Hey guys, so like with the firs Original Sin i have been sitting staring at classes and i still haven't picked one yet. What did you guys end up going with?.

In the first game I spent hours creating characters and then restarting because I either wasn't happy with them or wanted to do something different. This time I just picked Fane and was done with it.

I have spent hours creating characters in the first game only to restart later so I can't help you lol. I have the character creation sickness.

I'm sure that just like with the first game, I'll probably play for several hours and then start over because I realize I wish I had built my character in a different way.

For the moment though, I've started with Sebille with the standard rogue build.

That's pretty funny because i think i played around 6 hours with the first character i made in Original Sin. Then scrapped everything and started over. Man this game.

For what it's worth, you can give the NPCs whatever preset class you want (no tweaking beyond those presets, but you can course correct pretty quickly if need be), so you have a lot more control over party composition than the first game (especially at launch, when Madora and Jahan were the only NPCs.)

I ended up making my custom lizard an Inquisitor, which is a Warfare/Necromancy type build and have done alright for myself so far. Early on at least it seems like you don't have to horde skill points and min-max quite as much as you had to in OS1.

That's good to know. I finished the first one when it launched and back then it felt real easy to spec wrong and completely break your character. And by the time you found out it was too late to correct it.

Why is it games like this still don't have easy access to a cheap respec option by default? I know it could be easily abused, but the time saved from salvaging aborted playthroughs would be completely worth it. I never finished the first Original Sin due to building my characters wrong (and the dang rock-paper-scissors minigame, ugh). I wound up looking around for a mod, and giving up when the game wouldn't stop complaining about altered save files.

Hopefully if they have a good set of default classes for the pre-created characters in OS II, I can just take the out of the box options and still have a good time. Can't pick the game up right away though, so I'm interested to hear what you guys wind up doing.

Good news. They removed the rock-paper-scissors stuff entirely. All of those dialogue choices are now skill checks.

You can fully respec everyone for free at the beginning of Act II now.

thanks for the info mike! you just saved me from starting the game over (again!)

Soooo I bought the game and proceeded to stare at the main menu unable to start playing, wondering if I should buy and play through the first game for story/lore purposes.
Really fighting the compulsion and failing.

@mike: @chaser324: Yay, and there was much rejoicing. That may have bumped this game up my "to play" list by several places.

Me and my friend loved the first game so we will try to get this one soon. I want to finally play as a Lich character and hopefully this game can make my dream come true!

@meierthered: Yeah, plus I also played this game with a mod to let you make all 4 characters yourself, which is great but think about how long I may have spent making my parties alone... I don't want to say it lol.

That's cool. I kind of wish RPG developers would find way to address these kind of problems through design but that solution works too.

Haven't played yet but just looking at this game it seems like they have made a ton of smart decisions with it.

I went with an undead lizard polymorph with two handed weapons and pet pal perk. I'm gonna do something more custom on my second playthrough. I'm 7 hours in and I'm liking my character so far.

Nice, i still haven't decided yet.

@artisanbreads: I don't know how much you can do with game design since all character creation is asking a player to make completely uninformed decisions before seeing how the game actually plays. Of course you're going to know more about the usefulness of melee skills, or speaking to animals, or charisma/persuasion, or if you must have lockpick on the main character, or stuff like that after playing (some) the game.

@gundamguru: There are still some answers and possible answers as you go. Some games let you just choose basic classes first for example before specializing more and I think that is smart. There's also the Elder Scrolls "more you do it, you improve" method which is interesting as well. Bethesda's intro dungeon type thing, with a respec after, is also a better approach than some other games take with these things.

I personally don't think it should be an issue people just throw up their hands about. I think it's cool to have character development in different ways over time before making so many choices just right up front. And respec is fine but it is kind of just an escape from the problem.

And of course some games can always stick with the old style. Trust me, I've played a lot of RPGs in this sort of style but I like experimentation, fresh experiences, and different approaches.

Another example of a game that kind of dodges this issue in an interesting design way is Dragon's Dogma, where you can totally change your character's class and switch up your approach entirely. Also Final Fantasy Tactics' Job system. Mass Effect Andromeda even had a cool sort of version of this going on it that I really liked.

Whatever else you choose I highly recommend you stuff everybody with a couple ranks of Polymorph because nothing beats the ability to just fly across the map.

@mike: Wow really?? that's awesome! Is it obvious when you can do that? I'm about 10 hours in and I'm not happy with my choices at all and I really really don't want to start over again so that's the best news :D

Look for a mirror on the ship when you're wrapping up Act 1. You probably have another 4-10 hours to go.

That's a nice tip, thank man.

I did a custom hero who's a Summoning/Hydrosophist hybrid along with default Red Prince (Fighter), default Ifan (Wayfarer) and default Fane (Wizard).

So far it's working out great and have only really had one of the big Magister battles in the keep that I had to restart once. Summons are very strong once you get some points dumped in to the skill and buy some of the T2 books, so it feels like most battles I'm rolling in with 5-6 party members and since I'm chilling in the back anyway, I figured I'd also be my party's healer.

Also, Ifan is a ranged DPS monster, especially once you get outside the Fort for that unique x-bow the undead guy gives you. Get Tactical Retreat and try to start fights with him on high ground if you can and he just chews through enemies.

I've seen people complain about the difficulty even on Classic mode. The best advice I can give is use your cash primarily on skill books early game and don't neglect ability combos and anything that gives you options in combat (crowd controls, buffs, debuffs, mobility). You can't DPS your way out of most battles like you could by stacking tons of AP in the first game. Need a balance.

This is my first time playing a game like this so thanks for all the little tips already posted, if there's anything else you can think of that it's important that I bare in mind I'd be very grateful!

I've only played the opening bit so far and have already hit encumbrance as an issue, should I stop picking up absolutely everything or is it less of a thing once I can start selling all the junk? Or is the junk not even valuable enough to sell? Or is some junk actually valuable to hold on to because it might be useful at some point? See, I'm barely getting started and I'm already spiralling.

You don't need to really bother with it. Just level up one character's thievery and sneaking, have another character distract them during a conversation then have your thief steal all their shit. Go to another vendor, sell everything, then repeat. Gold is only an issue in the very early game, but even then you can just steal everything you need. If you can't steal something, you can also always just kill someone and take all their skill books or whatever, too.

I took a lizard with water and corruption and zombie (poison heals). I can make it rain, turn the rain into poison, and turn it set it on fire... which sounds great, but it crates a ton of poison all over the ground, which is bad for allies/non hostile NPC (that turned hostile), and it makes fighting the undead a real pain in the butt as it's constantly healing them over time. back to the drawing board for me.

http://www.pcgamer.com/divinity-original-sin-2-guide-beginners/ Read it. I'm glad I did. I'd never think about getting a bedroll for resting (instant health up)

The bedroll was the only thing I did right it seems! I totally didn't realise that you can switch people in the middle of conversations, that's brilliant thanks @mike.

Played a few more hours and am super into how broad the range of options seem to be at any given moment. It's a little daunting, especially when it looks like I've got a dozen quests I could possibly follow and I haven't figured out yet if there's a way to tell which questlines might be too challenging for my current level.

Getting my arse kicked in fights and have had to reload a few times but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I am playing as Fane, there pre-made characters seem to have more background story and i have a lack off imagination so that always helps and playing as a Proto Skeleton is pretty fun. the special dialogue for skeletons and Fane are pretty solid.