Dragon’s Dogma 2: Why Your Pawn’s Personality Matters
Gemmalady
21,706 views
How does pawn behavior actually work in Dragon’s Dogma 2?
For the past couple of years, I’ve recommended that the first question asked when creating a pawn should be:
“What do I want this pawn to do?”
After examining Dragon’s Dogma 2’s pawn AI directly, I can now explain why.
This video looks at the systems behind pawn decision-making: goals, conditions, priorities, vocation-specific decision structures, enemy-specific information, personality-sensitive combat logic, pawn knowledge, and badge-related conditions.
This is NOT a “best personality” guide, nor am I assigning exact percentages to individual skills or claiming that pawns simply select equipped skills at random.
Some of the internal structures discussed or shown in the video include:
GoalParam
RandomFast
DecisionPack
PawnBattleController
PawnKnowledgeContext
AISituation.CheckPawnBadge
AIGoalPersonalityOrder
PawnBattleAIData
A FEW IMPORTANT NOTES
• Personality is part of the pawn’s behavioral package. It is not simply a voice choice.
• Vocation, personality, skills, state, enemy information, knowledge, specialization and pawn badges are separate parts of the system and should not be treated as interchangeable.
• Pawn badges may serve as gates to particular behaviors or dialogue options.
• Badge completion and combat competence are not the same thing.
• This video does not claim that one personality is universally “best.”
• Where possible, I have tried to distinguish direct gameplay observation from what can be demonstrated in the game’s internal structures.
All gameplay testing shown in this video was carried out using my own pawns.
VISUAL / UI MODS & DEPENDENCIES USED
• DD2 Pak Bridge
• Colorgrading – Color Only
• ReShade
• FoxRealismReShade
• Better Better Item Description
• Skill Description
• XYZApi
RESEARCH REFERENCES
Toggle Pawn Knowledge v1.10
Downloaded June 27, 2024. Used during my original local pawn-badge testing.
EnemyStatus v1.5 — source by xyzkljl1
Downloaded September 9, 2026. I examined the source code as a technical reference but did not install or use the mod in-game. CharacterID mapping in the source is credited to shadowcookie.
IMAGE CREDIT
Opening image of Barahir created by Yoru Poru.
MUSIC
“Stargazer” — Cody Martin
“What We Must” — Falls
“Adelein” — Cody Martin
“The Life of the Rose” — Shimmer
Licensed through Soundstripe
20 Comments
I watched your collab video with those 2 guys and it was great. Personality for pawns is very important and their AI.
From personal experience my favorite personalities for each vocation are:
- Kindhearted: Fighter, Mage
- Calm: Fighter, Mage, Archer
- Simple: Every one works
- Straightforward: Fighter, Thief, Warrior
Dragon’s Dogma 2: Why Your Pawn’s Personality Matters
Gemmalady
21,706 views
How does pawn behavior actually work in Dragon’s Dogma 2?
For the past couple of years, I’ve recommended that the first question asked when creating a pawn should be:
“What do I want this pawn to do?”
After examining Dragon’s Dogma 2’s pawn AI directly, I can now explain why.
This video looks at the systems behind pawn decision-making: goals, conditions, priorities, vocation-specific decision structures, enemy-specific information, personality-sensitive combat logic, pawn knowledge, and badge-related conditions.
This is NOT a “best personality” guide, nor am I assigning exact percentages to individual skills or claiming that pawns simply select equipped skills at random.
Some of the internal structures discussed or shown in the video include:
GoalParam
RandomFast
DecisionPack
PawnBattleController
PawnKnowledgeContext
AISituation.CheckPawnBadge
AIGoalPersonalityOrder
PawnBattleAIData
A FEW IMPORTANT NOTES
• Personality is part of the pawn’s behavioral package. It is not simply a voice choice.
• Vocation, personality, skills, state, enemy information, knowledge, specialization and pawn badges are separate parts of the system and should not be treated as interchangeable.
• Pawn badges may serve as gates to particular behaviors or dialogue options.
• Badge completion and combat competence are not the same thing.
• This video does not claim that one personality is universally “best.”
• Where possible, I have tried to distinguish direct gameplay observation from what can be demonstrated in the game’s internal structures.
All gameplay testing shown in this video was carried out using my own pawns.
VISUAL / UI MODS & DEPENDENCIES USED
• DD2 Pak Bridge
• Colorgrading – Color Only
• ReShade
• FoxRealismReShade
• Better Better Item Description
• Skill Description
• XYZApi
RESEARCH REFERENCES
Toggle Pawn Knowledge v1.10
Downloaded June 27, 2024. Used during my original local pawn-badge testing.
EnemyStatus v1.5 — source by xyzkljl1
Downloaded September 9, 2026. I examined the source code as a technical reference but did not install or use the mod in-game. CharacterID mapping in the source is credited to shadowcookie.
IMAGE CREDIT
Opening image of Barahir created by Yoru Poru.
MUSIC
“Stargazer” — Cody Martin
“What We Must” — Falls
“Adelein” — Cody Martin
“The Life of the Rose” — Shimmer
Licensed through Soundstripe