it's basically 7 vs 2 and that ends predictably.

2. Stuff hits so much harder than we do that if it actually gets to us, we get owned. Since half the party is melee, stuff pretty much has to get to us (or the melee has to get to it) in order to use everyone fully. So someone dies, we use a resurrect scroll after the fight... and we're running out of those.

I'm really not sure what we're supposed to be doing, as it feels like much of the game is rocket tag with CC, and given the party makeup, we don't have enough of it. Also, finding plate armor seems to border on impossible at this level, although I've got leather (that nobody can wear because it requires more dex than we have) coming out of my ears.

Any tips? "Start over with a better party" is not a practical option, since my friend doesn't want to do that. I never wanted to go with zero dex based characters in the first place, but here we are...

Thanks!

And is it possible to replace the starting companions with other ones that we can customize more? Madora is basically a duplicate of one of our main characters, and that really isn't working out so well. When do you get that option?

Thanks.

Try a different direction, explore in town if you haven't done so already, check merchants for equipment or skill upgrades, etc.

The second star stone you find will open the hall of heroes, where you can hire henchmen. Two new companions will be added in the next update (likely tomorrow), but I don't know if they will be available in existing games.

We've tried a few directions. West leads to some Orcs with a leader, and that fight blows us up hardcore. Going through to Evelyn's lair leads to Evelyn, who summons an army of stuff that just crushes us. Going through the forest led to a cave where we took care of the robot, but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do out there.

There's just so many status effects being thrown around that it feels like playing D&D, in a bad way. One or two characters fail a save? Too bad, you're dead. (And since our resists and such are lousy with the gear we have, that happens most of the time.)

Have you cleared north of the city and west, up to the lighthouse? Did you miss any areas when you went north up to the cave with the robot?

The fight with the orcs west of the harbour is easier with Rain + lightning/ice, etc, and summons can help. Another level or two would help, as well.

Lighthouse? No, must have missed that. We'll head up there.

Good to hear about the new companions too. I think that'll help us out. Thanks.

Also try varying your fight plans where possible.

For example, you might try rushing in, only to find that your character immediately get floored. Next time you might try hiding your group behind a group of trees, getting a key shot off at the start of the fight, then waiting for your opponents to close in.

Strategies can be as simple or as complex as you like. Maybe as they are coming around the corner, the hits start landing too fast. Okay, lets use a steamcloud (arrow) to obstruct their ranged attacks, or just place some fire on the ground to make them approach more timidly.

Your warrior might idle a bit while you set up the fight to your liking, that's fine, they'll become useful as things get closer (you don't always need to take the fight to them).

there are mods that edit the companions over at nexusmods. there is also a save game editor here on these forums called moose edit (you can google it) (it is currently broken from patch but creator is working on fix) and that will allow you to completely respec your chars. Also, try going around different areas. Always use crowd control. Make the enemies run towards you while you save AP.

Alright, thanks guys. Going to give all these suggestions a try.