Pawn Guide (Mechanics/Basic Knowledge)

[Paprika]

What are Pawns?

Your main Pawn is your friend for the whole game. (Unless you throw him off a cliff)
You're forced to make one at the beginning of the game and you can hire up to 2 Pawns created by other players.
Pawns can be : Strider, Ranger, Fighter, Warrior, Mage and Sorcerer
Hybrid classes (Mystic Knight, Magick Archer, and Assasin) aren't available to Pawns.
Pawns are one of the most interesting mechanics of Dragon's Dogma, because they work on the principle of "monkey see, monkey do".

How do Pawns work?

Pawns learn to do things over time by mimicking your actions
Let's say I'm a strider, and my pawn is a strider too:
My pawn will learn how to behave (AS A STRIDER, THIS IS IMPORTANT) according to how I play my class
If I climb on certain monsters, use a special kind of arrows or spend my time gathering items instead of fighting, my pawn will do exactly the same, after a while.

Once a Pawn kills enough of a certain kind of monster, or it just uses the right spell on it, it gains knowledge on that monster.
A pawn gains knowledge on quests too, when you hire a pawn with a level higher than yours (not recommended), you can sometimes hear spoilers on the quest you're currently doing.
The Bestiary Knowledge goes from 0 to 3 stars, don't forget to advertise your pawn properly if he's a master at fighting Griffins or other mythical creatures !

Your pawn (and rented pawns) collect items on the field:
mushrooms, sacks of gold, arrows, etc (not equipment)
Don't worry about the rented pawns "stealing" what you give them, or what they pick up.
The only thing Pawns bring back with them when you send them back home, is the equipment you forced them to put on (which resulted in your Pawn wearing a thong in the console version).
You can take anything from a rented pawn's INVENTORY, anything you EQUIP on them is considered a gift to the other player if you send them back with it (that's how we traded equipments on the console version)

One can give pawns some items in order to be lighter (being the lightest possible is important, since inventory weight affects your running and your stamina recovery)

Renting another player's pawn takes Rift Crystals, which are SUPER important in the expansion.
If you rent a Pawn from one of your friends, it's free (I'm not 100% sure, but that's how it was in the console version).

How do I know how my Pawn will behave?

Now getting to the most important (hard) part, Inclination:

Your pawn has 2 main behaviour schemes that you can see on its status (on the start menu), and one "optional" behaviour, which you can only know by talking to your pawn.

They are :

Scather -> Your pawn goes for the biggest enemy first, climbing him most of the time, and ignoring every small threat
A pawn gets this inclination if you rush into fights, or use the command "Go!" (more about those later)

Challenger -> Your pawn focuses on Magick-casting enemies, or bow users

Utilitarian -> Your pawn focuses on buffs, grappling enemies, and even using group healing items (!)
This behaviour works best with a pawn with good Bestiary Knowledge, allowing him to decide which buffs are the best against a certain kind of enemy
Using the "Help!" command is a bad idea, as it will mainly give your pawn the Guardian inclination

Mitigator -> Your pawn focuses on the smallest threat first, like a goblin for example.
It allows you to only look at the biggest threat in the fight, as a sorcerer will use AoE spells to kill all the small fry at once.

Medicant -> Your pawn focuses on healing, or removing debuffs.
It's useful for Healing mages, since they'll stay away from the fight and heal you/buff you from afar

Guardian (bad) -> Your pawn comes to your help ALL THE TIME, stopping whatever he was doing, even casting for mages (!)
This is the reason we avoid using the action commands, you never want this inclination on your pawn, and seasoned players don't like renting a Guardian pawn

Nexus -> Your pawn focuses on reviving other pawns, during boss fights for example
It's really easy to get this inclination, and it's not very useful

Pioneer -> Your pawn scouts ahead of the party, locates items, enemies, BUT he might engage a fight without you, which is pretty dumb
You get this inclination by using the "Go!" command outside of combat

Acquisitor -> This inclination works well with Pioneer, the huge downside is that your pawn will focus on gathering items, even when in combat.

Miscellaneous Tips

It is not recommended to use the D-pad commands ("Go!", "Help!" , "Come!") as they will give your pawn useless inclinations (most of the time)

At the Encampment, pretty early into the game, a vendor sells "Inclination Elixirs", so you don't have to teach your pawn everyhting by yourself, you just have to know what behaviour you want your pawn to have.

Thanks to ҉Minorou : It is always free to hire pawns of your level or lower. It only costs rift crystals to hire pawns of a higher level than you. Your friends' pawns will always be free to hire, regardless of level.

