D:OS2 TheMadGamer's List of Useful Things

According to Steam, I've clocked 130 hours in D:OS2 so far. This number should exclude about 5 hours of sitting idle (damn you real life) and two semi-playthroughs of Fort Joy. There's tons of info on the net about characters, classes, stats, quests, and so on. But here's my list of useful little things:

• In the Game Options, set Quicksaves and Autosaves to 25. ESC->Options-> Gameplay. Press F5 before combat. Press F5 during combat. Press F5 during dialog. Press F5 just cause. In short, press F5 using the full power of your inner OCD child.
  
  
• Make a manual save at the very start of each playing session of the game.
  
  
• Make a manual save before you distribute level up attribute points. I call these save games "Level X" where x is the level I'm distributing my points for.
  
  
• Make a manual save before you think you may do anything in the game you may want to do over.
  
  
• If you're an organization freak like I am, use bags to help you organize. Keep an eye out for ROPE during the game and pick them up whenever you see them, they are part 1 of 2 parts to making bags. When you hold the ALT key to highlight items on the ground, most of the time rope will NOT highlight (by highlight I mean text that pops up stating the name of the item on the ground). Use rope+leather strips to craft bags. Pickup backpacks and pouches you find as you play and use them!
  
  
• Devote a separate bag for each of the following item types, catered to that character's role (i.e. warrior character's food bag has +str food, caster character's potion bag has +int etc.), for each character in your party:

• Devote a single bag to a specific character, of the following item types:

• Look at your map often, especially in "interior" places, as locations that you can teleport to will stand out.
  
  
• Some combat situations will start with the enemy initiating dialog with whichever character you have selected. While this dialog is happening, move your other characters into good locations for the fight. You can also position fire barrels next to bad guys and many times they'll just stand there and let you do it. Now's also a good time for a manual save!
  
  
• Keep your carrying load down by selling wares to NPCs you meet out in the wilds. First thing I do when talking with NPCs is switch to the trade screen to see how much gold they've got, and then sell as much junk as I can. This will save you a few trips back to town if you're like me and pick up everything.
  
  
• Early on you'll find "Fane's Mask of the Shapshifter." If you don't have an elf in your party, use this head armor item on any character to gain the ability to shapeshift into an elf to eat remains. If you want to maximize the results, save your game before you eat - occasionally you will get a skill from the act. If the skill doesn't fit the character properly, you can reload and use the mask on a character while eating said remains to have the character best suited for the skill receive it.
  
  
• Use Spirit Vision as much as you can while exploring. There are ghosts everywhere.
  
  
• Periodically talk to your companions for updates and insights… especially after character-specific quest related progress is made by your companions.
  
  
• Loremaster & Lucky Charm effect the whole party while Persuasion applies to each character specifically. What this means is that anyone can identify an item and the game will use the Loremaster value of the party member with the highest value in Loremaster. Same when looting containers, anyone can loot a container and receive the Lucky Charm bonus of the character with the highest value in Lucky Charm. However, when in dialog, it's best when you can use the character with the highest value in Persuasion as other members of your party with lower values in Persuasion will only have their own Persuasion value checked when trying to persuade NPCs.

I'll add more as I play. Enjoy!

Last Update 03/08/2018 @ 10:47AM PST

Good tips, though I never used a bag. The sort & filter options were enough for me. Mostly.

On the second island, the fish monger guy is the PERFECT guy to sell everything you want to sell. While people buy things from you, they never seem to sell them off so, if you sell everything to one person in an area then discover you sold something you want back, you know right where to go to buy it back.

Speaking of options - go into the options and turn off the auto-add-to-hotbar options except the skills one. That will keep your hotbar from filling up with random junk.

When you're done with an item, shift-click on it in inventory to mark it as a 'ware' and sell it off with all the random junk you'll find.

You might want to keep a set of "add items" around to get over requirements. For instance, shields require a certain constitution to use but also often add to constitution once you equip them. If you've got a 10 CON but need 13 and the shield gives you +3 CON then you simply need to equip items to add 3 to your CON temporarily. So just equip an amulet of +1 CON and two rings of +1 CON each, equip the shield, then switch the amulet and rings back to more useful items. {Come to think of it, bags would have been pretty handy for those.} Items that add immunities or spells useful outside of combat, like those teleport gloves, are good to keep forever, too.

One or two points into a skill area can open up a lot of spells to you! Attack powers and HP healing powers that don't match up with your primary stat won't be of much use but many spells work just as well for a ultra-dumb fighter as for a 40+ INT mage.

And one tip about certain, special spells that's maybe a little too good:

If you chose the route of stealing; remember you can only steal once. Items in shop-keepers tend to level with player so better to steal just before you leave rather than just after you arrive (unless you are desperate).