Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General New playthrough - restrictions?

OK, so next time I start a new playthrough, I want to try to make it difficult, at least to the point where it matters what you do in combat to some degree. I'll likely be doing this in co-op with a friend who hasn't played the game before, but I want to include restrictions to avoid the many OP ways of winning.

I'm hoping to get suggestions from the people here for what those restrictions may be. What I have so far:

The obvious ones: No leech, GC, that 50% resistance talent.

No Lone Wolf? I'm on the fence about this. No companions could be coupled with this.

Only allowing each character to have limited skills, for example only putting points in two skill categories per character, so nobody has the versatility of a god.


I would appreciate any suggestions.

Just posted in another thread about this, that I think it's dumb to have to avoid certain things just to have a challenge. But I'll suggest some things.

Avoid any really cheesy tactics like savescumming, for anything. Basically, unless you die, you shouldn't be reloading. If you fail a charisma check or mess up your first skill in combat, still no reloads. And definitely no refreshing chest loot. I'm not sure if this was a problem for you, but I definitely did this a little too much (mostly for loot and bad charisma rolls), and it really negatively impacted my game. Suffer the consequences.

Other cheesy tactics: using fire elementals against fire enemies. AI Behavior is just so dumb, I felt bad for taking advantage of it. Summons in general I think are way too tanky. I also think charm is honestly insane overpowered and causes dumb AI behavior (they should CC or ignore the charmed opponent, not attack it).

I'd say Lone Wolf is out. I've heard Zombie is kind of OP too but didn't play with it personally

Set an artificial cap to resistances to 70% or something. At least at 100%. No rubies for sure.

You might consider the source difficulty mod, though not sure if you want to subject your friend to that. Haven't tried it myself, but it looks good to me.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=538628#Post538628

That thread is of a similar vein.

+1
And Larian should bring us the challenge by improving the AI and giving them more powerful spells.
Otherwise someone could try naked with bare hands.

I've been running this playthrough, and I highly recommend it. Makes combat very challenging.

1 rogue.
1 ranger.
1 warrior.
Hard Difficulty.
No magic on anyone, period. Scrolls are allowed.
No Glass Cannon. No Leech. Lone Wolf and Zombie are allowed.
Don't abuse stealth (ie don't put it on everyone)
Don't abuse rubies (max of 1 per character)

If one or more of your characters dies in combat, you must try to salvage the fight. Even if that means running away, healing, and coming back to resurrect them. Don't just reload the first time something bad happens.

I'd say make the rules as simple as possible.

1 character, hard mode. Everything else is permissible.

The second character is dead, only except when it is necessary to use to complete plot/quest items. I'll probably give it a shot

-e

This issue is where very long load and save times -- a problem my old rig suffers from -- comes in handy.

No way am I scumsaving -- it takes 3 minutes to save and load, each. Likewise with saves and reloads during combat. If a character dies or the battle takes a bad turn, I just try to figure out how to still win.

Limiting how often one saves and loads is one way to heighten the tension of the game. I recommend it, as part of the possible "difficulty rulesets" that might be a good idea for a sticky post somewhere.

You can nerf the gameplay and combat of this game easily enough. Since it is not an MMO really, it is not the job of the devs to stop this. If people want to overpower the game, that is their problem.

Meanwhile, creative players can find ways to challenge themselves and turn combat into nailbiters. And at that level, this game does not disappoint in the least: this game can be a total bitch to win at, if you "roleplay" for difficulty and stop thinking this is all about min maxing or speedruns.

Well, the problem is that you can make a Lone Wolf, Glass Cannon, Sneak 5, Leech, and the game won't be particularly difficult.
There are lots of mechanics which can be abused, so you have to specifically rule them out.

It takes you 3 minutes to load a save? What kind of setup are you playing on? It takes me 30 seconds, max.

@ekidhardt, my current playthrough I'm only using one character in combat (though the other one is just sitting in town; I didn't kill her). My combat unit has LW and Sneak 5, but no GC or Leech, and about 20 unspent ability points and 2-3 unspent talent points at level 18. No rubies. It's still pretty easy.

@dirigible, do you mean spells including MaA, Scoundrel and Marksman skills, or just magic? Seems interesting. I don't really like removing such a large amount from the game, which is why I was thinking of restricting each character to a couple of skillsets. I can't say much without trying it though. Thanks for the suggestion.

I agree that the excessive saving is one of the biggest problems, and is something I'll be sure to avoid in the future.

I meant no Geomancy, Pyrokinetic, Hydrosophist, Aerothurge, or Witchcraft.

So far I've found that every other element of the game becomes a lot more important when you get rid of mages.
Scrolls are way more useful.
Healing items (food/potions) become much more important.
Resist and utility potions become a bigger deal, since you can't throw out resistance spells any time you want.
The elemental arrows become quite valuable and useful, which in turn makes the Ranger more important.

The Braccus Rex fight was one of the most interesting ones I've had to do. Had use res scrolls and pop some invisibility potions to keep my people alive. Water arrows to put out my burning people, knockdown and stun, when I could.

Had to retry it several times, since the fire dude and poison dude together could one-shot my squishiest guy.

do mods like source difficulty 1.09 provide some challenge? have you guys tried?

Dirigble, I ended up taking your advice, and this is the most fun I've had with the game so far. Thanks a lot.

Just beat Braccus yesterday. It was a hell of a fight, but I managed to do it without anyone dying. Took several attempts.

My team (note that I'm playing with the FourPlay mod for customisation of my party):

Death. Warrior, was wielding a legendary scythe with water damage on it, which was fantastic for the fire guy. He could kill the fire guy in 4 hits with it. Less if he got crits.

War. Archer. Has air damage on his bow, which is very useful for electrifying blood pools caused by arrows. Took out the lighthouse guy solo.

Conquest. Rogue. For the Braccus fight, she played a support role, and slowly whittled down the baron despite his overwhelming resistance to piercing attacks. She managed to help keep Braccus locked down at the end through some status spam, but mostly had to stay out of melee because of the burning caused by melee.

Famine. Crafter. Famine has no combat skills whatsoever, but she has good Constitution and decent Strength, so I gave her a 1h weapon and a shield, so she makes a decent tank. She was pretty much there to take some hits and do some damage when she could.



Just wanted to show my appreciation for the suggestion.

Thanks, man, glad you enjoyed it.
I think it's actually a pretty good way to play the game.