Crispy's Tips and Tricks for playing Divinity: Original Sin effectively [no spoilers]

[HanoverF]

Crispy's guide to being a respected member of the community.

 

[Crispy]

Don't get props from true oldfags too often. Thank you.

 

[OSK]

I got some pro tips too:

Position Yourself
Using your body in comfortable, not awkward, postures is important, whether you're working or playing. Not only can this affect your overall performance, but it can also influence how comfortable you are while playing video games and may help you avoid MSDs. Changing your posture during extended gaming sessions may also help you avoid discomfort and fatigue.

When playing video games, adapt your surroundings and arrange your equipment to promote a comfortable and relaxed body posture. Because everyone has a unique body size and since many factors affect your comfort, we cannot tell you exactly how to set up your area to avoid discomfort; however, the following suggestions may help to provide you with a more comfortable environment.

• To support your back, consider choosing a chair or seat that provides support for your lower back and allows you to assume a comfortable and natural body posture.
• To promote comfortable leg postures, consider clearing away items from your legs to allow comfortable leg positions and movement.
• To promote comfortable shoulder and arm postures, consider allowing your upper arms to fall relaxed at your sides.
• To promote proper wrist and finger postures, consider keeping your wrists straight while holding and using controllers. Avoid bending your wrists up, down, or to the sides.
• To minimize neck bending and twisting, consider positioning yourself and/or the television so that you do not have to tilt your head up or down or side-to-side for extended periods.
• To minimize eyestrain, consider avoiding glare by placing your television away from light sources that produce glare, or use window blinds to control light levels. Also, consider adjusting your television's brightness and contrast to levels that are comfortable for you.

Go Lightly
Physical forces continuously interact with our bodies. We may only think of high-impact forces, such as car crashes, as injuring our bodies. However, low forces may also result in injuries, discomfort, and fatigue if they are repeated or experienced over long periods of time.

Consider the following types of low forces:

• Dynamic force, or a force that you exert through movement. For example, pressing buttons on a gaming controller or the keys of a computer keyboard.
• Static force, or a force that you maintain for a period of time. For example, holding your gaming controller or cradling the phone.
• Contact force, or pressure that occurs when you rest on an edge or hard surface. For example, resting your wrists on the edge of your desk, table, or other hard surface.

Consider the following suggestions to reduce the effects of low forces on your body:

• Press gaming controller buttons with a light touch, keeping your hands and fingers relaxed; it takes little effort to activate these buttons. Also, apply a light touch when using control sticks or pads on a gaming controller.
• Avoid resting your palms or wrists on any type of surface while using game controllers.
• Relax your arms and hands when you're not actually using game controllers. See the "Take Breaks" section below for additional information.
• Hold the game controller with a relaxed hand. Do not grip the game controller more tightly than is necessary.

Take Breaks
Taking breaks can go a long way in helping your body recover from any activity and may help you avoid MSDs. The length and frequency of breaks that are right for you depend on the type of activity you are doing. Stopping the activity and relaxing is one way to take a break, but there are other ways, also. These include:

• Changing tasks can help some muscles relax while others remain productive. For example, you might sit while playing video games but stand when not playing.
• Using different methods to accomplish the same task. For example, using the controller pad instead of the control stick.
• Relaxing your arms and hands while watching others play or during cut scenes, replays, or other pauses within a game.
• Learning about software and hardware features by reading the information that came with your game discs and hardware products.

Be Healthy
A healthy lifestyle can help you perform and enjoy your everyday activities, including the time spent playing video games. For overall good health, consider the following:

• Eat a balanced diet and get adequate rest.
• Exercise for overall fitness to give strength and flexibility to your body. Keep in mind that you should consult a qualified health professional to help you choose the stretches and exercises that are right for you.
• Learn to manage stress.
• See a qualified health professional if you have questions about how your medical and physical conditions may be related to MSDs. While researchers are not yet able to answer many questions about MSDs, there is general agreement that many factors may be linked to their occurrence, including previous injuries, diabetes, hormonal changes (such as pregnancy), and rheumatoid arthritis

 

[agentorange]

Don't know if anyone mentioned this, but you can easily distract enemies by having one party member talk to them, then switch to another character. Makes stuff like pickpocketing (in the few cases you have to do it) and sneaking trivial.

