Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Most lore appropriate starting characters?

I am new to the Divinity games. I've played through a couple hours of Divinity Original Sin, but reached a point where I realized my characters were awful (also I forgot to give them AI presets) and I want to restart. I had a few questions first though.

You're working for an organization that seeks out and destroys all magic users, why can you yourself use magic? Is there a reason for this hypocrisy? Or are we just given the option to play whatever we want for people who don't care about the lore?
Would it be possible to work your way through the game with no magic users?

Is the game particularly balanced toward any particular combination? Or is any combination considered 'Canon'?

Pick a cleric and Scoundrel.

you obviously didn't pay attention enough :P the organization seeks out and destroys people who use SOURCE magic not sorcery :P but just because someone uses magic it doesn't mean that person also uses the source. source is this power that used to be for healing but it got corrupted and all the healers who used that source got corrupted and evil as well. and the source hunters basically hunt those corrupted people.

Oh, I just assumed all magic came from source... kinda feel bad for killing that merchant now...

Why cleric and scoundrel?

best is to make 1 mage and then 1 warrior or rogue/ranger. that way you can cover just about every magic school in the game (with the companions)

Sorcery = good.
Sourcery = bad.

You have to listen very closely for the 'u.'

Cleric is still heavy armor type with Sword & Shield.
With water magic to cleanse burning surface and heal.
Play him like a Paladin if you wish. Talking to people, dealing with people upfront.

Scoundrel is close range specialist that can swap to the bow if you want distance. Give him marksman skill for versatility. High DEX, Medium PER for trap detection. He's the survivalist and doesn't take anything head on.

Okay, but what do those have to do with what I'm looking for?

FWIW if you roll Cleric, I might recommend making him/her not the "face" of the party. Cleric benefits a lot from the extra Intelligence in Know it All, which penalizes social interaction. It's just +1 Int but it does make a difference, especially early. Dont want to be fumbling heals/buffs.

"Is the game particularly balanced toward any particular combination?"
1h strength weapons are relatively bad compared to the 2h ones and Lockpicking/ Pickpocket are not worth putting points into them.
A crafted and boosted weapon (like sharpened on a whetstone) has about the damage output than an unbuffed magic one that is 4 level higher once you get blacksmithing+crafting to lvl 5.