Divinity: Original Sin 2 is not a simple game. Fights can be grueling, quests confusing and item management is a beast all of it’s own.

With that in mind, we’ve gathered up 10 of the most useful tips and tricks to help you succeed early on in Divinity OS2. These include simple gold earning methods, clever tactics and powerful Skill selections to carry you through the toughest fights in the game.

Shortly after arriving in Fort Joy, you can find a man named Gawin lurking around a large fire on the West side of town. Whether or not you help him is unimportant, it’s the item he speaks of. Teleportation Gloves!

They are found along a beach to the West of the town. There are 3 Crocodiles here. Kill them and loot the surrounding area for several items, one of which will be the Gloves of Teleportation.

These gloves are extremely powerful early on, as they give you access to a full version of the Teleportation spell. In Combat, it’s a useful skill for moving enemies around the battlefield, dropping them into fire or bringing mages closer to your fighters.

Out of combat it’s even better. It allows you to traverse gaps that you can’t walk across. You can move objects back and forth, and even teleport traps completely out of your way.

A rarely brought up part of bartering in Divinity is the option to gift an item to the merchant. I know, that sounds crazy, but there are many good rewards for doing it!

When at a merchant that you like, or expect to do lots of business with, start gifting them items. You can do this by selling them items, without actually balancing out the gold. The more valuable the items you give them, the higher their attitude will be towards you. Although this costs money in the short term, long term you’ll be able to sell them stuff at a much higher price and when their stock refills, you can buy from them at a cheaper rate!

This is hard early on, due to limited resources, but as time goes on make sure to offer up a few items to your favorite merchants. Getting their attitude up will earn you a lot of money in the long run and is well worth the few hundred gold it’ll cost early on.

There are no bad skills in Divinity. Each has a use, sometimes several, but Summoning Magic reigns supreme when it comes to combat.

The reason for this, is that the Incarnate skill summons an ally for you, based on the surface it was summoned from. See some fire? Conjure up a Fire Incarnate! Poison puddles all over? Summon a Poison Incarnate.

The element isn’t the powerful part though, it’s the additional numbers it adds to the fight. Divinity OS 2 is designed and primarily balanced around there being 4 combatants on your team. Introducing more allies will increase your odds of survival by huge margins. The Incarnates make great distractions, are surprisingly powerful and last for several turns. Even if someone only has level 1 Summoning, it’s still wise to give them the ability to create Incarnates, their power cannot be stated enough.

There is no polite way to put it, but it’s never been a better time to be a criminal in Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Stealing, pickpocketing and even killing those who are rich can lead to your party being very well off both in gear and finances. You can then take these newly acquired goods to your favorite merchant like we mentioned above, and make a fortune selling them.

Of course, there are repercussions for this kind of behavior. Constantly stealing from people will quickly raise their suspicions of you and you’ll begin getting called out by NPCs and Guards. Killing NPCs can also be dangerous, because other NPCs may find the body and alert the guards, or see you while you’re doing the deed. Greed is good, but too much can get you into a lot of trouble.

This isn’t something directly stated to you, but implied. Depending on the character you are talking to, the race of your character will matter.

Entire quests will come to a halt if you are the wrong race, or never begin in the first place. Anytime you meet an NPC who seems dodgy or evasive, try talking to them as a different party member and see what they say.

Switching to a different character also allows you to speak to the NPC all over. Each character gets to have their own interaction, so if you get shut out of dialogue with one person, you can switch to another and try an alternate line of questioning to see if there was another option.

EditMix and Match Skills and Abilities

Traditionally, RPG games reward you the most if you stick to one talent tree. You’d often pick just Magic and only that, commit to it fully and become a Grand Wizard of immense power by the end of your game.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 instead rewards diversity. This doesn’t mean you should level up every skill, but it pays off to divvy your points around between 2 or even 3 different combat abilities. For instance, having a Hydrosophist who can also use Aerotheurge and Summoning is a powerful combination. A Scoundrel who can access Warfare and Necromancy can be near impossible to kill, and Polymorph fits into almost any build with it’s strange and unusual skills.

The Hydrosophist ability tree has several useful spells in it, but none more useful than Regeneration. It’s the primary healing spell and it’s going to be your main source of survival for a very long time.

Damage is plentiful is Divinity: OS2, so having several ways to heal is going to be crucial if you want to succeed. Also, since Regeneration has a fairly long cooldown in combat, having two characters that have access to it will make your life much easier.

As if healing wasn’t great, Regeneration also douses you with water, removing flames!

EditPet Pal is Basically Mandatory

Technically, it’s not. However, if you don’t take the Pet Pal Talent then you’ll be missing out on a lot of dialogue and several quests.

This doesn’t mean you need it on your main character of course. Ifan, a companion has it by default and you can always pick it up later on someone else if you don’t use him. There are so many instances where you can speak to animals for quests and other goodies, that adventuring without it just won’t feel the same.

Early in the game you come across the Bedroll item. You can get several of them on the boat you start with. Pick. Them. Up!

The Bedroll may be the single best item in the game. When out of combat, it allows you to fully heal your party at no cost. So long as you have a single Bedroll in your inventory, you can heal the entire party, anywhere you are. It’s far faster than standing around, constantly casting Regeneration on everyone.

It takes time to build up, but the Crafting system is very useful. Cooking in particular is a hidden wonder that you can often overlook while playing.

Food has several perks that can go a long way in combat. Firstly, most food heals a percentage of your health, so that it’s useful throughout the entire game, unlock potions that heal a flat amount. Food also gives many other bonuses, like stats or resistances. Food is also very plentiful, so it’s easy to stock up an entire party with several options to consume in battle. It’s a great way to even the playing field, or get that extra stat point boost to help you through a particularly tough boss fight.