Take Kingdoms of Amalur‘s general look/feel, mix in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic‘s environmental interactivity, add in a Black Isle game’s combat system… and you’ll get something resembling Divinity: Original Sin. As long as you don’t mind turn-based RPGs, this is a remarkably sizable and in-depth game to spend some time with.
A few quick bits of information:
- After finding 7 Star/Blood stones you’ll unlock a character who can respec your PCs for 1000 gold. Respecing completely wipes your Skills.
- That NPC can also convert your unused Trait points to Ability points at a 1:10 ratio, and unused Ability points to Attribute points at a 5:1 ratio.
- Due to the above, don’t add any Traits that give raw Ability/Attribute points to your PCs.
- At a certain point in the game basic weapon skills (One/Two Handed, Bow/Crossbow) get wholly replaced by the Tenebrium skill. While it is possible to miss getting this skill, there’s both a quest and a book just lying around that teaches it.
- Don’t bother with Craft/Blacksmith on your PCs; hire an NPC to do that.
- An NPC can also take care of Lockpicking, in the relatively few situations you can’t find a key for a specific lock.
- Pick up the Pet Pal Trait for one of your PCs at character creation. More experience is always good.
- The character on the right during character creation is considered the ‘Main’ character and will usually be the one talked to in a few situations where the dialog is automatically started.
- Don’t put points in Sneak unless you plan to max it out for use in combat; the Scoundrel/Air Magic Invisibility spells are far better for stealing with.
- Assuming you steal/loot everything lying around (and you should be), there shouldn’t be any need to put points in Barter.
- Don’t put Charisma on Hirelings; NPCs won’t talk to them.
- Merchant inventories are randomized the first time you talk to them after their inventory has been spawned/respawned.
- Merchant inventories are respawned every time your PCs level up.
- Sold items never disappear from the person you sold them to (unless that person dies due to plot-related reasons).
- Potential enemies that allow a dialog check to prevent them from becoming hostile can often be traded with, and killing someone you’ve traded items to will cause them to drop all of those items.
- Summon spells are very good as distractions (and elementals are great as tanks in specific situations), so try to make sure everyone has one.
- Marksmen should be making frequent use of specialty arrows.
- Unlock scrolls are the only things that can usually open magically locked doors/chests (they have a purple lock VFX on them).
- There are at least four static Unlock scrolls (two of which require high Perception to find). Crafting Witchcraft scrolls has a chance of creating more (use someone with a Craft Rank of 2 for the best probability).
- I’ve found 6 such locks so far, though one of those can be unlocked by a nearby NPC and the Key for another drops from an optional mini-boss much later in the game.
- If you have a high Perception (11+) there isn’t much need to buy any Secrets (the map items) except maybe the ‘Secrets of the Stars’ ones.
- When choosing the order to unlock the elemental rooms in your Homestead, note that Fire sells Melee Tomes, Air sells Scoundrel Tomes, Frost sells Marksman Tomes, and Earth sells Witchcraft Tomes.
- Figuring out where to go next after entering the 2nd main map can be difficult; you should be trying to deactivate the Barrier. Talking to the Mushrooms hints at one method while talking to Zixzax hints at the other.