

If you are willing to give up all those free skills and want to go the sneaky route (and yes, sneaking can be absurdly useful), taking a dwarf character gives you a bonus to sneak immediately. During the opening ship and Fort Joy segment, there are six separate skills you can get without having to earn a single point of experience or spending a single gold piece on new skill books.


This can't be overstated: you are basically losing out on free skills if you don't play an elf. There are new skills and abilities from the previous game that have a big effect on combat - most notably physical and magical Armour, as well as Leadership (grants bonuses to nearby allies), Perseverance (restores Armour after recovering from negative status effects), and Retribution (reflects damage back to an attacker).Īrmour absorbs damage from physical/magical sources, and if they are above 0, you are immune to certain status effects tied to the physical or magical sides - like being stunned or knocked down.Įlves (or undead elves) have the Corpse Eater talent, which not only gives you alternate ways to solve quests and learn more story lore, but also offers access to free skills without having to spend any skill points. Any of the pre-set origins can change their base class, but the benefit to taking an origin character is an extra tag for additional dialog choices (see the Tags section below). The remaining origin characters will all be on the boat as the game begins and eventually can become companions.

When first starting out, you can choose your own custom character or one of six origin story characters. Larian made some changes to the basic skill sets and options this time around - so even if you played the previous game, there's still some things you need to know before getting started.īelow we cover everything you need to know if you want to gain the most skills and have the best chance at winning combat in the early portions of the campaign.
