Pawn specializations play a huge role in Dragon’s Dogma 2 — they can effectively bestow big passive skills on your pawns, as well as other pawns that you’ve retained, resulting in some big effects while you’re out exploring Vermund, Battahl, and beyond.
In this Dragon’s Dogma 2 guide, we’ll explain how to unlock pawn specializations in Dragon’s Dogma 2. We’ll also show you a list of all pawn specializations, and, crucially, tell you how to change pawn specializations.
All pawn specializations in Dragon’s Dogma 2
As far as we’ve seen, there are six pawn specializations in Dragon’s Dogma 2. See below for a full list of all the pawn specializations we’ve encountered so far:
- Chirurgeon: Gives the pawn initiative to use curatives on both you and any pawns in your party
- Logistician: Lets the pawn combine items, both from your inventory and from the inventory for any pawns
- Forager: Marks the locations of items available for foraging on Dragon’s Dogma 2 map, including minerals for upgrading weapons and armor
- Hawker: Let the pawn offer to purchase items from your backpack, for a price
- Woodland Wordsmith: Teaches the pawn Elvish (helpful for visiting Sacred Arbor)
- Aphonite: Forces the pawn to stop talking (in most circumstances)
Since the effects of pawn specializations also serve as de facto perks for your character, it’s worth diversifying your party so each pawn following you has a different specialization. There’s no use doubling up on a pawn specialization; if one pawn knows how to translate Elvish or mark your map with resource locations, you don’t need another one with the same exact skill.
Unless you don’t want to hear about all those damn ladders, in which case you should load up your party with pawns who have the Aphonite specialization.
You can filter pawns by specialization at certain riftstones.
How to unlock pawn specializations in Dragon’s Dogma 2
You can unlock specializations for your pawns via Specialization Tomes, single-use items that can change the specialization of your main pawn. Dragon’s Dogma 2 hints that you can find useful items by befriending people, and it’s not lying — you can earn Specialization Tomes by completing side quests and main quests for characters.
For example, the Logistician’s Tome can be earned by completing the “Heels of History” main quest. After you’ve rescued Malcolm, by talking to the other kids around the Slums of Vernworth, you’ll eventually be approached by Kendrick (whom you may have met during “The Caged Magistrate”) while walking the streets of the city, who will hand over the Logistician’s Tome. With this, you can teach your main pawn the Logistician specialization.
In fact, another tome can be acquired in virtually the same manner. In the Slums of Vernworth, revisit Malcolm, who you rescued as part of the “Heels of History” quest. After you’ve completed the quest, Malcolm will visit you while you’re in Vernworth, and bestow the Forager’s Tome upon you. This allows you to teach a pawn the Forage specialization.
If you’re after the Chirurgeon’s Tome, look no further than the “Medicament Predicament” side quest, the quest for Flora in Melve. Once you’ve procured ingredients for Flora, you can find her in Vernworth near the Merchant’s Quarter (something you’ll do as part of the “Ornate Box” quest). She’ll hand over the Chirurgeon’s Tome as a thanks for your earlier help. It allows you to teach a pawn the the Chirurgeon specialization.
It’s worth mentioning that the methods for obtaining the Specialization Tomes in Dragon’s Dogma 2 appear to be somewhat random. We had to wait upward of an in-game week for Kendrick and Malcolm to grant us their respective Specialization Tomes, for example, and we couldn’t approach them for those tomes — they had to come to us first and initiate a conversation.
We’ll update this guide if we learn more methods on how to unlock Specialization Tomes in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
For more Dragon’s Dogma 2 explainers, see how to unlock all vocations, check out our list of the best augments, or poke around our interactive Dragon’s Dogma 2 map.
