Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Question about new character Initiative

Hi Everyone, thanks for taking the time. I've underlined the actual question for tl;dr --!!

I'm just starting this game and have been trying to really make the right decisions about what I choose initially so that I can play this game without giving into my perfectionist tendencies of starting over again and again for optimal stats. So I have a question about initiative which relates to my opening choices:

My plan so far is to build a mage and a ranger. I have this very primitive idea of using the mage to knockdown enemies and then using the Bully talent to do more damage with the archer. MAYBE this is really stupid... Anyway, my question is: CAN this even be done? Based on stats, it would seem that the Ranger would place earlier in Initiative, so, that means the mage won't be able to knock down the enemies first- making Bully a wasted talent. Is there some way to make the mage go first or am I missing something here? Is Bully even good ?

Bully works on Slow, Crippled and Knocked Down, but of those, mages only really have access to slow (Midnight Oil, Slow Current, Mass Slow). Rogues and Warriors can get Knocked Down easier, and Warriors can also get Crippled eventually.

Initiative is based on Speed + Perception, which mages don't tend to have in excess, but there is a way to help with that: Put the Leadership ability on your Ranger, and get it to rank 2. Leadership boosts stats (including initiative) for everyone except the character who actually has it. Rank 2 Leadership grants +10 initiative, so that should help make sure that your non-rangers go before the Ranger in the turn order.

The good news is that it probably doesn't matter that much. Status effects last until the turn of the caster of the effect comes up again. So if your mage goes first and lands the effect, you can attack with your ranger. If your mage goes after your ranger and casts the effect, then on the next turn your ranger will go first and will be able to attack before the mage's turn comes up. It's effectively the same thing, the only difference in the second case is that another enemy might clear the effect before your Ranger gets to move, but that's not a guarantee.

And yes, Bully is good. Have your mage apply Oath of Desecration on your Ranger for a further +50% damage.

Thank you VERY much for this detailed reply! I really appreciate it and I'm glad that I don't have to worry as much about initiative/turn order as I thought.

As for Knockdown I was thinking about Boulder Bash from Geomancy, since it supposedly has 80% chance to knowk down AND also deal damage. Although, I do confess I don't really know what I'm talking about just yet.

Oh yeah, Boulder Bash will work as well. I can't remember what else.

You can also delay a character's turn, but that moves them to the end of the turn order, after all other party members and opponents.

This is a very important tactic that is easily forgotten (and sometimes not even noticed; it had to be pointed out to me) and leads to high-initiative characters being able to often take two actions in a row (if they are first in the turn order or so).

It makes it much easier to set up combos as a single character, such as poison arrow/fire arrow, or knockdown/bully, and so on.

How does it let you make more actions? Does it give you AP by doing it? I'm confused! I've now started to try to search about this tactic but am only finding pre-beta and reddit discussions that aren't very helpful...

It sounds really interesting though. What's it all about?

Simply because when you delay your turn, that moves the person to go last in the current round only. So if someone who normally goes FIRST in a round delays their turn to go LAST in a round, when the round ends, that same person is now FIRST in the next round, thus two turns in a row.

Like Stabbey says. To make it clear:

You have a high-initiative character. He has such high initiative, that he gets to go first in the entire turn order. Awesome. Let's call him Sir Ottermoore. He is facing 3 enemies, along with his friend Lord Ferkelchen.

The turn order is as such:
Sir Ottermoore
Lord Ferkelchen.
Skeleton A
Skeleton B
Skeleton C

As Sir Ottermoore takes his first turn, he chooses to delay action. This puts him LAST in the turn order. The turn order now looks like this:

Lord Ferkelchen
Skeleton A
Skeleton B
Skeleton C
Sir Ottermoore.

Lord Ferkelchen realizes that most enemies are still at a fairly long range, so he chooses to skip his turn. He doesn't delay his turn, he instead just skips it, and saves his AP.

Skeletons A through C takes their turns, running up towards Lord Ferkelchen to attack him. Now, since Sir Ottermoore delayed his action, it's his turn. Note that we're all still in the same round, but Sir Ottermoore takes the last action.

He chooses to shoot an Arrow of Poison Gas. He still has some AP over, but he ends his turn, and saves that remaining AP for his next turn.

Now, the next round begins. The turn order is returned to normal. Who was first again? Right, Sir Ottermoore. This means that Sir Ottermoore immediately gets to take his next action, even though he just finished a turn. This time, he chooses to not delay his action.

He decides to shoot those skeletons, now covered in a poison cloud, with an Arrow of Explosion, setting the skeletons on fire, doing fire damage with the Arrow of Explosion damage, and exploding the Poison Cloud.

Everything continues as normal, as Lord Ferkelchen runs up to the edge of the burning ground and plays mop-up.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that, I really appreciate it!

This is great stuff, I can already think of many situations where this will help. I love it!


p.s. lol @ Ferkelchen