Divinity: Original Sin II

General

• Make sure to pick up some bedrolls from the starting ship, they can be assigned to your ability bars and used at any time outside of combat to heal your party's health to full. They'll also provide them with the Rested status for a few turns if you initiate a fight immediately afterwards.

• Enemies more than one level higher than your party become very difficult to take down. If you're encountering such enemies regularly, you might want to explore elsewhere or wrap up some unfinished quests first. Up to date gear also makes a major difference.

• By default your party tends to start fights all clumped up and vulnerable to area attacks, but unchaining and spreading out your party members beforehand and finding high ground for your ranged characters can make even the toughest fights far more manageable.

• The game mentions the "sight range indicator" button (Shift on PC) as useful for sneaking around enemies, but its main use is for stealing from and pickpocketing friendly NPCs while sneaking. NPCs who notice something's been taken will look around for the culprit (you) for a short while, but if you stay out of sight for a bit they'll go back to not caring.

• Characters in dialogue won't usually move or react to anything else which can be taken advantage of in a variety of ways, such as in assisting with pickpocketing or repositioning your other party members for a battle about to start. The durations of buffs and debuffs also don't tick down for anyone mid-conversation.

• Save regularly and in different slots as autosaves are unreliable. You can also save mid-conversation and you'll be back in that part of the conversation when you load the game.

• Quicksaves and autosaves made in the same profile overwrite themselves regardless of whether you are playing single-player or co-op, meaning it's better to make separate profiles if you're playing both.

Character Creation & Development

• You have the choice between creating an Origin character or a custom character. The Origin characters have their own history with their own personal Tag allowing for custom interactions between the Origin character an NPC's, as well as their own individual quest and a unique skill, but they can be built and customized freely beyond some minor cosmetic limitations.

• You unlock the ability to respec your characters for free at will after leaving the first island, meaning you're not locked into any class or build choices you make. Unlike in the previous game, characters also retain all their learned skills. You will however be locked into the three Origin companions you add to your party after leaving the island for the rest of the game, although custom mercenaries can always be added at will.

• The Warfare skill boosts all physical damage, including things like bow attacks and Necromancy spells. Also, unlike weapon skills (like Ranged or Single-Handed) the Warfare bonus is calculated on top of all other damage bonuses, usually making it the strongest choice for improving physical attacks.

• Don't be hesitant to "dip" a point or two into Combat Abilities other than the character's main focus if there's a Talent or Skill you want locked behind it. One common use is to pick up at least one instant movement ability like Huntsman's Tactical Retreat or Scoundrel's Cloak and Dagger for everyone as mobility is very useful for all characters.

• The talent "Elemental Affinity" which reduces AP costs when standing on a surface of the same element can be very strong, but doesn't specify which surfaces apply to which elements. They are as follows: Pyrokinetic = fire, Geomancer = oil/poison, Hydrosophist = water/ice, Aerotheurge = electrified surface & Necromancer = blood. Warfare, Huntsman, Scoundrel, Summoning and Polymorph are unaffected and clouds do not count.

• Some quests require the talent "Pet Pal" which allows you to talk to animals, meaning completionist types might want to pick it up for their talky character, though you don't miss out on anything dramatic by not having it. On a similar note, "Scholar" is the character Tag with the most use in resolving quests.

• Civil Ability points are very limited in number, meaning each character can realistically only focus on one of them. All Civil Ability effects are specific to that character only except for Lucky Charm, meaning you do want to do most of your talking with a Persuasion character, but you don't have to worry about looting every container with your Lucky Charm character.

• Initiative is only really useful on one character that you want to get the first turn in fights, as the game will always try to force alternating turns between allied and enemy characters. In other words, even if your whole party has sky-high Initiative, the highest Initiative enemy will always act after your highest Initiative character, after which your second highest Initiative character will get their turn, followed by the same for the enemy side, and so on.

Inventory Management & Trading

• You can add item containers to your ability bars, particularly useful for archers who can put all their arrows in a single bag, stick the bag into a quick slot, and leave the rest of the space for their abilities.

• Consumables are usable by any character in combat, even if they're in a different character's inventory (and even if that character is dead) meaning in most cases you only need one character to carry all your potions/scrolls/grenades and simply use them from their inventory as needed.

• Crafting is no longer a skill and is overall less useful than in the first Divinity: Original Sin, you can't for instance increase the damage of weapons or defense of armor. There are still a variety benefits to it though: Nails in shoes still make you immune to slipping on ice, scrolls can be turned into skill books, skill books of different types can be combined to create new hybrid skills you might never come across elsewhere, some useful potions can be made and combined together to make better versions of themselves, and it's still the most reliable source of special arrows and grenades.

• Items which don't have "Combine With" in the dropdown menu when selected are not used in any crafting recipes.

• You can get better deals from merchants you visit regularly if you improve their Attitude towards you to 100, easily attainable by trading them some money or items without asking for anything in return.

• Merchants restock their goods once per hour and whenever you level up. Also, all vendors who sell skill books add brand new skills to their selections when you reach levels 4, 9, and 16 (with a single second-tier Source Skill at level 13), so check back at these levels to access new skills.