 

[RK47]

1. Don't play co-op
If you want to, you can. I just don't feel it's worth doing.
If you prefer control over all your party member, there's no point.
If you like telling ppl what to do except they might misunderstand like in a WoW raid except turn based - go ahead.
This is why domestic abuse happens in real life.

2. Put AI to Loyal.
So you don't bother with shit mini-game. And this is what husbands want in real life.
If you are the opposite, go ahead. Enjoy a great experience of debating with a mini-games that is suitable for Age 6 and up.

3. Telekinesis is kinda useful
One point is enough. Sometimes moving things from a distance is a good thing.
You just wish you can pull off a colleague's skirt IRL with that skill.

4. Don't take worthless shit
Inventory clutter is hell. If you want - go ahead.

5. How bad are the traps?
Pretty bullshit if you didn't put any points on PER. I hope you save often.

6. Crafting? Y/N
If you like the clutter and collecting junk - ingredient etc - go ahead. The recipe listing is haphazard. I suggest reading a guide - self-discovery is one thing but I'm not interested.
As of it now, I dislike it very much. I don't play games to play inventory sorting or picking random junk.
Not having item name displayed mode (all text inventory) and having to hover-over all of the icon drives me nuts.

7. Stealing?
It's a joke.
LOS abuse, take shit, be rich. The game doesn't care.
You can steal the painting right next to the painter and sell it to him immediately.
This isn't stupid, this is just the game being a game.
Why so real?

8. Eurotrash?
Yes. Wear that tag with honor.
It's a genre. Huehue.
You are Eurotrash of the Year.

9. Is X useful? Can I throw Y? Where do I use Z?
...this game is pretty old-school in terms of quest item treatment.
So if you are not careful, important stuff might get destroyed with no way of getting it back.
Just... don't be too hasty, take your time. Toss it into a bag if you FEEL it's important.

10. RK do you like this game?
I don't like tuna wrap. But KFC is good but unhealthy.
So sometime tuna wrap is good.
But you gotta let the KFC deliver come over sometime. 10 pc box is pr. cheap.
It's OK lah. Occassionally.
I appreciate a good 6 inch sub.
Mayo, BBQ sauce.
All vegetables. Green gas, explodes.
Crispy toasted, with cheddar cheese.
Ice tea-lekinesis. Get wet, shocking. Stun.
Lemon barrel explosion.
All that environmental stuff we hardly see in other RPG.
DAO had barely that - frozen, burning, etc - but not enough.
D:OS had loads. Elemental effect is fun.

Divinity might be an incline. But the writing is jut not enough to push me to play on.
I hope you have fun. If you hate it, just ignore it. It won't hurt you like KFC does.

 

[Excidium]

Not having item name displayed mode (all text inventory) and having to hover-over all of the icon drives me nuts.

 

[Shadenuat]

Midnight Oil- while it doesn't do so much damage by itself later on, it still inflicts the slow status.

The most BORKen part about this spell is that you can spam it without entering combat and it will stay there. Create a sea of black gold everywhere and see enemies duuuuh and/or burn for whole combat.

I am replaying game now on Hard with full fighter party: Garrett the scoundrel, Viktoria two-handed/melee/witch, ranger and sword&board+light geo (buffs) companion.
And I had to cheese a lot through many encounters because being a fighter means being on a receiving end in D:OS.

Now enemies nuke the fuck out of me!

However, not for long. I already wtfed at scoundrel's CC. Right from the start of the game he has 3 to 4 of best CCs in game for 3-4 AP each. Stun, blind, knockdown and I think he learns charm too later. And invisibility from level 1. Larian wat r u doing.

 

[RK47]

The most BORKen part about this spell is that you can spam it without entering combat and it will stay there. Create a sea of black gold everywhere and see enemies duuuuh and/or burn for whole combat.

It also doesn't require LOS.

 

[Shadenuat]

Yeah best attacking spells are those that don't care for LOS. Boulder Bash, Flare, Poison Spores. Meteor Shower too, obviously.
For that and many other reasons (like the way devs handled sets of resistances for monsters) if I would play magic-heavy again I would combine opposite (in combo sense) elemental skills - fire&air + earth&water. I would give earth&water guy higher initiative so he could cast rain or poison ooze, while fire&air guy would follow with a combo. One char like earth+fire just doesn't have enough AP to follow with right combos, you just end up spamming the most powerful spells instead.

