In Dragon’s Dogma your hero is joined by three other computer controlled characters. Many of these pawns will be player created characters that are shared online. A main pawn, designed by you, acts like a sidekick. You can select a class for this character and deck him or her out in gear. The other two pawns are borrowed from the Rift where a sea of allies await.
"The game has these sections called rim stones and when you find one of those either online or offline you can find pawns from other players and you can borrow them whenever you want," producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said in a Siliconera interview.
"There will be a way for players to leave a mark in Dragon’s Dogma. You will be able to borrow these pawns from other places. Then, they will join your party and gain experience. You may let them go for other reasons, but they will take that experience with them and it will have an impact when other players want to use these characters."
Pawns learn battle tactics from players and remember weak points. If you teach a pawn how to bring down a griffon and send it back to the Rift, the pawn will retain the knowledge and use it in another player’s game. One of the interesting elements in Dragon’s Dogma will be seeing how each pawn functions after learning behaviors from each player that picked the pawn up and returned it to the rift.
