Dragons Dogma 2: How To Give Gifts

Dragon’s Dogma 2 features several interesting mechanics that are very easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. For instance, the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining that you can give gifts to NPCs, and is even more mysterious in regard to how the system works. You’re likely to learn about gifts when you dismiss your first Pawn, but Pawns aren’t the only characters you can give gifts to.

A lot of the NPCs in this game have a hidden affinity mechanic that dictates how much they like you. In some cases, you can increase your affinity with these NPCs by completing quests for them, but that won’t be possible in all cases. Luckily, you can achieve similar results by giving them gifts instead.

How To Give Gifts To NPCs

You can give gifts to NPCs by starting a conversation with them and selecting the ‘Give Gift’ option. The option appears as a small prompt in the lower-left corner of the UI and is easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for, or if you turned off some of the HUD elements. By default, the button prompt is X on Xbox controllers, Square on PlayStation controllers, and Y on PC. Once you press the appropriate prompt, you can select almost any item in your inventory to give to the NPC as a gift. It’s worth noting that this option will only appear for some NPCs.

While you can give most types of items to NPCs, they won’t necessarily like all of them. To see what types of items an NPC likes, go to the main menu and access the History section. There, you can find an NPC Logbook that gives you useful information on every NPC in the game you’ve encountered so far, including their gift preferences. Give the right gifts to the right NPC and you’ll be able to unlock various perks, including shop discounts, romance options, additional lines of dialogue, and more.

Dragons Dogma 2: How To Hire Pawns

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How To Give Gifts To Pawns

Giving gifts to Pawns works a bit differently, and doesn’t come with the same benefits. It’s worth noting right off the bat that you can’t give gifts to Pawns that are still in your service, unless you count pieces of gear that you equip on them as being gifts. But, technically speaking, Pawns can only be given parting gifts as a sign of appreciation for their service upon leaving your party. Just like with NPCs, you can gift Pawns almost any item, though in this case it won’t affect their affinity since Pawns don’t really have preferences.

In addition to thanking them for a job well done, the main reason why you would want to give a gift to a Pawn is because any item offered this way will be taken back to their master. In other words, you’re actually giving the item to another player. Similarly, any item you equip on them will also be transferred to the player once the Pawn returns to them. This doesn’t apply to unequipped items, which are automatically transferred to your storage when the Pawn leaves.

Giving gifts to Pawns can be used as a way to trade with other players, however, keep in mind that this only works with custom Pawns. All items given to Pawns created by the developers will be lost when the Pawn is dismissed. If you’re trying to surprise a random player with a nice gift, you might want to make sure you’re giving the item to a custom Pawn.