 

[RK47]

Yeah combat order is such a bitch to setup.
I dunno, this is a good foundation for tactical RPG, but the blurred focus on crafting and town skills kinda mess it up a bit.
I can't wait for a polished combat sequel / mod tho.
It's good. But not reaching fullest potential yet.

 

[Loriac]

That's weird, I didn't notice that at all + I read that it only nerfs your own HP both on GAF and on Larian forums. I've been playing on Hard since the middle of act I though, so I didn't really compare.

But okay, anyway, if the HP bonus to enemies on Hard is there, it's negligible anyway. So, to honor Crispy's request, here's a couple of tips. I think I already posted them in the main thread, but here we go:

- You can bring your elemental resistances to over 100. That means the respective element(s) actually heal you (including lava, which is a nice way to bypass some of the puzzles)

- Crafting is useful, but pretty hard to figure out on your own. I had to use this guide myself (kinda spoilerish, obv). You shouldn't invest into Crafting with your main char though. I'd suggest one of your support henchmen (unless you're playing a Lone Wolf, in which case I don't suppose investing in crafting makes sense at all, but I'm not sure).

- I'd say you do want to have a 2-handed warrior of some kind. Pump his/her Str + give her enough AP to attack twice per turn (maybe more, but that'd come at the expense of Str) and elemental resistances + max out her Man-at-Arms. I've found Flurry to be particularly powerful in terms of sheer damage, myself. Brings down everyone except bosses in one hit. (Some people on other forums claim it can bring down bosses the same way too, but apparently they have some absolutely min-maxed builds.)

- Summons are your best friend, mostly due to how the AI works. Summons are also the same level as you are. The early level Spider summon in particular proves to be useful later on. I also like the lvl 11 Witch summon, the Undead Champion or whatever it's called; it can take a lot of damage and does some good damage itself, particularly with Oath of Desecration. The Fire Elemental summon is good when the battlefield/enemies' element is also fire, as it is healed by Fire attacks.

EDIT: Merged my posts so as not to spam ITT

Its possible that the first fight and the tutorial mobs are redone on hard whereas other mobs were left untouched.

I've restarted DOS now with what I hope will be a full hard playthrough, using 2x Lonewolf / glass cannon main characters. What I'm seeing is that the typical fight isn't actually much harder than on normal, but you have far less room for error. This makes it more fun imo, because you actually have to think about every single action your party takes to win the harder fights. Having solid experience of normal gameplay is necessary to avoid stupid mistakes in party movement / positioning / ability use that would end up becoming frustrating if you had to keep reloading. The lower hp is however brutal, and I'm already paying much more attention to defensive buffs and use of summons as one round meatshields etc.


To address the wider topic, the key tip I would throw out is that abilities that allow you to control your positioning (and mob positioning) on the battlefield are absolutely key. Teleportation is obvious, but it also pays to use things like battering ram and tactical retreat as ways to reshape the board, and save them for that purpose. Also, sometimes its worth taking a 'friendly fire' hit if you don't have any other way to get something done. E.g. if one of your guys is frozen, and you can't debuff that, shooting a fire arrow at him or spell equivalent can work wonders. Or dropping your melee into the enemy mobs using teleportation at low levels to save the cost of him running there (especially if the battlefield is a mess of poison / flames / etc).

 

[whatevername]

- Play solo on "hard" with source difficulty to make the game actually hard. Your 2nd character just sits in town and crafts.
- Get lucky charm to 5, it's OP.
- Always fight low level enemies first. When your level is lower than the enemy, your stats don't matter shit. I fought a lvl 12 orc with a 10 lvl tank (about 50% block) and didn't block even once. At lvl 11 shield block actually worked.
- If you play solo keep large potions on your 2nd char or it'll be killed by bugged monsters from miles away since nobody has tested this game.
- Buy everything remotely useful since item availability is limited.
- Sneak is OP, only get it for your main char if he's a rogue or the game will be boring/broken. Same goes for zombie, leech...

Exploits:

Spoiler

Get sneak on a 2nd char to level by exploration in higher lvl zones starting at ~lvl 3 (when you can reasonably get sneak 5) and you also get access to more traders.
RIDICULOUS EXPLOIT

Spoiler

Loot chests with lucky find 5 and sneak 5 in high level areas and get OP items that don't have pre-reqs (boots, gloves, etc). Even white lvl 15 boots(15 AR?) act as a 2nd plate armor at lvl 3 or something like that.

