Pawns with max enemy knowledge, dragonforged gear, all the best skills and augments etc... but level 26??

[funkmonster7]

How is this possible? I have a favorite rented pawn right now who is essentially all that. But even my main Sorcerer character on Normal difficulty doesn't even have max rank for Sorcerer and Mage, yet this rented pawn has max rank for Sorcerer and Mage (as shown from the augments since she has both Acuity and the other mage +10% magick one). What is more impressive, is max enemy knowledge on everything.

She also isn't the only rented pawn who has this, another rented pawn at level 21 (Ranger) also has this. Is this from NG++++ or something?

I remember the Mage rented pawn's MC has something like 196 hours of gameplay, he is already at max level (infinite level sign). So I don't think he cheated.

[toasty frosting]

There is a weird interaction with the pawn rental system where if you start a fresh New Game but your previous pawn has rents in the rift, your new pawn will inherit the knowledge gained from your old pawn. It happened to me once when I came back to the game and wanted to start over from scratch.

Also, pawns gain knowledge while rented, but can't gain XP that way. So theoretically if the other player's active, gets their pawn rented frequently, and updates their pawn and rebrines them, that pawn could theoretically get all those knowledge stars at a low level.

But also you can cheat knowledge in or reduce XP gained through mods. Could be that, even if everything else's legit. Several knowledge stars require literally hundreds of BBI enemy kills (Poisoned Undead, Banshees, Garm).

[Old Goat]

Whenever you start a new game all the area and beast knowledge your pawn got in your last game will download onto your new pawn. Thus, it's quite possible for a level 1 or 2 pawn to have full beast and area knowledge. Additionally, your pawn stays in the Rift and can be rented by other players long after you quit playing. Thus if you quit playing a year ago and started a new game today, the first time you rest on line after creating your pawn in a new game ALL the RCs your pawn rented during the year, all the knowledge, gifts it received, etc will download into your game. Other players can stick non-BBI dragon forged equipment onto your pawn as long as it's not upgraded to silver or gold dragon forged levels.
If you toss your pawn into the brine when you start a new game and play the game in solo mode you can get to the point where the Duke attacks you and the guards are going to start chasing you in the Noble area of GS. Just prior to that, touch a rift stone to retrieve your level 2 pawn, stick the gear you obtained while playing solo onto your pawn, hop up onto the wall near the GS cathedral and start killing those guards. They re-spawn almost immediately so it won't take long for your pawn to fill all 9 vocation spots. Put two of the rings that increase DCPs earned per kill on your pawn and it'll happen even faster enabling you to acquire the pawns vocation augments despite it being at a low level in experience.

[funkmonster7]

.... I... see... a lot of this is really a lot for me to take in. But many thanks for the response.

I also forgot to say, this rented mage pawn even has Sinew which is a fighter augment. So I was really confused, haha.

Sadly I never rent my pawn online, I just don't like having a huge RC income because it means I can just hire a level 200 pawn and absolutely trivialize everything. So I've never noticed my newly made pawns in new games (I never played on Hard Mode before, only Normal) getting knowledges from previous game saves...

[Old Goat]

You can hire a friends pawn without cost, no matter what level it is. RCs are VERY important because you'll need a lot of them to acquire and upgrade BBI armor and weapons. The foes in BBI are much tougher and you'll find yourself doing little or no damage using the kind of weapons you get in the main game. I know a player that burned through over 300K in RCs trying to get a particular sword so even a couple million in RCs might not be enough to fully equip your Arisen and pawn. In normal mode I can typically acquire all 9 vocation slots for my pawn in both the Warrior and Fighter vocations before reaching level 40. For a melee pawn having Bastion, Sinew, Vehemence, Clout and proficiency is not a bad thing, Toss in Awareness (from the sorc tree) to mitigate magic damage or Tenacity to avoid it being killed outright with one shot and he's a real bad ass.
Make no mistake, in normal or easy mode it's entirely possible to complete the game playing and leveling up in just in one vocation and using only the augments available to that vocation. It's not easy, but it can be done (including doing the BBI part). JSYK The game tends to favor a more balanced build in stats. Renting pawns no more than 10 levels above or below you Arisens level is cost effective in terms of how much exp you gain per kill. When it comes to DCPs you earn a higher percentage of them killing foes that provide 100 pts of exp or less per kill so don't overlook those boars, bunnies and sea gulls. Play the game anyway you want. All that matters is that you are having fun.

