Pillars of Eternity 2: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

Yeah, This Game Wants to Hurt You

Look, I've got 600 hours in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, and I still remember my first island. I picked a Cipher, thought I was clever, and got absolutely wrecked by a pack of xaurips because I didn't understand how focus worked. The game doesn't hold your hand. It throws you into a gorgeous, cursed archipelago and expects you to figure out that your wizard's spellbook is empty unless you rested, or that your tank needs 100+ deflection before level 5 or they're just a corpse with a shield. If you're here because you alt-tabbed out of a loading screen after your third party wipe, I feel you. This guide is the stuff I wish someone had told me before I spent four hours rebuilding my party on the Defiant.

Where the Game Screws You (And Why You're Not Stupid)

Here's the honest truth: Deadfire's difficulty curve is a brick wall disguised as a beach vacation. The first island, Port Maje, is relatively forgiving. Then you sail to Neketaka and suddenly every fight has three archers who crit for 60 damage, a wizard with Confusion, and a rogue that backstabs your backline before you can blink. The game doesn't tell you that Accuracy is the single most important stat in the entire game. It doesn't explain that Armor Rating isn't a flat reduction—it's a threshold system where 1 point of over-armor cuts damage by 25%, and 4 points over makes you immune to that source. I spent my first playthrough stacking Intellect on my fighter because I thought "bigger AoE = better." I was wrong.

The biggest pain point new players hit is character creation paralysis. You pick a class, a subclass, a culture, a background, and then distribute stats with numbers that look like D&D but work completely differently. A Might of 18 doesn't make you hit harder; it makes all your damage and healing scale by +24%. A Resolve of 10 means you're going to get interrupted every time an enemy sneezes near you. The game buries penetration mechanics in tooltips you'll never read. You'll attack a lagufaeth with a sword that does 7-12 damage but it shows 0.4 damage because you didn't check their Armor Rating vs your Penetration. That's not your fault—it's the game's fault for being obtuse.

And the ship combat? I almost quit over ship combat. I thought I had to board every enemy vessel and duke it out on deck. Turns out, if you have good cannons and a crew with high Resolve, you can sink them from range before they even board. But the game introduces ship battles with a tutorial that's basically "press these buttons and pray." It's bad. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.

First Steps: Stop Dying in the First Zone

Alright, boots on the ground. You've just made a character. You're on the Defiant. Here's what to do that the game won't tell you:

• Immediately recruit Eder from the first island. He's a fighter, and if you don't have a tank, you're going to die. Set him up with a shield and the Rapid Recovery passive. He should be your front line until level 7.
• Swap your starting armor from "fine plate" to "fine mail" if you're a squishy caster. Plate gives better Armor Rating but slows your recovery speed by 50%. That means your wizard takes twice as long between spells. You'll get killed in that wind-up.
• Don't fight everything you see in the starting cave under Port Maje. The Spider Queen encounter is level 5 content. You're level 2. You can sneak past. The game rewards stealth with experience for exploration, not just combat. Sneak past, come back at level 5, and laugh.
• Buy a single healing potion from the vendor in Port Maje. Just one. Use it when your main character drops below 25% health. Don't hoard potions like it's Skyrim—you'll find more, and hoarding gets your party killed.
• Level your party to 3 before even boarding your ship. Do the side quests in Port Maje: the help the smith, the kid with the stolen loot, and the merchant's ledger. These give 1,800 XP total and zero combat risk. Take them.

The most important thing: save your game before every ship sail. There's a random encounter table. You can hit a Storm of Eternity event at sea that will kill your entire crew if you fail a skill check. I lost a 10-hour playthrough to that. Save in two rotating slots. Trust me.

Expert Tricks the Game Never Explains

Once you've got your feet wet and your party isn't dying to the first xaurip camp, it's time to dig into the mechanics that separate "surviving" from "steamrolling."

Accuracy is king. Stats in Deadfire are not balanced. Accuracy determines your chance to hit AND your chance to crit. A single point of Accuracy is worth roughly 1.5 points of any other offensive stat, because every miss is 0 damage and every crit doubles your damage. My barbarian with a two-hander and 24 Accuracy (thanks to gear and buffs) hits crits on 30% of swings. My wizard with 12 Accuracy? Misses half the time. Don't judge a character by their damage numbers—judge them by their accuracy.

Penetration math is everything. Every weapon has a Penetration value. Every enemy has an Armor Rating. If your Pen is equal to or higher than their Armor, you deal full damage. If your Pen is 1 point lower, you deal 75% damage. 2 points lower? 50% damage. 3+ points lower? You deal 10% damage—basically tickling them. So that Fine Sabre with 7 Pen you found? It's garbage against the 10 AR skeletons in the Sacred Stair. You need a crushing weapon (clubs, maces, hammers) or a spell that lowers armor. There's a spell called Armor of Faith that gives +2 AR to your whole party—it's basically a cheat code early game.

Spellcasters need to rest to regain their spell slots. I know, that's obvious. But here's the trick: camping supplies are cheap. You can buy 20 of them for pocket change. Don't be afraid to rest after every single fight on a tough map. There's no penalty for resting except in scripted encounters. I rest after every 2-3 fights in dungeons. It keeps your spellcasters topped up and your party healthy. The game's encounter design assumes you're resting every 4-5 fights. If you're running on fumes, you're playing their game, not yours.