 

[RK47]

High AP Aero-Hydro Wizard
Character Creation
Class: Ranger
Attribute Spread: DEX 8 SPD 7, the rest on INT
Talent: Lone Wolf & Know it All

Abilities & Skill Picks

Scoundrel Rank 1
Walk in Shadows L2
Fast Track L2

Hydrosophist Rank 1
Minor Heal L2
Rain L3
Ice Shard L4

Aerothurge Rank 2
Bitter Cold L2
Headvice L2
Teleportation L2
Blitz Bolt L3

Features
Effective crowd control + moderate damage with very little investment.

How to start
Walk in Shadows & Fast Track is a must have. The third skill pick should go to Headvice for basic damage ability.
Do not delay DEX 8 for the 100% chance of activating Walk in Shadows & Fast Track.
When you reach Cyseal, exploit Walk in Shadows to loot every valuable to be bartered for skill books.
You may need to bolster your early game with Summon Scrolls to move things much quicker.
Once you hit Level 4 - which isn't too hard, this build is nearly complete. All that's left is to bolster your options with Summoning spells.

Combat Tactic
Flip Horse, and beat it with your stick.

It's quite simple, at the start of combat, you should begin with 8 AP, Activate Fast Track then Walk in Shadows.
Reserve AP for 2 Turns.
Cast Rain to create a pool of water on the surface beneath the enemy group.
Blitz Bolt to trigger electrocution within the pool of water.
If there are any threat outside the pool, cast Bitter Cold to trigger Freeze since Wet + Chill = Freeze
Alternatively, you may cast Teleport and drop the lone enemy into the pool.
Only then you should start dishing out damage in form of Ice Shard / Headvice

Additional Tips
Add more crowd control option with Witchcraft's excellent Blind spell.
Oath of Desecration is also fantastic when coupled with your summon.
At higher level, you will unlock the Invisibility spell under Aerothurge - use it to reserve AP constantly before unloading massive CC spam - it does come with a risk, the enemy is also reserving AP if they cannot engage you during their round so make sure the CC effects are triggered before going for damage.
Mid-game, the Ice Elemental threatens any wet target with freeze everytime he lands a melee attack.
He also comes with a Piercing Ice Bolt spell. Abuse its railgun property to freeze multiple enemies in one move.

Gear of Choice
As a Wizard, it's a straight shot towards INT boosting items.
Purchase/Craft Pixie Dust first by combining Bonepowder with Stardust.
Use the Stardust on Large Tusk for the INT Ring, Skull for INT Necklace.
To create the Necklace, you need to combine the Enchanted Skull with a thread.
Go for INT Staff as well, and INT Robes. The more INT you have, the harder it is for the enemy to resist the spell effects.

Class synergy
This class frustrates their close-range teammates since the pool of electrocution is indiscriminate, Fighters may want to wait before going in. Also, frozen targets take less physical damage.
Ranged classes will have no issue helping out with the dps phase , just remind the Pyromancers not to melt the ice or vaporize the water, archers can just switch to Power Stance and enjoy 100% accuracy all day long.

 

[RK47]

The Ranger or 'Expert Marksman sucks'

When I first started playing the Ranger, I went for the simple, and effective rush to Sneaking 5 for Guerilla's talent. Investing points to hit the Sneaking Rank 3, coupled with bonus from Cautious Trait and a Sneaking Hood will easily cap the skill at max rank. From then on, with just 1 AP you can double your damage output from 15 metres away. It does get boring and somewhat less flexible than I would have liked.

Now, on to the less simple and more fun way to play Ranger. The Ranger is a mix of tricks, and favors using range attack, but what sells me this class is the ability to dip into two effective skill pools relying on the same attribute: Dexterity. Aside from making all skill damage and effects more potent, Dexterity also boosts the special arrows damage and debuff chance percentage. With some diligent crafting, you'll never run out of special arrows that don't operate on cooldowns. If it rains, fire away the Stunning Arrow. If it's dry, start with a Poison arrow, then detonate that pool of venom with a well placed Explosive arrow. That wizard pose a problem? Fire a Knockdown Arrow. There's even Charm arrows, and the ever-cheap available Slowdown arrow to trigger the Bully bonus. Oh did that Knockdown arrow fail to trigger? Fire it again. No other class can do this!

