Dragon’s Dogma 2: How to Recruit Pawns

Pawns are a vital part of the Dragon’s Dogma 2 experience. These NPCs will not only help you survive otherwise unwinnable battles but will offer additional storage, moral support, and even allow you to acquire additional items. The Pawn system helps give Dragon’s Dogma 2 its identity, and you’ll want to make the most of it as often as possible.

Knowing that and doing that are two different tasks, though. For as important as the Pawn system is in Dragon’s Dogma 2, it can be pretty confusing to navigate at the start of the game. As such, here are some of the most important things you need to know about recruiting and managing your various Pawns.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Main Pawns vs. Support Pawns

There are two types of Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Main Pawns and Support Pawns. 

Your Main Pawn is the Pawn you are asked to create shortly after you reach Borderwatch Outpost as part of the main quest. This is the most important Pawn in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Your Main Pawn will be with you for the rest of the adventure and will gain levels as your player character gains levels. That means that you will constantly want to ensure that the Main Pawn is well-equipped and “built” in a way that allows it to support your chosen playstyle and the rest of your party. This is also the Pawn that will end up having the biggest impact on other people’s adventures. More on that in a bit. 

Support Pawns, however, do not gain levels as you do. They are permanently stuck at the level you recruit them at, though you can impact their development in other ways (such as modifying their equipment). Because you cannot level them up through the normal course of play, though, you will constantly need to swap them out for more powerful Support Pawns as those additional Pawns become available. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Rift Crystals Explained

Rift Crystals are an essential part of recruiting Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2. They are the currency you’ll use to pay the most powerful Pawns for their services.

To earn Rift Crystals, you really just need to play the game as normal. Sometimes, you will receive Rift Crystals for completing major missions. More often, you’ll receive them as loot in treasure chests or after defeating certain enemies. You can also earn some extra Rift Crystals simply by sleeping in Inns. Interestingly, you also gain Rift Crystals whenever other players decide to recruit your Main Pawn into their party. Again, we’ll discuss that process more in a bit. 

Just note that not every Pawn in the game costs Rift Crystals. Some can be recruited for free and others are “rewarded” to you via other means. However, you will almost always need to spend Rift Crystals to recruit Pawns that are higher than your player character’s current level. As you will almost always want those kinds of Pawns, you will want to stockpile Rift Crystals as often as possible.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Recruiting Road Pawns

One of the easiest (and most common) ways to recruit a Support Pawn is simply to encounter one out in the world. As you play, you will regularly run into Pawns that will happily offer their services in exchange for Rift Crystals (or even for free if they are at or below your current level). Some are in fixed locations while others are simply wandering around. They’ll often automatically help you if you’re fighting a common enemy nearby, but if you want to retain their services, you’ll need to recruit them. 

Just note that these Pawns are rarely your best option. They can be useful in a pinch (especially early on), but you’ll eventually want to target certain Pawns via the game’s expansive Riftstone network. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2: How to Recruit Pawns With the Riftstone

The most powerful Support Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2 can only be recruited via Riftstones. You’ll encounter your first Riftstone early on as part of the main quest, but you’ll eventually discover numerous Riftstones spread throughout the world. Most settlements in the game will grant you access to a Riftstone. 

Once you find a Riftstone, you simply need to interact with it in order to begin the Pawn recruitment process. Once you’ve activated a Riftstone, you’ll be able to wander around the Rift and view various Pawns currently available to you. From there, just speak to the Pawn you’d like to recruit (or to view more information about), ask it to join your party, and pay its required Rift Crystal fee (if necessary).

You can also search for available Pawns via the Riftstone’s menu, though your ability to do so will be limited at first. For instance, you will not be able to search for “Previously Hired Pawns” or “Pawns Your Main Pawn Knows” right away. Those options will only fill out as you continue to play the game. However, other search options (such as Monthly Rankings) will be available to you right away even if you may not have the resources required to hire all of the Pawns available via those menus.

Crucially, there are actually two kinds of Riftstones in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Riftstones and Forgotten Riftstones. Riftstones are the ones you’ll find in most settlements, while Forgotten Riftstones are the ones spread throughout the game’s world. 

You’ll want to activate all of those Forgotten Riftstones you encounter along the way. Among other things, those Riftstones expand your Riftstone Network and allow you to perform an advanced search for Pawns that meet specific pieces of criteria associated with that Forgotten Riftstone. For instance, a Forgotten Riftstone you encounter may bring up the “Riftstone of the Straightforward” search criteria, which will then allow you to search for Pawns in the Rift that have a Straightforward Inclination. The more criteria you unlock, the easier it is to find specific kinds of Pawns.

Every now and then, one of those Forgotten Ritstones will instead produce an incredibly powerful support Pawn of a much higher level than your current character. You will almost always want to use that Pawn given their power level, but you don’t have to if you’d prefer to maintain your current party composition. 

As you level up and find more Forgotten Riftstones, you’ll have access to a much wider network of Pawns. However, there is yet another way to filter Pawns and recruit additional party members.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: How to Recruit Friend’s Pawns

Dragon’s Dogma 2 supports a loose online Network that allows players to recruit other players’ Main Pawns and have those players recruit your Main Pawn. Many of the Pawns you find in the game (whether through Riftstones or out in the world) are actually player-created Main Pawns. It’s a neat system made even better by the ability to directly recruit a friend’s Pawn. 

To recruit a friend’s Pawn in Dragon’s Dogma 2, you’ll first need to activate a Riftstone. There, choose the “Search for Pawn” option. In that menu, you’ll see the “Friends’ Pawns” option. Choose that option, and you’ll be able to recruit any eligible Pawns that anyone on your profile’s Friends List has created. Just note that this feature does not support cross-platform play, which means that PlayStation players can only recruit Pawns created by PlayStation players and so on. 

Alternatively, you can search for the ID associated with a specific Pawn. You’ll see these ID numbers under Pawns that are available via the Rift. You can always write them down and enter them manually if you wish to recruit that Pawn later. Alternatively, your friend can give you their Pawn’s ID (or any other Pawn IDs they happen to have) if you want to enter that ID manually and recruit the associated Pawn that way.

In general, it’s a good idea for friends to trade Pawns with friends when possible. This makes it much easier to earn Rift Crystals for each other and allows you to use those shared Pawns to trade items between worlds. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2: How to Dismiss Pawns

Since you’ll always want to have a full party of Pawns available to you, the best way to dismiss a Pawn in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is to simply recruit a new Pawn while you have a full party. Doing so will present you with the option to dismiss one of your current Pawns. Simply choose the Support Pawn you don’t want to travel with anymore and the new Pawn will take their place. 

However, you will want to be careful when choosing to dismiss Pawns. Any items that dismissed Pawn was carrying will be transferred back to your player’s storage rather than added to your inventory. If they are carrying something you’d like to retain access to, then be sure to manually take that item from the Pawn before dismissing them. Otherwise, you can always get it from your storage later. Alternatively, one of the best ways to shed some extra item weight is to give any superfluous items to a Pawn, dismiss them, and have everything they were carrying automatically sent to your storage instead of your inventory.

Please note, though, that any items your Pawn currently has equipped (meaning weapons and armor) will not be automatically transferred back to your storage when you dismiss them. Instead, you’ll want to manually unequip those items from them before dismissing them in order to retain them. 

Finally, you can also gift a Pawn an item after dismissing them. If you recruited another player’s Pawn, this is a great way to send them something as a token of thanks for their help. However, if the Pawn was an NPC created by Capcom, there is really no value in gifting them anything as the gift item essentially goes to nobody.