Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Brand New - Advice

Hello,

I put off playing the original for various reasons, but now that all the text is fully voiced I can get into more.

My question is this, is it viable to just create characters with what I think is cool, or do I need to follow a build guide?

I don't want to gimp myself or have to restart my game half way through.

Well, I take it from the many views and no replies that no one knows, so I am just going to take a look at the skills and mix two skill lines that I think would work well together.

I was thinking Scoundrel/Witchcraft for a Undeadly Assassin

Then my other character will be Expert Marksman/Geomancer, for a ranged hunter with summons.

I will use Madora for a tanky member and then I guess Jahan for whatever he does lol.

I am just lost as to what talents and abilities to go for, but I will just make educated guesses and hope it all works out.

What difficulty are you playing on??

I've only ever played the harder difficulties and it is beneficial to (not have to optimise), but know a good direction you're going with your character..

I would say that means specialising in skills (don't do jack of all trades), and maybe even saving a level or two of skill points until you realise some points you need for more advanced skills or whatever..

You don't need to spend each point as you get it!

I was planning on playing classic mode since I am not very experienced.

I found a duo Lone Wolf build that sounded great, but I guess it was nerfed. Bloodletting is gone and you can't take Glass Cannon with Lone wolf anymore. I think it had zombie in there too.

I normally like to figure things out on my own, but all of these choices make me feel lost.

Here are some thoughts you might find useful.
* Only the two main characters can interact with the NPCs, so do not waste charisma skills on your companions (Pet-Pal for instance)
* One of your main characters should have high social skills, while the other do not need them as long as you always interact with NPCs using your social skilled character.
* It helps a lot if one of your party member has a high perception, which is needed to detect secrets, traps etc.
* The three most important abilities are your main ability (Strength for melee, Dexterity for rogues/rangers, Intelligence for casters), Speed and Constitution. Everybody needs Speed and Constitution. Be a little careful of boosting two primary abilities (for instance Strength and Intelligence) since that might make your characters a bit weak if you sacrifice Speed and Constitution.
* Your social characters should have Pet-Pal since it helps a lot in many quests.
* Crafting is nice to have. Jahan can be a good craftsman (both blacksmith and crafting) since he has the trait that increases them by 1.
* One of your main characters should have Ledership.
* One of your party members should have Lore since it is nice to identify unidentified items and get some more information about your enemies when you examine them.
* Summoned units are very useful in this game since the enemies get another target to attack. One that is expendable.
* Lock-Picking and Pickpocketing are not necessary since there are normally always other approaches, but can sometimes be quite useful.
Your party seems to have a good combination of everything. Picking Jahan and Madora seems to be the best fit for your main characters. The only downside is that both your main characters are dependent on two primary abilities (Dexterity and Intelligence). Maybe it would be wise to focus on Dexterity for one of them and Intelligence on the other one?

Thanks Ivra, so it seems like Hybrids are weak, in that case I will try specializing in one stat and skill line to start with.

I will probably go Marksmen/Dex with Social skills on my #1 and then a few Magic types and Int on my #2

Honestly, the social skills aren't strictly needed - even if all you're doing is using the spacebar to skip the Rock-paper-scissors game. Pet Pal is good to have, though.

I am planning on using a wizard PC with 2 element focus and a Rogue PC with dual wield and scoundrel (with intent to skip lockpick and pickpocket). I was going to take the knight and wizard companion and keep the wizard companion with his 2 element focus as well. I saw that the knight companion seems to not have armor specialist skill, is that an important one to add?

When you say have high social skills for one PC do you mean Charisma or Barter or both? From what I have read it sounds like for trading Barter is much better than Charisma and Charisma sounds like it just helps with RPS mini-game which I assume if you don't mind save/reload you can win without investing points into Charisma? Isn't Charisma not super important/useful as long as you have some Barter?

I thought for RP reasons it would make more sense for my wizard to have pet-pal and lore. I also thought for my wizards to be able to hopefully cast AoE combos before my melee characters get into range I should put leadership on my rogue so he would be later in turn without the initiative bonus and thus hopefully be able to maneuver around harmful areas. Does this make sense? Also how high do I need to take Lore and Leadership because it seems like there are so many other skills that are more important to raise.

I was going to make the companion wizard have both crafting skills since he starts with the bonus point in them both.

Finally, Lucky Charm and Telekinesis sound useful but I don't know where they would fit in in my group. Are they worth taking points away from other skills for and if so which ones and which characters are best suited for them?

Honestly im starting to think that I am just going to do as much research as possible and then pick what I think I will like. It appears you can't play a perfect build the first time through, so you can only follow some general guidelines.

I just want to be able to enjoy the story and battles and not be gimped severely.

As Stabbey said, the social skills are not strictly necessary. Charisma helps with the rock-paper-scissors minigame, but so does save+load There is only one quest (in the original game) that I know of that needed charisma 5 to get the most out of, but all in all charisma can be down-prioritized. Not sure how important it is in EE.

Barter is nice, but not necessary. It helps with your economy during the early game, but later on you will be swimming in money (at least if the EE version is similar to the original one).

Lucky Charm is nice just as Barter. It helps you get better loot and can be a good boost to your economy early game, but later on it is not that useful. I do not think you will get a higher chance to get legendary items, but I do not know if this is the case or not.

Telekinesis is very useful since you can grab loot from longer distances, but is strictly not necessary. What you can achieve with it can normally also be achieved using your teleport pyramids. Although it might be necessary for you as a player in order to not get too annoyed during playing this game. Getting close up to every loot item in order to grab them can get a bit tiresome in the long run.

Your lead character should have high Perception in order to avoid traps, find secrets etc. I recommend that your lead character is also main talker. That will save you a lot of hassle since you do not need to change who is doing what all the time. This is just for convenience, it is not necessary.

Pet-Pal is important, but need not be on your main talker. A wizard with pet-pal and Lore makes perfect sense. You just need to select the wizard whenever you want to talk to animals instead of your main talker (assuming they are two different characters). I just find it a bit easier if I can have the same character do most of the things in the game.

Notice that there are a lot of items that gives boots to Charisma, Crafting, Blacksmith, Lore, Telekinesis and Leadership, so you normally do not need to raise them to a higher level than 3. Sometimes you can even get +3 from items. Item bonuses stack, but you will only find them on certain item types, so you will normally not get more than a +2 bonus to a skill.