Divinity Orignal Sin 2 is a fantastic return to form for the RPG genre. This genre of game prides itself on player decisions, deep characters, interesting companions, and meaningful combat systems.
Divinity 2 ticks all of these boxes and then some, but it does also come with the typical baggage this genre is known for: difficulty. If you do now know where good items are or who you should be talking to, this game can be significantly harder than it seems. To make your life a bit easier, it is best to level up as fast as you can to get higher attributes and skill ratings.
Updated on June 7, 2021, by Juliet Childers: Larian Studios hit the ball out of the park with Divinity: Original Sin 2. The addictive turn-based gameplay and intriguing characters captivated gamers all around the world. The Definitive Edition incorporated some popular mods, but leveling remains a bump in the road for some people. From something as simple as completing quests to leveraging the right talents, here's how to level up quickly in Divinity: Original Sin 2.
14 Explore All The Things
Unless you are playing on Classic or Tactician, discovering new locations in Divinity Original Sin 2 will grant experience to the whole party.
Finding new caves, towns, or even sections of the overworld will grant a small amount of experience. The amount of locations you can discover, however, is massive and results in a few easy levels just walking around. Sometimes, you can find quest items in hidden locations you're meant to explore later, further granting additional experience points. Be careful exploring the world, however, as you'll never know when you might get ambushed or caught off-guard.
13 Complete All Main Quests
Needless to say, questing in RPGs is the main method of leveling in nearly every game, Divinity 2 being no exception.
Quests come in a wide variety, ranging from clearing out a cave to finding a person your companion has beef with. You can solely complete the main story if you wish, but skipping over side content will result in you being vastly under-geared and under-leveled for the later acts of the game, making it harder than it needs to be. To best level in Divinity 2, take your time to talk to every NPC and engage in as many quests as you can. If you do that, you will be on par or over-leveled for most areas of the game, making Divinity 2 significantly easier to beat.
12 Complete Personal Quests
Divinity 2 allows players to group up in a party of 4. Besides having more firepower in encounters, it also gives you the opportunity of progressing their quests. These personal quests can range from finding items to hunting down a particular person. Advancing these quests can yield experience points and even loot.
The more companions with you, the more likely you'll stumble upon a companion quest step. Best of all, you can spec each companion for different things. One can be a smooth-talker that gets you out of tough situations, while another character can focus on using water and air magic to dominate enemies with amazing crowd control capabilities.
11 Stock Up On Potions And Healing
You are going to take significant damage in Divinity 2 on your first few playthroughs. Nothing can change that. The best thing you can do is stock up on potions and restoration spells.
In general, you want to maintain your physical and magical armor as much as you can, as it prevents powerful stun-locking status effects from influencing your character. When your armor goes down, however, chances are you're going to take a ton of vitality damage. It's best to always have potions and abilities that can maintain your armor. If you can't, make sure you have enough health restore potions and spells so you don't flat-out die.
10 Pickpocket Vendors & NPCs
Few RPG titles give good incentives for stealing items besides being evil or simply being fun. Items can be so expensive early game for newer players in Divinity 2 that it can be beneficial to steal.
Stealing items is tied to your thievery civil stat, which allows you to steal more valuable goods from traders the more points you have invested into the skill. To steal items from vendors, simply enter stealth mode behind them and click on their body. Keep in mind that you only have one chance to do this per character you interact with, meaning that if you get caught in the process or you only grab some items, you will be unable to pickpocket that vendor with that character for the rest of the playthrough. The benefit is you can get plenty of new skills and gear for free using this method.
9 Find Better Gear
Much of Divinity 2 revolves around fighting other enemies, so it is important that all of your characters are geared up as much as possible. Thankfully, a lot of good items are scattered throughout the world if you know where to look.
