literally can't beat the 2nd mission in this game, help

[↑Laughable!]

I'm about 0.01% into this game and I'm already completely stuck.

Cipher + Psion. I need to go find Oderisi (or his corpse) or whatever, but the game sent me to a mine area. In the center of the mine is a pit with five enemies (two Wurms and three Panthers) and I've tried like fifteen times to kill them but I can't even kill a single one of those enemies. Haven't been able to get any of the five to half HP, even. I have Eder with me and he can't do anything either. I don't know if I made the worst character in PoE2 history or what, but I'm frustrated as hell now.

Also my spells apparently suck - my whole character was built around doing as little combat as possible and tricking/manipulating enemies into killing their friends for me. Deception and all that jazz. I got a level one spell that is meant to turn enemies against each other (don't remember its name off the top of my head) but I tried casting it a bunch and it takes forever to cast and when it finally does, absolutely nothing happens. The enemy still attacks me.

Make a new character? Or am I not supposed to fight them and instead do something else to progress? Or am I just garbage at the combat?

[Du-Vu]

So it sounds like you picked Debonaire? That Charm ability actually only works on Kith, which are the humanoid player races, basically. It won't work on the enemies at the excavation site, though there are a lot more of them once you get off of Maje.

You might want to drop down the difficulty as you get used to the game, but you can also go back to Port Maje and pick up Xoti, the Dawnstar priestess in green to the south of the map, maybe hire a mercenary from the inn (you'll get a final character once you clear out those wurms and panthers), and then you could also do the quests in town if you haven't, which could be worth another level.

Is this real-time or turn-based you're playing? If it's real-time, you might want to set up some of the auto-pause options under Settings? Real-time with pause plays out more like simultaneous turn-based than in actual real time.

[psychotron666420]

It's just you and Eder? You missed the other companion in Town?

It's also advised to go to the inn and create a custom companion (or two) to help with the first mission. After you finish that one, the rest of the game opens up

[RACHMANOVSKI]

your character not sucs, it's an early quests and if you missed it, you should have been:

1. Meet Xoti at Maje
2. Meet Aloth (before or after the excavation quest) (He's in the middle of the surface area in the excavation area -- where the leopards hanging out, kill them, you'll get to him).
3. Help to resolve conflict between a Vailian Gambler and Huana warrior.
4. Help the bar owner solve some issue.
5. Kill the "Many Saints at Gorecci Street" (looters, infamously OP enemy in higher difficulties)

that accumulate your exp, you may able to level up or at least close to level up.

If you are on normal, you don't need to "hire adventures" (i.e. made a new custom character) -- if you are on Vet or PoTD... you don't play Vet or PoTD on your first playthrough.

[wespe___o=/;;;:*]

Wait, Gorecci Street and Digsite are the hardest "early content".. also Digsite is NOT 2nd mission. You should complete PortMaje first, then move on, so you´re Level 5/6.
Also, why you fight if your char does not want to fight???
I could write an essay why you fail.. but I keep it short because you got valuable answers above. Have a good look here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2581749394
Some advice:
Overall best diplomatic char is ROGUE (stealth), which allows you to kill almost everything yourself and even choose when you fight or when you just stealth through enemies -as long as you play SOLO-
But a new player wants to experience the STORY, so it does not matter much as you have a full Party around you for Backup and Buffs. So enjoy the fights

Remark on Cipher:
Generally a Backline-Caster (esp. PSION), for melee you need SoulBlade, but MC (Multiclass).. otherwise you are extremely fragile. Did I mention late-game bloomer?

PS: some encounters really drop nice UNIQUE Gear after combat

[↑Laughable!]

Hey all, I greatly appreciate the responses.

So from what I've read, I have the order of the game wrong? All I've done so far was wake up on the beach, go find every survivor I could, walk into Port Maje, watch a cutscene involving the governor of Port Maje, go into his house, get a quest regarding finding Oderisi/his corpse, and gone to the digsite area. I didn't realize there was anything I was supposed to do in-between.

I was unaware of another companion in town. I'm playing on Classic difficulty in Real-Time, by the way.

[Du-Vu]

Not totally wrong or impossible, but harder, for sure. People play this game solo on the hardest difficulty, so it's possible to do the dig site with companions at low level. But you don't have to, especially if you're new to this game or to RTWP. They give you a bunch of experience early on here to get you leveled up fairly quickly early on compared to the first game, and enough money to have a full party going in if you add mercenaries (but you get your third companion as soon as you clear out the panthers).

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

Originally posted by ↑Laughable!:

Hey all, I greatly appreciate the responses.

So from what I've read, I have the order of the game wrong? All I've done so far was wake up on the beach, go find every survivor I could, walk into Port Maje, watch a cutscene involving the governor of Port Maje, go into his house, get a quest regarding finding Oderisi/his corpse, and gone to the digsite area. I didn't realize there was anything I was supposed to do in-between.

I was unaware of another companion in town. I'm playing on Classic difficulty in Real-Time, by the way.

Do the quests / tasks in town. Jail and Inn has each one task. The guard woman in the jail gives you a quest to Gorecci Street. If you leave the map in the south and enter Gorecci, you can just sneak past the enemies and get to their leader without fighting.

And in the south eastern house is someone that wants his money back from the girl in the cities travel location in the north of gorecci street. Easy to do without fighting.

[↑Laughable!]

I've completed this part of the game now, just got on my newly repaired ship. This thread can be closed, thank you all again

[philosoraptorgames]

I'm surprised OP had so much trouble with this part... I (Wizard/Rogue) hit the dig site before Port Maje, with only Eder for company, and the mix of panthers and drakes that stymied OP basically froze to death in that spell that does cold damage and blinds everything. (Playing on Normal, level scaling is turned off.) Debuffs and sneak attack on the same character seems to work even better than I expected it to, and Eder is a pretty good tank. I haven't entered the training area but I did the sub-level (now with Aloth in tow) and only died once when I intentionally tried something unusual and it didn't work. I'm surprised people are saying you need to be 5th-6th level.

[wespe___o=/;;;:*]

Originally posted by philosoraptorgames:

I'm surprised OP had so much trouble with this part... I (Wizard/Rogue) hit the dig site before Port Maje, with only Eder for company, and the mix of panthers and drakes that stymied OP basically froze to death in that spell that does cold damage and blinds everything. (Playing on Normal, level scaling is turned off.)...

In defence of the OP.. Veteran can be quite hard for many builds below Lv5-7. Also MultiClass is weaker early on (check ->Difficulty)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2581749394
Fair warning: your strategy won´t work in PotD, you will simply run out of spells first

[psychotron666420]

Originally posted by philosoraptorgames:

I'm surprised OP had so much trouble with this part... I (Wizard/Rogue) hit the dig site before Port Maje, with only Eder for company, and the mix of panthers and drakes that stymied OP basically froze to death in that spell that does cold damage and blinds everything. (Playing on Normal, level scaling is turned off.) Debuffs and sneak attack on the same character seems to work even better than I expected it to, and Eder is a pretty good tank. I haven't entered the training area but I did the sub-level (now with Aloth in tow) and only died once when I intentionally tried something unusual and it didn't work. I'm surprised people are saying you need to be 5th-6th level.

Veteran has more and stronger monsters including a huge Drake that can almost take out your entire party with a single fire breath . Path of the damned the encounter is ridiculously hard

[philosoraptorgames]

Well yeah, I would expect an undermanned and underlevelled party to last about twelve seconds on PotD :-).