Hey there again, welcome to part 2 of How to start the path to Divinity well in Divinity Original Sin 2! Here, I will give you more crucial information and tips to have a great start in game and so you don’t have regrets later on while playing.
This part is important, since when you leave your current location to another one, you are not able to go back there ever again, so explore as much as possible, do all the quests you want to do, buy everything you can and, of course, have fun!
4. Starting the gameplay
After you are done with your character, finally, you get to start the game and start well… by being a prisoner on a ship commanded by Magisters. You start with nothing but rags and the three spells you’ve chosen on character creation. So my tip here is: explore. Explore every inch of the place you can to get some money, items, potions, and even magic scrolls that can be used in combat.
I know you were expecting the exact places where each item is, but unfortunately, I can’t do much. The great majority of the loot is random, meaning they can be in a box, in a chest or even not be there at all. One thing that can help you though, is having the Lucky Charm civil ability. With this, you increase the rate of finding more gold and special items while exploring.
But wait, wait! I still have some valuable tips you need to know firsthand!
- Take a bedroll as soon as possible: you can find the first ones in the first level of the game, on the Magisters’ ship. Take it and you will save money on healing potions, since when used after combat, you can heal yourself and all of your teammates fully just by napping in the distance of one click. Is pretty useful and for free.
- Take all the food: you can also find some food in the ship. Some of them can heal even more than small potions flasks. Later, you can find cooking stations or an oven, and there, you can make dinner, a great dish that heals 20% of your HP, being extremely useful in early game or when you are out of potions. To make dinner, you will need to cook any kind of raw fish, raw meat or egg.
- Take the scrolls: you will find plenty of scrolls by exploring and by interacting with NPCs. Some of them can be really useful in and out of combat, such as healing, elemental magic, teleportation, and as such. For example, if in combat your spells are in cooldown, a scroll can help you turn the tides of battle. Another good use of scrolls is to sell them! If you don’t use them as much, selling them can grant you quite the money, and then, you are able to buy other useful items.
- Make great use of the Quick Save button: it may sound like cheating, but the overall game is quite complex and difficult to handle, especially in combats, that can turn out to be pretty chaotic. One second you have the high ground and one second you can take a critical hit and die. If your companions die, the only way to bring them back is with a Resurrection Scroll, and they are very expensive and rare to find, so, always save the game constantly, especially before combat, before entering a new area and before dealing with NPC’s. That way, if you die, you can just load the game and start the battle again and better prepared.
5. How to level up
There’s no secret here. You level up as you level up in any other RPG game. The main way is by winning combats and yes, by killing enemies (or innocents) and monsters. You don’t have to worry about that though, there are plenty of foes and horrible people around Rivellon. You can gain a lot of experience by doing so and by doing the main story quests. However, there are other ways as well:
- Talk to NPCs: some NPCs are pretty fun to interact with, but that’s not the only reason to do it. NPCs also have quests and side quests for you to gain exp and level up, so if you are willing to get strong fast, that’s a good way to go. It is also best for, at least one of your teammates, to have the Persuasion civil ability, for some NPCs are stubborn and will not trust you easily for quests without this feature.
- Talk to animals: just like ordinary people, animals also have unique quests to give you! For that, you will need, or one of your teammates, to have the Pet Pal talent in order for being able to talk to them. They can also give you tips on how to proceed in game. This is an awesome ability to get some laughs over crabs with superiority complex, dogs who forget about their job over a toy ball, and of course, heroic squirrels mounted in their brave undead cat… But be aware, for animals can also bully you and they can get pretty harsh.
- Explore new areas: lastly, you get exp by entering new areas and dungeons, and sometimes you get plenty of exp just by doing so, then again, explore as much as you can (or as much as you like). Apart from the tip already given to always save the game before checking new places out, another tip is for you, or one of your teammates, to have Thievery points and as many lock picks as possible, (or by using Undeads’ bone finger). You will need these things to unlock locked doors and explore even further. Some doors are able to break down if dealt enough damage, but fortified doors can only be open with thievery (or with the right key).
6. How to get and make money
The way to get gold is quite simple as well. By exploring every inch of the area, you can have a chance to obtain a certain amount, and with the Lucky Charm civil ability, that chance can be doubled. Although you can’t get enough just by doing that, especially in the beginning of the game, so you have some other options:
- Take every item you encounter: even if they seem useless or not fit for you, you can always sell them to merchants later. A great civil ability to have for this situation is Bartering. With it, you can increase the price for selling items to NPCs and decrease the price for buying things from them as well.
- Craft new items: this is a cool feature in the game. By getting some junk, you can craft them into something new and useful! By mixing the right ingredients you are able to have new potions, scrolls, spells, and even weapons, and these, by friend, can grant you a lot of gold if you sell them to NPCs. You can always learn new crafting recipes by reading random books you find throughout the map. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to actually read it, just your character.
Some valuable items to craft in the beginning are Lockpicks (needle + needle / Soap + any key / Hammer + Nails), Arrows (Arrow Shaft + any type of Arrowhead), and Improvised Staff (Long Branch + Shell).
- Complete quests: unfortunately, by this method, it can take quite a while to finally get something, but trust me, it is also worth it. By completing main quests and side quests you can get not just gold, but a lot of exp and powerful items as well, being a lot easier to proceed the game.
- Steal from others: err… I know what you are thinking, but hear me out! You don’t have to do that, obviously, but, if you have a character with high level of Thievery, and another character to distract the NPC, why not, right? Ok, ok, jokes aside, is totally up to you to do it or not, but if it makes you feel better about it, a lot of people in this game are quite awful and the game itself will make you look bad and awful as well throughout the gameplay, so you don’t have to worry much. Oh yeah, you can also get some loot by killing others but… I am already looking bad here, so I will just stop.
Here you have it, all the initial knowledge to finally start the path to Dininity! I wish you all Godwoken good luck and have a great adventure ahead!
You can also check out more guides about Divinity Original Sin 2!
