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Palworld

What are Pals in Palworld?

By
Matt Chard

Palworld puts you in a world full of mysterious creatures known as Pals and lets you collect over 100 of them, where you can use them for numerous tasks from combat to breeding. Pals have various “base” skills such as watering, planting, and mining to name a few, while also having access to a unique partner skill which can enhance you or them in and out of combat. You can use them as mounts, and even use them as weapons too! Read on to find out what Pals are, and what you should look out for in a Pal.

Pals are mysterious creatures that roam the world.

Pal Partner Skills

Briefly touched on in the above paragraph, each Pal will have a unique skill called “Partner Skill”. These skills allow Pals to perform various functions such as the aforementioned mounts and weapons, but they can also increase your weight capacity, help you battle fierce foes, heal you, and even use them as a shield. To give you an idea of these skills, we’ll list a few examples below:

  • "Lifmunk" iconLifmunk - This Pal’s Partner skill is “"Lifmunk Recoil" iconLifmunk Recoil”. You’ll need to unlock a saddle before you can use it, but when activated, the Lifmunk will jump on your head and fire off an SMG at the enemies.

  • "Nitewing" iconNitewing - The Partner Skill for Nitewing is “"Travel Companion" iconTravel Companion”. This allows you to traverse the skies providing you have a saddle to ride it.

  • "Direhowl" iconDirehowl - Similar to Nitewing, you can use this Pal as a mount, but this one will only let you traverse the ground, but with more speed. Its Partner Skill is called “"Direhowl Rider" iconDirehowl Rider”.

  • "Teafant" iconTeafant - One of the early healers in the game, Teafant can heal you with its “"Soothing Shower" iconSoothing Shower” Partner Skill.

  • "Relaxaurus" iconRelaxaurus - This large dino-looking Pal allows you to rapidly fire a missile launcher when it’s mounted. Its Partner Skill is called “"Hungry Missile" iconHungry Missile”.

These are just a few of the many Partner Skills you can expect to find in Palworld; some can even create materials for you!

(1 of 2) You can ride some Pals as a mount. This particular mount excels on the ground.

You can ride some Pals as a mount. This particular mount excels on the ground. (left), Meanwhile, Shadowbeak will let you fly. (right)

Work Suitability Explained

Pals have access to twelve types of work from gathering to mining, and many more. Each Pal will be better at some tasks than other Pals, while some will be a jack of all trades, but not particularly good at anything specific. If you want your base to be efficient, you’ll want to locate the best Pals for each task as this will increase the speed you will get things done as well as take the tedious tasks away from you, leaving you time to find more Pals, explore dungeons, breed, and much more. The work suitability types are as follows:

Work Task Description Work Task Description
"Kindling" iconKindling Displayed in the menu as a campfire icon. The "Kindling" iconKindling task is typically found on fire-type Pals, and is useful for cooking and smelting ingots at the furnace. Good for upgrading your equipment and bases. "Watering" iconWatering Displayed in the menu as a watering can icon. The "Watering" iconWatering task is used for watering plantations such as berries, wheat, and tomatoes. Good for keeping you and your Pals fed.
"Planting" iconPlanting Displayed in the menu with a seed icon. The "Planting" iconPlanting task is used to place seeds in the various plantations you can build. Good for keeping you and your Pals fed. "Generating Electricity" iconGenerating Electricity Displayed in the menu as a lightning bolt icon. The "Generating Electricity" iconGenerating Electricity task lets Pals power up generators. Good for powering your Production and Assembly lines used in automation. Good for keeping production going.
"Handiwork" iconHandiwork Displayed in the menu as a hand icon. The "Handiwork" iconHandiwork task is used for anything required to craft things by hand, such as production lines, and general workbench crafting. Good for general tasks around the base. "Gathering" iconGathering Displayed in the menu as a leaf icon. The "Gathering" iconGathering task is used for gathering plants from your crops or gathering plants in the field. Good for keeping you and your Pals fed.
"Lumbering" iconLumbering Displayed in the menu as the three logs icon. The "Lumbering" iconLumbering task allows Pals to chop down wood either from a logging site placed in the base or trees in the field. Good for general building. "Mining" iconMining Displayed in the menu as a pickaxe icon. The "Mining" iconMining task is used for obtaining stone from a stone pit placed in the base or mining various ores in the field. Good for general building and crafting ingots.
"Medicine Production" iconMedicine Production Displayed in the menu as a bowl. The "Medicine Production" iconMedicine Production task is used in the creation of medicine for the Pals (not you). Good to keep the Pals healthy. "Cooling" iconCooling Displayed in the menu as a snowflake icon. The "Cooling" iconCooling task is used to keep the cooling apparatus cold. Good to keep your base cool if it’s in a hot biome such as Mount Obsidian. Also, this is good for incubating eggs.
"Transporting" iconTransporting Displayed in the menu as a box icon. The "Transporting" iconTransporting task is used for transporting goods throughout the base into the various storage boxes placed in the base. Good for keeping the base tidy and allowing you to use them when you’re in the base. "Farming" iconFarming Displayed in the menu as a fence icon. The "Farming" iconFarming task is used in the ranch where you can get milk, eggs, and wool. Pals with this task will often create items when placed in a ranch.

