Let’s not waste any time — Dragon’s Dogma 2 is really weird. We’ve been playing Capcom’s unusual RPG for dozens and dozens of hours, and we didn’t know what we didn’t know. There’s so much, we can’t talk about it all here without wasting your time for hours. So we’re going to break down these tips fast. Here’s everything we wanted to know, and now you get to know, before you even turn on the game.
And if you haven’t already, you can download the Character Creator as a separate application. Even after the game’s full release, the creator app is worth keeping around because you can save multiple custom characters on the same system. You can’t do that in the main game. And we’re not even counting that as a tip. Okay, enough with the filibuster, let’s dive into too many early game tips for Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Beginner’s Guide | Early Tips & Tricks
#1. Big boys can carry more stuff. In character creation, a character’s physical weight determines how much stuff you can carry. Make a big fat pawn and they’ll carry more stuff for you! This is also true when you’re selecting Support Pawns from a Riftstone. Bigger bones can lift more stuff. That’s just a fact.
#2. Carry Weight is everything. Look for Gold Trove Beetles in the environment and use them to permanently increase your Carry Weight. They’re easy to spot at night because they glow. You can also organize your gear in the Inventory menu to see what’s heaviest so you can transfer that stuff to your Pawns. The starting town of Melve also sells a ring that increases your Carry Weight slightly. You can wear two!
#3. A Mage is required. The Mage Vocation has the ability to imbue your weapons with elemental damage. This is required. Certain enemies like Slimes and Phantoms can’t be hurt unless you’re hitting them with magic damage. If you’re a fighter, thief or archer you’re totally out of luck. You must have a Mage or Sorcerer with you — whether that’s your Arisen, Main Pawn or a Support Pawn.
#4. You can earn Rift Crystals offline. Rift Crystals are a rare currency you need to hire Support Pawns, and you can earn more in offline mode. Resting at an official Inn will cause your Pawn to supply you with Rift Crystals when you wake up. You can also earn RC by destroying Golem monsters in ruins or completing jobs like Escort Requests.
#5. Find Saurian Tails and Cinnamon Bark. For some of the best healing items, collect Saurian Tails and Cinnamon Bark. These materials create improved versions of Roborant — grab every resource node sticking out of trees, and target lizard guy tails to cut them off. You’ll want as many of these items as you can get.
#6. And grab all the Greenwarish you can. The most common healing item in the game is Greenwarish. Look for these green herbs all over the nation of Vermund. They’re literally everywhere. Combine with fruit to create potions or just stock up dozens for fast healing.
#7. You can heal yourself mid-death. Here’s an important one. If you take fatal damage, you can pause the game immediately and down a bunch of health items. As long as you heal before the death screen appears, you’ll save yourself. Seriously, you can pause and heal mid-attack. This is incredibly useful for the entire game.
#8. Don’t forget to pack a tent. Tents are the most valuable item in the game. Keep one on your Main Pawn and set up camp at any campsite to sleep through the night, heal your chip damage, and get benefits by cooking meat. Meat goes bad so you might as well use it. Tents can be reused as long as they aren’t destroyed by a monster. Clear the area then drop your tent down for a full night’s rest.
#9. Don’t throw away rotted food. Speaking of night, you can combine any two rotted food items to create free Lantern Oil. You’ll always need plenty of Lantern Oil. That makes even rotted food worth keeping.
#10. Rush To Vernworth. Don’t waste time around the north for too long. You’ll want to go to Vernworth immediately so you can access the inn with item storage. Items in storage don’t rot over time, they’re shared in all other storage containers, and are used when enhancing items from the Smithy. You don’t need to go back and get items out of storage when upgrading.
#11. Bridges are deadly too. You can smash any wooden bridges — if you lure a cyclops to a bridge and destroy that bridge, you’ve just instantly killed a large monster. Those bridges will get repaired after a few days, so don’t sweat the destruction.
#12. Mounted weapons are required. You can take direct control over ballista on towers. Target the wings of a Griffin or Dragons to permanently ground them. They’re basically required for defeating Griffins. If you don’t destroy the wings of a Griffin, they’ll fly back to their nest. This is also kind of useful. Those nests can be packed with items.
#13. Cyclops can create impromptu bridges. While we’re still thinking about bridges – if you knock a cyclops over on a broken stone bridge, it’ll hang over the side — letting you run right across. This is a super rare interaction, but it’s so funny we had to list it.
#14. Unlock gear for free. Unlocking a vocation at the Vocation Guild will also grant you a full set of gear for that vocation. If you want all the gear for your starting job, you can unlock it with your pawn. Vocations are all cheap to unlock, so you can even sell the gear back for a little free gold.
#15. Save your game with Inns. Camping is a free way to rest, but Inns still have an important function. Sleeping at an inn creates an alternate ‘safe’ save file you can reload at any time. If you’re worried about failing a quest, go to an inn and save to ensure you can reset.
#16. Unlock a free home right away. Check for a lady standing on the street outside the tavern in Vernworth. Talk to her and she’ll offer to let you sleep at her house in the Common Quarter. After a week, she’ll return and offer to sell it to you for 20,000 gold. Buy it because the house pays for itself. Important quest NPCs you help in the game will send you gifts like Ferrystones and special weapons periodically. Check for a bag stuck to your front door.
#17. Get a free Wakestone. Go to the Charnel House in Vernworth — it’s marked on your map — and open all three chests. All the chests contain Wakestone Shards. Get all three to combine into a full Wakestone. These items allow you to revive dead NPCs or revive yourself. Save it just in case an important plot NPC dies during the course of the game. Yes, this really can happen. If you can’t find an important character and know they’re dead, you can pay the Charnel House vendor to go pick up the body. Now that’s convenient.
#18. Forgeries can solve quests – or unlock new paths. Go to Ibrahim’s Scrap Store in Checkpoint Rest Town to buy forgeries. These copies can be used to solve quests – like the Jadeite Orb quest – or get you copies of unique items you can’t get anywhere else. After Brant gives you a jail key, go make a copy and you’ll have permanent access.
#19. Beware timed quests. Whenever you get a new quest, check the quest menu and see if there’s an hourglass symbol. If you see a sand timer, that means the quest will eventually fail if you don’t move fast. Some quests will tell you how much time you have, but others won’t. Always check! If there isn’t a timer symbol, you can safely wait to complete that quest later.
#20. The Diviner can help you solve quests. Some quests are way harder to solve than others. That’s why you’ll want to visit the Diviner’s Salon. This unique NPC will read your fortune based on your current priority quest. For 50 g she’ll give you advice. Sometimes it’s completely worthless, and sometimes she’ll tell you exactly what to do and where to go.
#21. Talk to the Elf outside Roderick’s Smithy. If you’re an Archer, you absolutely have to talk to the Elf. Follow his quest and you can walk away with the most powerful ability in the Archer’s arsenal of skills. You can even do it without fighting a single big monster.
There’s so much more to discover — from secret vaults to criminal schemes, to riddles of the Sphynx — we won’t talk about it here, but we will reveal all in more guides right here. We’re digging deep into Dragon’s Dogma 2 and this is just the beginning.
