Now that I'm done with the ending, here are some things I can advice to someone in retrospect to minimize frustration and get the most out of it on the first playthrough:

1. Get someone in your party to max out Perception - it will save you a LOT of frustration when you're pixel-hunting for tiny switches to solve a 'puzzle' or open a door. Believe me, this game has way, WAY too many. Perception has many good uses, too, but this is the main reason.

2. Get Pet Pal from the get-go. Animals can often give you hints on how to solve 'puzzles' or if you're stuck. You will also be missing out on quests and flavor (as animal speech is usually quite funny and well-written).

3. Prepare to reload and save often, not just quick-save. This game is buggy. I had to reload three times to an earlier save because the right events for the main quest line didn't trigger (e.g. I initiated a boss fight before she triggered a dialogue). Funniest thing, you may not know you're stuck until you've advanced an hour or two forward and hit a brick wall.

4. Prepare for hard, frustrating puzzles. This game has a lot of them.

5. Many skills are pointless as you can easily get them from items. Loremaster (need 2 points max) and telekinesis are the main ones. Some say crafting and blacksmithing are also like that, but I only used it to repair weapons (and you need 1 point for that) and never used crafting.

"Rogue" skills (lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneaking) are mostly a waste of points - I've come across only 2 (!) locks in the entire game that couldn't be opened any other way (broken, or opened with a key), and for that I had 2 scrolls of open lock. In other words, lockpicking is useless. Sneaking is useless once you get the invisibility spell. Pickpocketing is useless since getting 5 points in it only lets you steal up to 700 gold value or so (so not even a level 9 book). I was swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck by the second half of the game and have nothing useful to do with it, about 120 000 left by the end (and I bought every single spell for my mages in every element and the best weapons I could for my fighters, every time).

6. Don't play with "Random AI" on your partner. It may seem fun at first, but it will get extremely frustrating once you get to parts with a clear right v. wrong answer.

7. DON'T get the "Leech" talent. It is extremely broken and makes fighters mostly invincible in melee.

8. Charisma is useful. Gives you a lot of XP and sometimes very valuable information.

9. Have fun! This game is a gem, even if only a flawed one.



Last edited by ggspot782; 05/07/14 10:51 AM.