However, please be aware that there is an experience bonus/penalty for having support pawns of a different level than you. For example, if you hire a pawn 7 levels lower than you, you'll earn 7% more experience from killing enemies. If you hire a pawn 10 levels higher than you, you'll get 10% less experience from kills. This bonus/penalty goes up to a maximum of 25 levels, or 25% bonus/penalty."



Ask anything I might have forgotten, there's a ton of information the game doesn't give you

[King_Mandu]

Thanks! I'm truly impressed by how passionate the community is and makes me really excited to dive into the game on release.

[kuaikukia]

Question, If I throw my pawn of the cliff, Is he or she permanent dead? Like forever?

[Paprika]

Originally posted by kuaikukia:

Question, If I throw my pawn of the cliff, Is he or she die permanent?

Throwing rented pawns off a cliff takes them back to the Rift, meaning you have to rent them again

Throwing your main pawn off a cliff, or into the Brine, takes it back to the Rift too, but it's not permanent, and it's the only way to travel on your own

[҉̧ ҉̧҉ ҉Minorou ꧁💀꧂]

I'd like to add that it is always free to hire pawns of your level or lower. It only costs rift crystals to hire pawns of a higher level than you. Your friends' pawns will always be free to hire, regardless of level.

However, please be aware that there is an experience bonus/penalty for having support pawns of a different level than you. For example, if you hire a pawn 7 levels lower than you, you'll earn 7% more experience from killing enemies. If you hire a pawn 10 levels higher than you, you'll get 10% less experience from kills. This bonus/penalty goes up to a maximum of 25 levels, or 25% bonus/penalty.

[Brotown]

Awesome, Paprika! Awesome awesome awesome. How I wish I had anything like this on my first play through. Woulda saved me a headache or two, haha. This is nice for you to do for the community/new players. Hopefully they pin it. Well done!

"There Master! Harpies!"

[Paprika]

Originally posted by ̧҉ ҉Minorou:

I'd like to add that it is always free to hire pawns of your level or lower. It only costs rift crystals to hire pawns of a higher level than you. Your friends' pawns will always be free to hire, regardless of level.

However, please be aware that there is an experience bonus/penalty for having support pawns of a different level than you. For example, if you hire a pawn 7 levels lower than you, you'll earn 7% more experience from killing enemies. If you hire a pawn 10 levels higher than you, you'll get 10% less experience from kills. This bonus/penalty goes up to a maximum of 25 levels, or 25% bonus/penalty.

added, I totally forgot about that

[Sundowner]

you can also run around with no pawns if you really want a challenge lol

[Canteu]

Solo Hard mode is the only way to play. I found the pawns to just be dummies and never worked right, regardless of inclination, so I'll stick solo.

Don't forget, you get 25% bonus exp per missing pawn slot (up to 75%). So there is a benefit to not always having more than your main pawn out, generally if you build them right they can support you well enough on their own. Bearing in mind, the more exp you get the less % Discipline Points you receive. So if you're low level farming for DP, take a full group with you, although I believe it's impossible to get less than 100 exp on hard via any creature other than like rabbits and birds. Or just stand on a certain wall and be done with it.

But playing solo assassin at night on hard is the best thing ever.

[Paprika]

Originally posted by Sundowner:

you can also run around with no pawns if you really want a challenge lol

Originally posted by Canteu:

Solo Hard mode is the only way to play. I found the pawns to just be dummies and never worked right, regardless of inclination, so I'll stick solo.

This guide is for new players, every veteran knows a solo assassin with the Autonomy augment is the best DPS

[Canteu]

I know just playing around. Added some actual advice, I think.

[Paprika]

Originally posted by Canteu:

I know just playing around. Added some actual advice, I think.

I'm waiting for the release to publish the EXP/Discipline Points farming guide
Thanks for noting it though, but I feel like new players should try playing with a pawn (and get mad at the chatter)

[Canteu]

Luckily we can now mute the pawns! Or turn their speech rate down. New players should have it turned all the way up though, experience as intended.

Even with the speech rate down though, we'll never escape the masterworks.

[Paprika]

My main issue with muting the pawns is that they sometimes give useful advice

[Canteu]

Originally posted by Paprika:

My main issue with muting the pawns is that they sometimes give useful advice

Yeah, like, "It bears the head of a ♥♥♥♥!" and "This looks interesting..." when they pick up a rock!

Poetry slam.

[Paprika]

You can stop being so cynical friend
I was talking about quotes like : "Defeating the goat's head makes a chimera wild."

But I have to agree, sometimes pawns say useless stuff