Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Corpse Eater is way better than +1 civil skill

Alot of people have already harped on how op Flesh Sacrifice is, and as insane as that move is, I think Corpse Eater is also op compared to the other races civil talent.

Lets first consider that it is the only talent that actually provides extra narrative unaccesible to every other race. Eating a body part tells a bit of a back story of that individual and helps to better flesh out the world of Divinity through the perspective of the people by letting you look into their memories. This by itself is already better than the "supposedly" 10% cheeper items or the ability to sway a few more conversations in your favor. The fact that it progresses certain quest lines further gives the player an edge when going through the story of the game

If that by itself wasn't already better than the other civil talents, you also get to learn new abilities through Corpse Eater. Infact, you get Adrenaline right at the very beginning, which is universally considered a must have skill on almost every character (eat body part of crime scene victim). From what I've noticed, there's at least 3 free abilities you can get and thats without even getting off the island yet (Btw, they're all pretty damn good). This not only saves money on buying the necessary skill books (no thanks to +1 bartering lol), but also provides a strategic edge in battles as you can better prepare for a fight with more abilities to chose from to keep memorized. Even when you consider the +1 sneak for dwarfs for Guerilla synergy, that fails in comparison to the level of op Corpse Eater provide.

All of this being said, I'd much prefer a buff to the other races civil talents as they are just boring flat stat increases and provide no additional interactions of their own.

Think people overacting on how usefull corpse eater is.
at Level 1 sure it usefull at Level 10 it's wasted talent simple put.

meaning it's worse ability you can have in the game.

Even if you have more skills you still need to invest in memory to have the spell in the deck.
Then you don't know which skill will be given to you.
If you have multiple Elves you'll have to split the snacks.

Any other race you can just drop a few points in a skill if you really want a specific spell.

I think the skill is fun and unique, but like any other unique things, every one says IT'S OP or IT'S CRAP!

It is not overpowered. It is just as it should be. The thing is that the other races' bonuses are underpowered or, at least, boring.

I would be ready to give it away and get something other for it. Or keep it. I cannot remember to have any of the skills I got from Corpse Eater in my skillbars, but who knows? BTW Adrenaline is not at all mandatory on all chars, at least I have it only on one who had it by design. Maybe you need it on Tactician and higher, but not on Classic.

Take corpse eater off elf and give to undead instead? So if I go undead elf I can eat parts and gain skills?

Maybe. As I don't care for racials when choosing races they can do what they want. I wonder why an undead would eat corpses or eat anything. However, I also don't get it why elves (can) do it.

You could also make it a talent or ability open for any race. If it is so good, all would be so happy.

I like the skill for elves a lot as a cultural trait. It even has some real life reference.
From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_in_humans
"In some societies, especially tribal societies, cannibalism is a cultural norm. Consumption of a person from within the same community is called endocannibalism; ritual cannibalism of the recently deceased can be part of the grieving process or be seen as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. Exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community, usually as a celebration of victory against a rival tribe. Both types of cannibalism can also be fueled by the belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the characteristics of the deceased"

If I had to pinpoint a race for it, I would think of elves too.

At least the elves of DOS2. I always found Tolkienesk civilised immortal lovely elves who can walk on top of deep snow because of grffngfdwhatsever really boring and disgusting. I prefer wild elves, a kind of very lean more or less good-looking tribal humans, with a lot of skin shown, tree-hugging and ... But I digress.

I could be wrong, but to my memory the skills I found in my first playthrough were First Aid, Adrenaline, and Levitate (unaffected by stuff under you for a few turns).

I never considered it before, but I'm curious about levitate, does anyone know if you are still 'standing' in the terrain for purposes of cheaper spell costs? (Stand in fire - > all fire spells cost 1 less AP to cast; etc.)

Adrenaline obviously amazing, and early game substantial, but not necessarily that important as I could have just taken a point into the Rogue-like tree to grab it, and likely would have grabbed a couple others if I had.

There are at least 5 skills on the island learnable by eating body parts, perhaps even more. ^^

Yeah, I generally agree. Elves have a neat ability, but none of the other races save for undead, really have anything that is useful. I've said it before, the main aspect of their ability that is great is that it has utility no matter what type of class/build you use and is more than just an underpowered free damage spell.

Meh, reflecting the trope perfectly backwards doesn't make it any more clever or interesting. I prefer interesting implementation, even within the trope, and cannibalism for elves here for memories is a good example of that. There was a cult in Tides of Numenera that did this, they regularly ate the deceased to store their memories and knowledge and personality within them as a form of keep "humanity's collective achievements and wisdom" from being wasted. A lot of people in-world understandably feared and hated them, but after talking to them it did make a whole lot of sense. The dead are dead and if a brilliant scientist or healer died why should their skills and knowledge be left to rot with them?

Anyway, again, I keep seeing people treat this game like it was an MMORPG or an eSports title. Play elf, don't play elf, doesn't matter, it's up to you. You'll still be able to complete quests and you might struggle a little to buy your skills but you'll get then nontheless eventually... as for the extra lore content nothing is stopping you from running elf the next playthrough for a unique experience.

Elves don't necessarily have a bad passive, it really depends on how many and which skills you can get. If you can get a lot of the best skills, especially the higher level ones, then it may or may not be pretty powerful, depending on how hard they are to get otherwise. I don't know how insane some of the spell requirements are going to be, from what I can tell it appears that certain spells may end up taking more than one memory slot a piece. In that case, having free spells might offer a wider selection, but I don't know if that'll make it overpowered.

Elves may be able to get spells without having to invest the points, but they still have to pay a memory cost in order to slot them. And there's no guarantee that these spells are going to be the ones that you want.

Considering the price of skill books went way up as shown in the latest stream, Id consider getting skill books noticably more difficult to get. From what Ive played, you can get 5 free spells from Corpse Eater and thats alot of money saved for getting good equipment.

Do you remenber what were those 5 skills ?

Taken from a different thread:


Edit: I believe the murdered magister on the tutorial ship has a body part that gives you the Adrenaline skill if you consume it.

I'm pretty sure I also saw Burn my Eyes once. But who knows what they changed for the full release. ^^

I think they renamed Burn My Eyes to Peace of Mind.

Am I the only one to find that RP-wise, flesh-eating is not very elven-like?