Basic Tips to Make Life Easier
I have been playing for a few days now and thought i would make a list of basic, non-spoiler tips to help people have an easier time playing the game and hopefully more fun. This list of tips will be updated semi regularly so be sure to favorite it for future reference. And if you have any non-spoiler tips that can give people some help post them in the comments section and i will add them.
1. You can pick up barrels and crates into your inventory and put them down again later. This includes chests you cant unlock yet, explosive barrels and a few crates to stack up and use for high ground or to barricade doorways and control how many enemies you have to fight at once. You can also move stuff like this by simply clicking and dragging but if its red the people or creatures nearby may get mad. There are a lot of things hidden behind stacks of crates.
2. Speak with animals lasts until your next long rest, as does speak with dead. Some spells (like produce flame) will add a little extra button bar on the far right you can use to recast without use another spell slot. Use them! They are basically required if you want to learn all you can before encounters.
3. Stealth is always an option. Send a stealthy character on their own to scout ahead. Also the silence spell stops the sound of you killing somebody from traveling and will stop enemies from calling for help. combine this with minor illusion or the cat familiar and you can pick enemies off one by one. Be wary of line of sight or cut it off with a darkness spell or stacks of crates and barrels.
4. Send everything you can pick up but dont need to your camp. You can hold down shift or control to select multiple items at once in your inventory. Also make sure to empty your camp supplies at camp once in a while so the weight doesn't build up. And have your highest charisma character sell the stuff. You will get more gold for it. EDIT: If you are using pouches and backpacks to keep your stuff organized you can fill one with stuff you want to sell and sell the whole container at once then buy the container back for a couple gold. Thanks for the tip Manus Terra!
5. You can change you prepared spells around after a long rest but before you leave camp. Plan ahead for your next encounters! EDIT: you can change spells whenever you are not in combat! thanks for the heads up somebodybond!
6. Your wizard can learn spells from scrolls. Try not to use scrolls until after at least one wizard (like Gale) has learned the spell.
7. Don't be afraid to try to push things off high places! Thunderwave is great for this but high strength characters can use the push command much more effectively, or you can just right click and throw to yeet things where ever you want. Yeet Queen Karlach is great for this.
8. Jumping uses less of your movement then moving does. You can use it to get a little more distance at the cost of your bonus action. Sometimes its worth it.
9. Don't be afraid to try and talk your way into places even if you plan to wipe them out later. Worst case scenario you get to scout things before battle starts. Best case scenario you can create a number of opportunities to reduce numbers and make future fights much easier.
10. You can use the throw command to toss potions at your downed party members to heal them. As a bonus this gives the potion a very small area of effect. EDIT: I saw in a video of similar tips that you can put the potion on the ground and hit it to increase the size of the area of effect.
11. You can dual wield Salami. Yes you read that right. Do with that what you will. XD
12. Dip your weapon in anything you can! Extra effects are great. A common one I see in videos is carrying a candle around to put down and dip your weapon for some fire damage but this also works with the acid left by spells and probably other things as well.