One of the first items players can obtain is the gloves of teleportation. These gloves grant their wielder the ability to teleport objects around the battlefield, making them invaluable for exploration and combat alike. Solid swords, bows, and armor can also be found around Fort Joy through vendors, quests, and even dirt mounds you can dig up with a shovel. If you feel like you've hit a wall, look up a guide for a better weapon you need.
8 Leverage Persuasion Skills
Having high charisma in games like Fallout can often help players avoid combat. The skill functions very similarly in Divinity OS 2. High persuasion skills can help players gain access to unique items, quests, and storylines.
It can also be a great way to talk yourself out of both awkward and dangerous situations. Do not underestimate persuasion in this game!
7 Leverage Pet Pal And Persuasion Skills
Much of the combat encounters in Divinity 2 can be bypassed if you have a persuasive character in your party. This is especially true thanks to the useful Pet Pal talent. Pet Pal allows your character to talk with animals, including dogs, rabbits, slugs, and even the void enemies you'll fight most of the game.
If you can talk to these animals and persuade them you aren't a threat, most will let you walk away in peace while still providing plentiful experience to your group. Buddy the dog, seen above, immediately endeared fans to him. But there's a certain crab on the beach of Fort Joy who fans also admire (or fear).
6 Deal Magical and Physical Damage
Armor in Original Sin 2 is divided into physical and magical. Armor works as a pseudo-second health bar you need to bypass before dealing status effects and vitality damage to the target.
Magical armor protects enemies from spells that revolve around any element: earth, fire, poison, air, or water. Physical armor protects against necromancy spells and any physical attacks from weapons like swords. Once the enemy's armor is broken, you can stun them and finally kill them. Once you understand the armor system in this game, combat becomes significantly easier and allows you to get more experience from winning most encounters.
5 Embrace Combat
With all of those combat tips sorted, the biggest takeaway is to engage in combat frequently. Every enemy you slay in Divinity 2 will grant a massive chunk of experience points.
Whether you are fighting undead skeletons or deciding to wipe out the inhabitants of Fort Joy, every enemy in Divinity 2 grants a large amount of experience for killing them. The game is balanced around you killing enemies when they become hostile and finishing side missions, so you don't need to exterminate an entire town of people to get an edge. However, should you choose to roleplay a character who would do such a thing, there is a large experience and gear incentive to do so, as you can take all of their items for your party when you kill them. Note that this can lock away quests entirely when doing this, so be mindful of who you're killing.
4 Stun Enemies
Relating to armor, once armor is broken, certain abilities can apply unique status effects to the target. This can include reducing their accuracy or stunning them entirely, foregoing their next turn.
It is imperative that you have a method of stunning targets if you want to smoothly progress through Divinity 2. If you don't stun enemies that pose a large threat to your group, chances are the AI will stun your characters, effectively taking your next turn away. Since the AI can be ruthless in this game, you need to use every trick in the book to gain an upper hand. Fight stuns with stuns and combat will become much easier to handle.
3 Complete All Side Quests
As with completing all personal and main quests, side quests are a must in Divinity games. This coordinates with talking to every NPC in that you can only get certain quests that way. Others require exploring areas thoroughly.
For instance, the one pictured above occurs in a hidden place that's easy to miss. But finding and completing these quests is easier with the Definitive Edition that includes some quality of life upgrades such as free Pet Pal (if desired).
2 Find Useful Mods
Just like Skyrim, this game has its fair share of mods ranging from character creator additions to new ability mods. Before the Definitive Edition released, many mods also provided quality of life changes that have now been integrated into the base game.
But if players want more level-related assistance, they can leverage mods instead. These can do everything from adjusting enemy scaling and adding more talent points to making equipment scale with player level. Take a gander at the game's Steam Workshop for specific options.
1 Play The Game With Friends
Sometimes, games are fantastic all on their own while other games are best played with others. Divinity OS 2 is unique in that it is fun solo or when played with others. However, playing with friends will no doubt make leveling a total breeze.
When you're busy laughing at how poorly a fight is going, you aren't worried about your EXP bar.