The highest number a Pal can have in any given task is currently level 4. For example, "Jormuntide Ignis" iconJormuntide Ignis is level 4 in "Kindling" iconKindling and is currently the best Pal to use to smelt ingots or cook food. Some Pals can have levels in more than one task, so always keep an eye on their Work Suitability when acquiring a new Pal. The reason you want to select your Pals in the base is because you’re limited to 15 per base (you can increase this in the settings), so you’ll need a good mix of Pals to cover every task if you want your base to be efficient.

(1 of 2) In the Paldeck, you can see the various tasks the Pals are good at. Foxsparks can do Kindling.

In the Paldeck, you can see the various tasks the Pals are good at. Foxsparks can do Kindling. (left), Meanwhile, Warsect has a penchant for logging, among other tasks. (right)

Pal Element Types - Strengths and Weaknesses

Each Pal is given an element, and each element will normally coincide with their work suitability. For example, a water-type Pal will generally have levels in the "Watering" iconWatering task. The element of the Pal also plays a major part in combat as some Pals will be weak to specific elements, so if you attack an ice-type Pal with a fire Pal, you’ll deal increased damage; this works with your weapons too. There are nine elements in the game, Electric, Water, Fire, Grass, Ground, Ice, Dragon, Dark, and Neutral, and they are all strong and weak to at least one element outside of neutral, which isn’t strong against any. You can check out the element weakness and strengths below. Strong means what element it is strong again, so it’ll deal more damage to that element, while Weak means what element it is weak against, meaning it’ll take more damage from it. Note that Fire is strong against both the Grass and Ice elements and is the only element that does this.

Element Strong Weak
Electricity Water Ground
Water Fire Electricity
Fire Grass, Ice Water
Grass Ground Fire
Ground Electricity Grass
Ice Dragon Fire
Dragon Dark Ice
Dark Neutral Dragon
Neutral N/A Dark

Fire Pals will deal more damage to Ice Pals.

Pal Traits (Passive Skills) - Best Passives

Every Pal can come with up to four passive skills. There are over 60 traits to choose from, some positive, and some negative, which is where breeding comes in. With the right Pals and a bit of luck, you can breed the ultimate Pal. In general, you’ll want the Legend trait (Attack +20%, Defense +20%, Movement Speed +15%), Musclehead (Attack +30%, Work Speed -50%), Burly Body (Defense +20%), Lucky (+15% Work Speed, +15% Attack) and Ferocious (Attack +20%) traits for your combat Pals while aiming for Artisan (Work speed +50%), and Workaholic (SAN drops +15% slower) for your Base Worker Pals. This is while you keep as many negative traits, ideally all of them, of your Pal.

You can see what passive skills (traits) the Pals have by selecting a party member in the party screen.

Pal Sanity - Keeping your Pal Healthy

Sanity is a stat that starts at 100 and gradually decreases if you don’t meet the Pal’s needs. For the most part, this is hunger, a bed, being overworked, or their health (fracture or illness). When you’re at the base, the game will generally tell you if there are any problems with any Pals, so always keep an eye on it. This stat is only for Pals working in your base, or Pals active in the field. If they’re sitting in the "Palbox" iconPalbox, or are being unused in the party, it won’t decrease. Here are some ways you can circumvent these potential issues:

  • Hunger - Craft a berry plantation and a feed box in the base. Place and water the seeds (or have a Pal do it), and then have another Pal (or the same ones) transport them to the box; this will always keep them fed at your base. For Pals in the party, take around a hundred or so berries with you and either place them in a seed bag or manually feed them by interacting with the berries.

  • Beds - Each base needs one bed for every Pal working in the base. The game will tell you this under the base info in the top-right of the screen. The better the bed, the quicker they will recover Sanity, although the regular straw bed is more than enough right now.

  • Overworked - After a good work session, a Pal likes to let off some steam. Place a hot spring or two in the base (High-Quality "Hot Spring" iconHot Spring later) and that should keep them happy. Also, be warned that if you set the Pals to hard, or super-hard working via the monitoring stand, it’ll decrease their sanity much faster, so only do this if you’re desperate for something to get done.

  • Health - By health, we mean illnesses or fractures which the base info will tell you about. This can be remedied by building a "Medieval Medicine Workbench" iconMedieval Medicine Workbench and crafting the right medicine for the illness. Low-grade Medical supplies are good for colds and sprains, "Medical Supplies" iconMedical Supplies will treat Ulcers and Fractures, and High-Grade Medical Supplies are effective against weakened and depression. These can be crafted by you, or a Pal that has the Medical Production task. To heal the Pal with the aforementioned symptoms, place them in your party, and select the correct treatment.

(1 of 2) Create Berry Farms to keep the Pals hunger levels up, thus increasing their Sanity.

Create Berry Farms to keep the Pals hunger levels up, thus increasing their Sanity. (left), Sometimes, the Pals can get ill, make sure you heal them up quickly before their Sanity drops too low. (right)

Pal Stats

Pals only have three stats, Attack, Defense, and Work Speed, which do exactly what they say they do. Attack will increase the damage your Pal does, Defense will lower the damage your Pal takes from attacks, and Works Speed is how quickly they will complete a work-related task.

There you have it, everything you need to know about Pals, and what you can do with them. Almost every Pal will excel at one thing unless you breed the perfect Pals that will excel at most. In general, keep the Pal healthy and happy, and then use the right Pals for the right task. For the more difficult battles in the game, such as Tower Boss Battles, make sure you use a Pal that is the element opposing the boss.

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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Pocket Pair, Inc.
  • Guide Release
    9 February 2024
  • Last Updated
    2 March 2024
  • Guide Author

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