Divinity: Original Sin II Hot and juicy Tips part 2

Divinity: Original Sin II Hot and juicy Tips part 2

Character Creation

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, and their own individual quest, and they have a fixed name and gender (and a partly customizable appearance), but they can otherwise be customized as you choose. Origin characters don't have a personal tag or an individual quest, but can have their appearance fully customized.
Character Presets are only suggestions. You can change almost everything from a preset. The only thing fixed by a preset, in fact, are the starting weapons found in the "Confiscated Weapons" chest.

Battlemage: One-Handed Axe + One-Handed Axe
Cleric: Mace + Shield
Conjurer: Wand + Shield
Enchanter: Staff
Fighter: Sword + Shield
Inquisitor: Two-Handed Hammer
Knight: Two-Handed Sword
Metamorph: Two-Handed Spear
Ranger: Bow
Rogue: Dagger + Dagger
Shadowblade: Dagger
Wayfarer: Crossbow
Witch: Dagger
Wizard: Wand + Wand

Certain quests are unable to be completed without the Scholar tag. That is the only tag which has such a restriction. Red Prince, Sebille, and Fane all start with the tag.
Physical-damage parties are considered easier than magic-damage parties, because nearly nothing in the game resists physical damage. Magic is perfectly viable, though.
Because of the physical and magical armor system, trying to have some physical and some magical damage dealers will make the game harder for you. It's better to go all one type, or hybridize--summoners can do either damage type, and scoundrels can shred magic armor, for instance. It's possible to bring casters with a physical group if they are summoners (neutral and blood incarnates do physical damage), supportive/buffing/healing rather than offensive elemental casters, and/or necromancers (necromancy does physical damage). Magic parties can have melee presence with staff wielders and summons, since warfare talents will scale with Int if you're wielding a staff.
Damage to armor is affected by resistances. For example, an enemy with 50 Fire Resistance and 0 Air Resistance will lose more armor when hit by an air-damage spell than a fire-damage spell of the same power.

Combat Abilities

The most powerful skills (3 Source Point skills) only require a minimum of 5 points into any Skill school, so unless you specifically want the 3-Source Point skill for that school, you may want to consider leaving the school at 3 points, which allows you to learn all but one of the skills in that school (not counting crafted skills). That said, the 3 SP skills are some of the most powerful in the game.
Warfare boosts all physical damage, even daggers, bows/crossbows, and Necromancy spells.
Healing from Necromancy's passive bonus and skills is "neutral" and does not damage Undead. Living people under the Decaying status effect is similar, except for the Bloodsucker skill, which DOES still cause damage like regular healing.
Avoid Retribution and Perseverance. They need to be maxed out to be of any use, which takes half your total Combat Ability points, crippling you everywhere else. Retribution is particularly crappy because enemies have much higher HP and armor than players, and even dealing 50% of their attack damage back to them isn't very effective. Perseverance is only triggered by a handful of status effects, and doesn't restore enough armor to matter without a crippling amount of points invested.
Leadership grants decent bonuses to nearby allies, but it does nothing for the character who takes Leadership, and the 5-meter range requires other characters to be crammed very closely together. That limits the usefulness, and like the other defense abilities, heavy investment in Leadership sucks up a bunch of points which will lower your effectiveness at maximizing damage.
If you want a character to be a summoner, rush their Summoning skill to 10 as soon as possible. Grab any gear you can find with +Summoning to this end. It's worth it. Summoning falls off in power in the late game, (Definitive Edition) but in the Definitive Edition, Totems gain more power to keep up better.
Necromancy is worth investing in for a damage-focused warrior or rogue because it gives 10% lifesteal per point. With 5 Necromancy, you're healing back half the damage you deal, and there are plenty of utility Necromancy skills that don't need Int investment.
Shields are very, very strong. If a character's primary focus is on CC, support, or utility rather than damage, consider giving them a one handed weapon and a shield.
Prioritize getting movement abilities (Teleport, Cloak and Dagger, Phoenix Dive, Emergency Retreat, Spread Your Wings), they make combat significantly more fun.

Notable Talents

Lone Wolf restricts your party to 1 or 2 characters, but is EXCEEDINGLY powerful, bordering on broken thanks to getting double the value per point invested in Attributes and Combat Abilities. Use it for a game with less fiddly inventory/character management." (Definitive Edition) In the Definitive Edition, Lone Wolf has the same cap of 40/10 Attributes/Combat Abilities as anyone else, so it won't be quite as powerful in the late game.
Glass Cannon is tempting, but enemies will always beeline that character, so if you want to take the risk, make sure it's on someone who can be in safety and has the mobility/CC to get away, like an archer or a summoner. It's a death sentence on a melee character.
Your Persuasion character should be the one taking Pet Pal.
Good talents for a melee fighter or rogue: Opportunist, Executioner, The Pawn (mutually exclusive with Executioner), Living Armour, Comeback Kid, Picture of Health (if you plan to stack Warfare).
Good talents for a ranger: Executioner, Glass Cannon (if you want to take the risk), Stench (if not your Persuasion character), Hothead. AVOID Elemental Ranger and Arrow Recovery, they are not especially useful.
Good talents for a damage caster: Far Out Man, Mnemonic, Executioner, Savage Sortilege, Hothead (only with Savage Sortilege), Stench (if not your Persuasion character), Glass Cannon (if you want to take the risk), Elemental Affinity if you are a mage, but you'll need to stand on damaging surfaces to get the benefit for Earth, Fire, and Air spells.
Good talents for a summoner or utility caster: Far Out Man, Mnemonic, Stench (if not your Persuasion character), All Skilled Up (for summoners to reach Summoning 10 faster).

Crafting

If an item, when right-clicked, does not have "Combine" as one of the options in the pop-up menu, it is not usable in crafting. Feel free to sell it.

Vendors

If there's a vendor you plan to use a lot, it's worthwhile to boost their attitude towards you up to 100. You do this by giving them things without asking for anything. The amount you have to pay is not a lot, and it's fixed based on the vendor's level. It starts at about 150 gold for vendors in Fort Joy, and goes up to about 4750 gold at level 20, which is really cheap. The discount for maxed attitude is a substantial 20%.
Vendors stock new skillbooks starting at Player Levels 4, 9, and 16 (with a single second-tier Source Skill at level 13). It's not based on the vendor level.
Vendors refresh when any party member gains a level, or if you wait an hour before interacting with them.