It's strange when you approach the Ranger from the Expert Marksman perspective since most of the skills are not too useful. I've shortlisted a few good ones and mentioned very bad ones below:

Ranged Power Stance
Improve damage with bow and crossbow by 25% (Toggle Stance)
Cost +1 AP per shot
This is a good stance. Perfect against Stunned/Blind any disabled character. Free 30% for 1 AP is a good deal, especially when you are firing a crossbow.

Ricochet
Fire a normal arrow that deals 70% weapon (piercing) damage and then forks off to the next target.
Cost 6 AP
It's not a bad idea to fire off a high-damage crossbow, but there are other, more useful things to spend 6 AP on. Like Special Arrows.

Tactical Retreat
Jump out of a hazardous situation. (Teleports the character to a location within sight up to 15 m away.)
Cost 4 AP
Very useful way to get out of trouble and reposition. A favorite for cherry-picking builds and heavy armor fighters love this low cost movement.

Ranged Precision Stance
Improve chance to hit with bow and crossbow by 25% (Toggle Stance)
Cost: +1 AP per shot
It's not a bad deal. If i had a regular shot below 80% accuracy, I'd activate this stance.

Mute
Mute a target prevent casting of spells and usage of scrolls.
Cost: 5 AP
While it's nice to mute enemy wizards, I'd rather fire a knockdown arrow or something more effective and damaging.

Barrage
Fire multiple arrows in a straight line. Deals 60% weapon damage.
Cost: 8 AP
Kinda shit for the cost. Might be worthwhile for Crossbows that are slower to fire and have higher base damage.

Survivor's Karma
Increase your luck and that of the allies around you.
Cost: 6 AP
The party gets Lucky Charm +2 You have got to be shitting me. You should cast this when you loot boxes.

Infect
Plant a disease on a nearby target.
Cost: 6 AP
-3 CON and -2 Body Building. Could be worth it on a tough enemy for easier knockdowns. But will it land? And a 3 meter range, I rather just fire a knockdown arrow for 5 AP.

Rapture
Charm a character into becoming an ally.
Cost: 5 AP
This is extremely powerful. Charming targets from 15 m range is too good to miss.

And that's it. I don't really need any other skill in the Expert Marksman pool. Yes, the Cure X skills seem useful, but they're so situational, you might as well don't bother.
Now onto the Scoundrel skills you should be picking to complement the build, notice they all share the common trait: Doesn't require a dagger for activation.

Fast Track
Become hastened for a short while. Perfect for AP boost.

Walk in Shadows
Become invisible. Either use it to reserve AP or get out of danger. Beware of damage over time effect like Burn & Poison breaking its effect.

Charming Touch
Charm a target. At 4 meter range, this is not as good as Rapture. But with a little Walk in Shadows or Leap, you can set up a devious double charm within a turn.

Trip
Knock Down a target. Deals X-Y crushing damage. A great last resort if Charm fails.

Talent to pick:
- Bully: A must have. You can spam slowdown arrow all day long and dish out serious damage on slowed/knocked down enemies.
- Lone Wolf: If you really want to make a compact party. Otherwise it's your choice. I'd argue Arrow Recovery isn't bad, but it's not crucial since crafting materials are not that rare.

Gameplay tips:
The Ranger starts off with limited options, but with a little arrow-crafting will overcome all those early problems.
Here are my favorite arrows:
Stunning Arrow: Tooth + Knife - Perfect for rainy weathers.
Knockdown Arrow: Antler + Knife - Works well against bosses.
Slowdown Arrow: Oil Barrel + Arrowhead - Trigger the bully talent bonus.
Poison Arrow: Poison Barrel + Arrowhead - Cheap armor bypass option. Sets up a puddle to detonate.
Explosive Arrow: Fire Resistance Potion + Arrowhead - Not as common, but readily available.

Early game, against undead, I'd abuse poison arrow + exploding arrow all day long. Or have a Geomancer drop Midnight Oil.
Once you hit higher level, use Rogue's Charming Touch & Rapture to cut down the numbers. Against bosses and key-caster enemies spam Knockdown arrows at 5 AP each to disable them . Even Bracchus Rex can be knocked down in this manner.

