SilentTheGray

It is not going to make as big of a difference as it might seem in the beginning. @witchbolts also prefers the non-violent scenarios and there is nothing wrong with that, as far as tactics go, either a perfect mix of Physical and Magic, full Phys or full Magic are all very viable options, everything else has the ability to work in some strange kind of ways, but you start to mitigate in other areas and get some super strange builds. In response to your statement about the four toons, I will just go in order: 1.) I usually advise against trying to go into both melee and ranged with a few exceptions, sparking swings is a wonderfully weird build, as well as a combination of Melee + Geomancer/Poison otherwise I do not advise anything else, all of the other hybrid builds I've seen are just not that great. 2.) You mentioned conjuring in the first one and here as well though conjurer isn't your primary focus on either of these and should be avoided. For a ranged bowman style build you want your focus to be on firstly mobility, because this allows you to position yourself in the fight to get that extra +% damage from having the high ground effect. Then you can go into finesse, followed by wits after if it's needed and lastly following with two-handed. You have to be very specific with this sort of build especially when you get into end game later. All of the people I've seen start as a ranger end up going an entirely different route in the end because they don't want to prioritize to make ranged their primary method of attack. 3.) Summoner got a buff in the most recent patch and is even stronger than it used to be. Full on summoners are potent and deadly at any stage of the game. With that being said, since you are out of combat yourself in most fights and rely on your summons and totems to do most of your damage, this allow such a role to be more open and flexible and can fill some gaps in your party composition such as if you need more of a healer or a poison bot for undead, or a boon master to buff up allies etc etc 4.) I have never in any of the games I've played ran a healer, you can, and I have played through Honour mode without one. It it just fluff in this game and doesn't really do a whole lot to dedicate one role to healing. With that being said this is where I want to break out your first role you mentioned a tank, and yes that's important, but tanking will not also allow you to do damage if you want a good tanking role in early to mid game so what you might think of in World of Warcraft for example, that's not how a tank is in here because there are several variations to tanking which come in either one of two forms: A.) Mitigation - arguably the best tanks in Divinity Original Sin 2, but this kind of tank focuses more on crowd control skills like knock downs, stuns, and that sort of thing to demobilize the enemy and stop them from getting anywhere, you also bring a LOT of mobility skills so you can kite the enemies away from the rest of your group B.) Absorption - the more fun option for tanking, the first one I think of is a Necromancer Tank, every time you get hit blood is spilled on the ground you absorb that and heal, but also each attack you do a percentage of your damage is given back to you as healing, you have incredibly high physical and magic armor and focus solely on pumping up your numbers so people cannot use any crowd control on you. There are so many other neat variations to check out with this, I've had the most fun making these kinds of builds. Hopefully this answers your questions, that's been my experiences based on 400+ hours if you think of anything else I'd be happy to discuss it

What difficulty did you guys play on? @Anan, @Jaqques As you get further in the game experience ramps up and the more difficult you have the game set to the more linear the scale is. There are mods to alter all sorts of that stuff and there is a metric tonne of diversity for what you can do, but as with every game I recommend playing through it once without mods. I’m waiting on our modding queen to make a few suggestions for mods when she has time @witchbolts.

Here is a list of persuasion checks you'll encounter and the stats required to pass them. I would recommend only using this if you are having difficulty getting past a certain check:

Here is a list of resources for finding some really awesome builds. Any guide by the following three individuals I've had a lot of luck with: Zyocuh Lost Sinner Nerd Commando

Hey all, I went ahead and made this interest group so we can coordinate times to play divinity and have dicussions about builds and decorating with barrels and all the fun stuff the entire Divinity series has to offer. I have only played DOS:2, but wanted an interest group that had a bit of a broader scope because each game is different from what I understand.