Pawn Inclination



Pawn Inclination dictates the behavior of a Pawn both in and out of combat. Inclinations are an easily overlooked and important aspect of pawn performance. Managing inclinations is critical to maintaining an effective Main Pawn.

Main Pawn inclinations are initially decided by answering the different questions available during their creation. Inclinations can be modified at any time by using the Knowledge Chair found at Inns and Rest Camps, or directly and most efficiently by using the Inclination Elixirs, which are purchased from Johnathan at the Command Tent in the Encampment.

Pawn battle behaviors are influenced by the first three inclinations. All other inclinations lower in primacy than the third position are effectively invisible.

The Neutralizing Elixir is used to re-set all of a pawn's existing inclinations to the mid-point value of 500, which is the state a pawn is at creation.


 * For issues with Pawn behavior, see Pawn Inclination troubleshooting

Inclinations
The inclinations are :

Initial Inclinations
The Main Pawn's inclinations are initially set by answering a series of questions available at the time of creation. The result of choosing a particular answer is displayed on a graph.

All inclinations are present in the form of a table in the pawn's stats throughout the lifetime of the save game file; just because one cannot see inclinations beyond the second or perhaps third position does not mean they do not exist. Inclinations are fluid. They shift either minutely or quickly in response to all actions performed by the player and by certain events occurring during battle. Rented pawns' inclinations remain fixed during the entire period of the rent, however their actions can influence the Main Pawn's behaviors. This is most common when renting Guardians, since Guardian behavior will affect the Main Pawn by increasing the need for the Main Pawn's battle participation due to their unresponsiveness to ranged and magick attacks.

Elixirs
The Neutralizing Elixir erases all inclination behaviours. It can be used and then followed by further elixirs, or followed by the player modeling tactics; e.g., battle training.

Inclination Elixirs can be used to set primary, secondary, and unseen tertiary inclinations immediately and directly. Knowledge Chairs allow the secondary and tertiary inclination to be swapped in importance, or left as is.

If the Pawn has no primary inclination an elixir will set the primary inclination, after that the secondary inclination will be set - if the secondary inclination is already set and an elixir is used, the current secondary will become the (undisplayed) tertiary inclination.

However, if an inclination elixir of the same type as the Pawn's secondary inclination is used, then that inclination becomes the new primary inclination, and the former primary is pushed down to become the new secondary inclination.

Arisen Actions
Additionally, Arisen behavior will constantly modify or re-inforce the Main Pawn's  inclinations by slowly increasing or decreasing the inclinations that correspond to the player's actions, e.g., shooting a target at range increases Challenger, while moving in for close-combat with daggers will affect Scather.

Actions that affect your pawn's inclinations are:


 * Fighting style - ranged or close combat, or healer or spellcaster
 * Climbing and other combat behaviors, including grappling enemies
 * Non-combat actions, such as regular use of gathering or mining
 * The battle orders the Arisen issues;  i.e, "come", "go", "help"
 * The fighting style of hired pawns.

Every time the game makes a movement for your pawn in response to an external stimuli, an inclination in your pawn's table shifts in terms of importance and/or intensity by a very small amount.


 * Over time, your pawn will grow to mirror your own behaviours.

Knowledge chairs
The Knowledge Chair allows the Arisen to switch or retain the Main Pawn's secondary and tertiary inclinations - the pawn will pose a question indicating the behaviors corresponding to its secondary and tertiary inclinations.

If the pawn has no inclinations listed or only one listed, the unseen inclinations all have the same value and the pawn will automatically question the Arisen in order to sort those values out.

Determining Inclinations
Primary and Secondary Pawn Inclination can be checked in the "Status" section of the pause menu and is listed under the "Profile" heading. The Tertiary Inclination can be determined by using a Knowledge Chair - it will be given as a choice together with the current secondary inclination.

If a pawn has only one or no inclinations indicated, that means multiple inclination values are identical. For example, Rook, who has the single inclination of Challenger, that represents his strongest inclination and all others in Rook's inclination table have values that are exactly the same. If Rook were a Main Pawn and questioned in the Knowledge Chair by his Arisen, he would pose a series of questions that would sort out two inclinations to occupy the secondary and tertiary positions.

Setting Your Pawn's Inclinations in Detail
It is known that a pawn's inclinations are ordered in value in a list, and that the latest stimuli to the Inclination table is the most important in terms of primacy. Therefore, by multiple use of of Elixirs (or through general gameplay) a list with multiple inclinations in order can be generated.

For Example: The Arisen wishes to set their main pawn, as a Utilitarian/Challenger/Mitigator and push all other inclinations lower in value than tertiary. The elixirs to be taken in order are :


 * Pioneer's Elixir, Medicant's Elixir, Mitigator's Elixir, Challenger's Elixir, Utilitarian's Elixir, Utilitarian's Elixir


 * alternatively:

One applies Elixirs in reverse order; the last applied Elixir becomes the primary inclination.
 * Neutralizing Elixir, Mitigator's Elixir, Challenger's Elixir, Utilitarian's Elixir, Utilitarian's Elixir

For inclination stability, it is possible to use successively larger amounts of Elixirs to step inclination intensity and importance in the pawn's inclination table. A useful formula to set pawn inclinations is 3-5-7-9 potions, in reverse order of importance. Therefore, using the example of Utilitarian/Challenger/Mitigator/Medicant, applying: will achieve the desired result, and the pawn will be less likely to spontaneously shift inclinations during gameplay. Another effective method is using 2-2-2-2.
 * 3 Medicant
 * 5 Mitigator
 * 7 Challenger
 * 9 Utilitarian