Gear of choice:
If you want more damage, consider investing more on Crossbow than Bows. Why? Because special arrows are affected by equipped ranged weapon damage, meaning the 100-150 Crossbow will always launch deadlier special arrows than the 80-100 damage Bow. Best of all, Special Arrows activation cost the same amount of AP!
For stat-boosting, I'm probably going for DEX more than anything else. And don't worry about ranged weapon accuracy, Special Arrows cannot miss!

 

[Norfleet]

I have two words: CRATE FORT. If you build a fort or a prison out of crates, the enemy can't touch you and you can bombard him with impunity. It costs very few APs to drop a crate even in combat, and the dual-character system combined with the desire of enemies to prattle incessantly means you can crate them, or yourself, at will. Advance under the cover of your crates. Use those LoS independent bombardments to boost. Ring them in EXPLODING BARRELS. And BEHOLD, the POWER OF CHEESE!

 

[Konjad]

Here's my guide for those who can't make a decent build in DOS:

Spoiler

Go play Skyrim, dimwits.

 

[whatevername]

I have two words: CRATE FORT. If you build a fort or a prison out of crates, the enemy can't touch you and you can bombard him with impunity. It costs very few APs to drop a crate even in combat, and the dual-character system combined with the desire of enemies to prattle incessantly means you can crate them, or yourself, at will. Advance under the cover of your crates. Use those LoS independent bombardments to boost. Ring them in EXPLODING BARRELS. And BEHOLD, the POWER OF CHEESE!

Sometimes the mobs can break your crates with AOE and it won't work for a solo pure melee char.

 

[whatevername]

Steamroll everything:

Spoiler

Make a knight w/ batering ram and dirt devil. With sneak 2 and lucky charm 5 sneak to Luculla forest and loot a lvl 15 2-handed sword or axe from some crate. There's lots of them so you should find a few. Obviously put lots of points into STR and craft STR amulets and shit. Use AOE skills only and 1-2 shot EVERYTHING. Uninstall once you reach lvl 10 out of boredom.

 

[laclongquan]

That sounds like the advice to get power armor in the first 15 minutes of Fallout 2~

 

[Zeriel]

It's not like you need item and level exploits to make D:OS easy. Glass cannon does it well enough all on its own.

 

[Bubbles]

Running around with 25% of your max health at the highest difficulty isn't really all that easy.

 

[Zeriel]

Running around with 25% of your max health at the highest difficulty isn't really all that easy.

I heard they fixed leech in later versions, but at release glass cannon + leech + lone wolf was invulnerability almost from the very beginning.

 

[Mangoose]

Tip for playing DOS: Don't treat it as a classic CRPG*. Play it like an adventure hybrid.

That's not to say that DOS has of room to improve as a CRPG. I've reiterated many times my criticisms* about actual mechanics. I just find that the riddle/secret stuff is pretty solid and interesting, and if you can view the game like that you'll enjoy it.

*I can copy-pasta my combat/loot/skills/abilities/progression criticisms if you want. I'm pretty virulent towards the mechanics to be honest. But personally - due to Divine Divinity, Divinity 2, and Flames of Vengeance - I didn't have huge expectations in terms of tactical turn based combat (God, was Divinity 2 combat bad... 3D Diablo-clone combat with no aiming... It was on the level of Sacred 2). But Flames of Vengeance really sold me on the secrets/riddles type of gaming, which is actually why I was able to enjoy DOS.

Honestly I kinda wanna recommend Larian's games away from the RPG forum. Maybe there needs to be a forum/subforum for hybrid RPGs, whether it be action-RPGs (Diablo, Deus Ex, VtmB, etc.) or adventure-RPGs (Gothic, Divinities, Ultima 7, etc.). I mean we got a JRPG forum (and btw, the root of JRPGs is the Wizardry series).

 

[a Goat]

Honestly I kinda wanna recommend Larian's games away from the RPG forum. Maybe there needs to be a forum/subforum for hybrid RPGs, whether it be action-RPGs (Diablo, Deus Ex, VtmB, etc.) or adventure-RPGs (Gothic, Divinities, Ultima 7, etc.). I mean we got a JRPG forum (and btw, the root of JRPGs is the Wizardry series).

But what is RPG?