Ship combat is easy once you understand chains. When you're in a ship battle, the goal is to allign your broadside. Turn your ship so the side of your boat—the side with the cannons—faces the enemy. Fire all three cannons on that side (you need a crew with at least 3 gunners). A full broadside with standard cannons does about 80-100 hull damage. Most enemy ships have 300-500 hull. So you need 4-6 good volleys. But if you use Chain Shot ammo, you can destroy their sails first, making them slow. Then you can sit at distance and pummel them without getting boarded. Boarding is only for when you outnumber them 2:1—otherwise they'll cut your crew to ribbons.

Multiclassing is arguably the best way to play. The game allows you to take two classes on the same character. This sounds like you're splitting levels, but in practice, you get more abilities earlier, and the synergy is brutal. A Fighter/Cipher can build up focus from melee hits while generating Accuracy buffs, then drop a Whispers of Treason to mind control the enemy tank. A Paladin/Chanter can passively heal the party while stacking Armor Rating so high that enemies deal 0 damage. My current main is a Wizard/Rogue who uses Arms of the Archmagi to get a massive Accuracy buff, then backstabs for 120 damage. Single-class characters are fine, but multiclass gives you flexibility that saves you from bad situations.

Five Mistakes That Got Me Wiped

I've made every dumb mistake in this game. Here are the ones that cost me the most time, so you don't have to repeat them:

• Ignoring Perception on every character. I thought Perception was just for spotting traps. In Deadfire, Perception governs your Accuracy with weapons and your ability to see through stealthed enemies. I rolled a party with average Perception of 12. Every single enemy had +4 Deflection against me. I missed 40% of my attacks. It took me three hours to realize my primary stat was wrong. Every martial character needs at least 15 Perception by level 5.
• Putting a wizard in heavy armor. I thought "more armor = more survival." But wizard spells have a recovery penalty tied to armor. Full plate gives a +55% recovery time. That means my wizard cast one spell, then stood there for 8 seconds doing nothing while the enemy rogue ran up and stabbed them. Put your casters in fine robes or padded cloth (recovery penalty of 0-15%) and rely on positioning, not armor.
• Not using food buffs. I ignored the cooking system for my first 30 hours. Then I learned that Stew of Long Walking gives +2 Stamina per second regeneration for 12 hours. That's basically infinite healing out of combat. Grilled Fish gives +3 Accuracy against all enemies. Food is cheap and lasts multiple in-game days. I now have my crew cook before every major fight. The difference is night and day.
• Selling unique items for gold. The game gives you a lot of unique weapons, rings, and necklaces. I sold the Ring of Guarding from the Temple of Berath because I needed 500 gold. Later, that ring was BIS (best in slot) for my tank. There is no guide for which items are safe to sell. My rule: if it has a special name and a colored border, keep it. You can always make gold from bounties and selling generic weapons. Unique items are often part of a set or quest later.
• Ignoring resolve on your main character. Resolve controls your interrupt resistance and your dialogue checks. If your Resolve is below 12, you will be interrupted constantly during spellcasting, and you'll fail crucial dialogue checks that lock you out of entire quest branches. I once failed a dialogue check with the pirate queen because my Resolve was 8. She attacked me. I wasn't ready. Wiped my entire party. Now I never drop below 14 Resolve on my main.

Stuff People Ask in the Discord at 2 AM

Q: I keep dying on the first island, what am I doing wrong?
A: You're probably trying to clear the Underwater Cave in Port Maje at level 2. Don't. That cave is for levels 4-5. Go do the surface quests first. Kill the lagufaeth by the beach (they're level 3 and go down easy if you use a tank with a shield). Also, make sure you're using the Auto-Pause feature. If you're not pausing, you're playing wrong.

Q: Best class for a first playthrough?
A: Paladin. No question. Paladins get a passive aura that heals the party every second, they have high Armor Rating, and their Lay on Hands is a panic button that saves lives. Pick the Shieldbearer of St. Elcga subclass. It's immune to fear and makes your tank unkillable. You can then learn the rest of the game while your paladin facetanks everything.

Q: How do I get more crew for my ship?
A: In Neketaka, there's a tavern called The Deep. Talk to the Harbormaster there. He'll send you to a few islands where you can recruit sailors. Also, every time you win a ship boarding action, you can take prisoners and force them to join your crew. A full crew of 15+ sailors makes ship combat way easier. You need at least 3 gunners, 2 boatswains (for speed), and the rest can be deckhands.

Q: Is there a way to respec?
A: Yes. Talk to Vela (the ship's cook) or any innkeeper. You can respec a character's abilities and talents for 500 gold per character. You CAN'T respec your race, culture, or starting class. So don't worry if you picked a bad talent early—just respec it later. I've respecced my main character three times in a single run.

Q: What's with the "Obsidian Edition" content? Should I buy the DLC?
A: The DLC adds two new areas—Beast of Winter and The Forgotten Sanctum—which are some of the best content in the game. They add new equipment, class options, and story. But they're also harder than the base game. I recommend finishing the base game first, then tackling the DLC on a second playthrough with a higher-level party. The level cap is 20 without DLC and 25 with it. Don't do the DLC before level 15.

Q: How do I get better equipment without buying it?
A: There's a legendary weapon called The Blade of the First Heart hidden in the Maws of Eternity (the big portal in the sky). To get there, you need to complete the main quest up to the point where you can take the portal from the Forest of the Dead. It's a level 12 area. The sword has +5 Accuracy and +2 Penetration, making it one of the best weapons in the game. It's worth the trek. Also, check every vendor after you level up—their stock refreshes with new items every 2 character levels.