Crafted skill hints?

[VanEinstein]

There are guides and wiki entries aplenty on how exactly to go about creating new skills, but are there built in hints provided in the game? For example, I'm aware that Sir Lora is the source for two of them eventually if you're using Pet Pal, but what about others?

I ask this because while it's entirely possible to see a list on a wiki and just make the skills at will, I'd much rather acquire them when it's time appropriate so to speak. My friend is content to go craft Sparking Swings for example without the game ever telling him it exists, but that's not something I want for myself.

So yeah, is it something I can find hints for within dialogue and books littered about the game world, or is it just a matter of players deciding to experiment at random for the most part?

[AsianGirlLover]

Crafting in this game is terribly explained, tbh. Chaos is the expert on all things Divinity, so I suspect he’ll have a better answer for you... but the gist is this: you can read recipe books for some things, but you’ll mostly have to figure things out on your own.

The game does hint that you can combine skill books, but you will not find a source that teaches you every possible combination in-game - you’ll need to experiment or look it up in the wiki.

[Spawnling]

Looked at my save file. There are some book recipes that require you to combine 2 skill books and I am sure I have never crafted them, so I must have learned the recipes from a book or something.

I also found some posts saying that recipe books are random drops, so good luck finding the recipes.

For me the appropriate time for a skill is when I can get my hands on it. It doesn't really matter, as you get better at the game you'll find that you don't use that many skills.
My fire mage goes into meele range and has Sparking Swings, but I can't find the AP to use it (and I have 10-11 AP on my first turn)...

Thievery is great to get skill books early. Steal as much as you can, but be aware that you can only steal once from each NPC (with each character) and merchants get new skill books at level 4, so you might want to wait a bit before you start your stealing spree, or both of you get Thievery.

[bli-nk]

As soon as you see mention of a some skill being able to be crafted by combining two books... go wild from the Wiki because it will never be better explained than that.

Many of the crafting recipes are even worse- at least there is fairly limited number of skill book combinations but the resource crafting... the first book I found explaining how to make small runes was in Arx...

Arx where you can buy Giant runes and giant rune frames of power. So I would not rely on the game hinting at the 'appropriate' moment.

[Chaoslink]

The game drops hints that you can craft them. The game won't really teach you all the recipes in any way that you'd "acquire them when it's time appropriate so to speak."

The real answer is that once you find the Blood Rain book in the desk in act one or get the first spell from Sir Lora, you're expected to experiment. So from those moments on, you should be trying to experiment on your own.

Should you be interested in how it works, without me telling you any specific recipes, mouse over below.

Its quite simple actually. Just take any of the four magic schools, Hydro, Pyro, Geo or Aero and combine those with any of the other skills. Its basically any magic skill with any "physical" skill. For a source version, just make one of the two books a source book. Note that the specific spell doesn't matter, just that the skill is from the proper skill. This means that the cheap Backlash spell from Scoundrel would make the same spell if you swapped it in for the more expensive Sleeping Arms spell. So try to use your cheaper spells where possible.