[funkmonster7]

So by the sounds of it, just farming RCs in BBI is not going to work that well, right? I should rent my pawn out then? She is a sorcerer pawn, not sure how well she will do in teams. She might become mage healer at some point because I might switch from Sorc to MA.

Spell Sync is strong but it is so easy to screw it up (or pawn screws it up by standing in the wrong place).

[Old Goat]

The fastest way to get RCs is by having your pawn rented by other players. I've received a million RCs from a single rental a few times (thanks to all those generous players for that).
A pawns inclinations can be a show stopper when it comes to someone renting it. Having the Guardian inclination or more than one buff can result in a pawn being passed over. If you want to use a buff then one is enough with fire for the early game and holy for the late game. Personally, I like a sorc pawn with High level spells rather than Grand level and I never have more than one spell caster in my party so got no idea about the pros and cons of spell sync. Sorcs get rented more often than mages once a player that rents spell chuckers gets close to level 50. Advertise your pawn on the link page so folks know it's there and you're an active player. Keep the info up to date and you'll snag yourself a few rentals. You may have to farm BBI anyway to get the cursed BBI fobs. Moving from level 100 to 200 is a bit of a grind no matter what. Welcome to the community!

[funkmonster7]

Thanks! Yeah I started playing DD:DA again, I stopped a while back due to boredom.

The reason my Sorc pawn has High everything (but no Grand yet) is mainly due to me being a Sorc and I spell sync with her when I get a good chance. But I'm starting to find that strategy to be very inflexible and open to interruption from ranged enemies, or even the bandit striders. Furthermore, since I can only have 4 characters in a party, dedicating half the team to offensive spellcasting is quite rough. I'm realizing that a lot of late-game Fighter pawns don't have Shield Drum, so these pawns don't do too well as tanks.

I'm switching over to Magick Archer now though, so I might change my pawn to being a Mage healer. I gave Magick Knight a go, I liked it but it has problems when trying to chase down a Griffin or something due to how defensive the playstyle is.

[Asphe]

I'd keep your main as Sorcerer and gear/augment it for spell-synching with another sorcie. You really only want a mage for buffs (i.e. boons) or healing... but when you have a pair of sorcies dropping meteors... noone need a damage buff (according to every goblin I've met) and you can always stuff your pawns with weed, so you don't need healing (except for that one spell that cures debilitation - which is a sorcie spell)

MA is the class to go with. It's so good, you won't even need to use periapts or any cheesy way to beat BBI. Your sorcie pair can clear the trash and you have a free pawn slot for... Fighter? Strider (yes... go with the pointy stick guy) probably. Plus MA pretty much uses the same gear as your sorcie pawn. Just add a magick bow. Maybe daggers.

For more 'put all eggs in one basket' gameplay... try going with FOUR sorcies - spellsynching. You can even kill metal golems... eventually (meteors do physical damage - even to that weakpoint on the bottom of the foot). Cast High Maelstrom if you don't want to see anything gory

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Those super pawns with max stars at level 20ish? Probably modded. It's not that it's impossible to have a pawn like that, it's just that the player has to really jump through hoops to keep the level that low. Just getting 3 stars for area knowledge around the starter area for my pawn jumped her 20 levels from random encounters. Simply just dragonforging a complete set of gear gives a lot of XP. There are ways to do it, like getting renters to 'teach' your pawn all the knowledge but....

Not impossible, but improbable.

[toasty frosting]

Spell syncing is incredibly powerful if you focus on it, but you have to search for Sorcerer pawns with the same spells and for player Sorcs it faces stiff competition from Holy Focused Bolt.

As for buff skills, the elemental enchantment skills suck in BBI for their 'intended' purpose of giving physical attackers elemental damage. Enemies have too high magick defense and resistances for them to do anything with non-enchanted weapons. Only real reason to use it is to facilitate Holy Focus Bolt strats. I think the only pawn buff skills that're worth using are Steel Will and Spellscreen. But even then, fully BBI3 equipped pawns are so bulky it doesn't make a huge difference.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

I'm realizing that a lot of late-game Fighter pawns don't have Shield Drum, so these pawns don't do too well as tanks.

The thing about aggro is that it can be easy to overwrite by dealing damage or being too close, so Shield Drum can be unreliable for holding aggro compared to having that same pawn aggressively spam Dragon's Maw. The most consistent use case is to lure down harpies and gargoyles to ground level, but even then Shield Summons has a shorter and safer animation.

You could probably work some real tank magic with a Stamina Hammer Warrior and a bunch of charge skills and Temerity - the aggro effect is extremely strong unless the enemy is raging - but they may as well be unicorns.