Dragon's Dogma 2 Players Come Up With Clever Way to Spot Dragonsplague Pawns
Dragon's Dogma 2 players have devised a clever way to warn one another against Dragonsplague infected pawns.
If you've been navigating through the fantasy world of Dragon's Dogma 2 after the game's release in March you may have already encountered a sickness that plagues pawns – Dragonsplague. While the addition of this sickness adds to the overall story experience and encourages players to be observant, no matter how cool the mechanic is it can mean the destruction of complete save files if left unaddressed. For this exact reason, the community of players behind the game have devised their own system for warning one another about infected pawns. If you've seen a pop-up about Dragonsplague in the game at any point, you've encountered the disease.
It's been a topic of conversation in Steam communities and Reddit since the March 21 release as players have sought a way alert others about pawns that should be avoided. One of the Steam Community discussion threads included several different ideas, with a suggestion mentioning to dismiss the pawn with an arrow in their inventory to imply harm.
Most replies seemed to agree with the idea of sending pawn off with a rotten item in their inventory implying there's something wrong with the pawn, but noting to include a thumbs up or heart to distinguish if you were happy with the pawn before infection. One user stated doing this method would "implicate that you were satisfied with the pawn (hence, the heart or thumbs up) but something is wrong with it (hence the rotten food). This specific approach has been shared by others on Reddit with users mostly seeming to agree to this system as rotten food (or flesh) is easy enough to acquire and cheap.
How To Spot and Cure Infected Pawns
Thankfully, CAPCOM have made it fairly straightforward to recognize which pawns are infected, as there are multiple telltale signs that should let players know they've encountered Dragonsplague. The infection can only be contracted by pawns, but as it is contagious it can be bounced around between the different pawns in your party. While Dragonsplague means the infected pawn is more effective and strong in combat, it also means that they will eventually turn into a dragon and annihilate whatever town the player is currently resting in, so ultimately you'll want to avoid it entirely by not recruiting the infected or curing them yourself.
CAPCOM hasn't made it impossible to spot Dragonsplague before it's too late, however. There are several symptoms that will alert players they've recruited an infected pawn. In addition to the already mentioned increase in strength and effectiveness, pawns with Dragonsplague also have glowing red eyes, have headaches on top of a notable increase in lethargy, and their attitudes deviate from a complete devotion to serving Arisen to developing sass and more free will, ignoring commands like "go." Suffice to say, you'll want to take your pawns to a dark room and check their eyes going forward.
As for a cure to this game-ruining sickness, the only answer for infected pawns is death, baring in mind that death isn't permanent for pawns and it simply means they leave your party, though you can re-summon your main pawn from a Riftstone. The most effective way to address Dragonsplague before it becomes a problem is to push all three of your pawns off of a cliff and use a Riftstone to return your main to you.
What warning system are you using for Dragonsplague encounters in Dragon's Dogma 2? Let us know in the comments!