Divine Diaries: Part One

It has been a busy second to last week of the 2016-2017 school year and as a result I haven't had quite as much time to play as I normally do.  On a positive note, I've managed to stick with Divinity:  Original Sin and feel good about the progress I am making.  Since I'm writing about it again, I thought I would document my new playthrough a little more thoroughly.  Maybe it will give some newer players some insights?  More likely it will draw attention to my lack of knowledge and/or skill in the magical world of the CRPG.

I have found this playthrough to be considerably easier than my first failed attempt.  Yes, I have experience which is a huge help, and yes, the enhanced edition offers loot that is sooooo much better than anything I ever found in the original game; but I also feel like the decisions I made when designing my characters have paid off.  D:OS gives you the odd ability to be able to create not one, but two characters and to customize them with whatever abilities you want them to have.  One of the big struggles I had in my first go was that I only had one healer--Jahan--and this meant that if his healing spell was on it's long cooldown that any character that was taking a beating was almost certainly doomed.  This time around I decided to go with a priest/knight combo of main characters.  My priest can play the role of tank and can also throw out a heal every once in awhile.  This has turned out to be an excellent decision and I would recommend trying to find a setup where you have multiple characters capable of some sort of healing.

When I'm out adventuring my party usually consists of my priest/knight duo, Wolgraff, and Jahan.  My party is a little on the melee heavy side, but having a character capable of sneaking, disarming, and lockpicking seems like a must.  Thus far, I haven't run into any major roadblocks and this team makeup is working well.

My squad and a pile o' dead demons.

The journey has taken me to Luculla Forest and Hiberheim where I've tracked down the White Witch Icara.  Now, I'm back in Luculla Forest trying to deal with the Immaculate threat.  The Immaculates seem like a bunch of whacko cultists and I am actively resisting the urge to attack all of them.

One of the more disappointing parts of my journey was the whole Bairdottir affair.  I made it to the Immaculate village of Sacred Stone and tracked down Jareth, the wizardy fellow who Bairottir was desperate to find.  Surprisingly she decided that she couldn't leave Jareth and would rather attack my party than leave the nutso cultist on his own.  I don't know if there is some way to avoid killing Bairdottir--some sort of charisma check where you could convince her to stay--but the whole thing didn't end well.

There have been a couple of new areas/quests that I had missed the first time that I have discovered.  One of those areas was Maradino's cave.  Maradino is an eccentric wizard who has hidden clues in different places throughout Luculla Forest.  His cave contains his study which has the solution to entering the Troll King's cave.  I will admit that I had to look up a few things in order to figure out how to fully access the study.  Be prepared for a tough-ish fight against the spirit of Maradino and his posse of undead companions.

After you've defeated Maradino and learn the secret to accessing the Troll King's cave you can finally see what all the fuss is about.  The Troll King has amassed a great fortune from the infamous "troll toll" that all travelers are required to pay when crossing a bridge.  Having a character with decent sneaking ability is key unless you want to fight the Troll King and all his troll lackeys.  I used Wolgraff and had him sneak around looting the various gold piles in the cave.  There is also a veritable goldmine of Tenebrium ore near the back of the cave.  Mining it all was a little challenging as Wolgraff can only carry so much--to effectively loot it all I had to have him sneak back to the group several times and unload any ore he was carrying.  When it was all said and...looted...I managed to net several legendary items, some gold cups and plates to sell, and a few purple and rare items.

I'm still slightly mystified by the crafting system and haven't been able to fully utilize all the ores I have been mining.  It just seems easier to loot items.  It's a little frustrating to have accumulated a small stockpile of tenebrium and not to be able to fully put it to use.  I don't have the right talent points in the right places--I can't decide if it's worth remedying or not.

My adventures in D:OS will continue...hopefully until I can finally tick it off my list of completed games.