Dragons Dogma help

Just picked up this game, and I'm having some difficulty. I just beat the hydra and brought its head to the castle of the Duke or whatever his title was. Now I keep going past this group of bandits on my way to the next mission and I always lose. My pawns die after just a couple hits and I spend so much time running around reviving them I end up dying in the process. Is there something I'm doing wrong or is the game just this difficult? It seems ridiculous that the pawns are that bad. They are all around level 10 or so.

Just picked up this game, and I'm having some difficulty. I just beat the hydra and brought its head to the castle of the Duke or whatever his title was. Now I keep going past this group of bandits on my way to the next mission and I always lose. My pawns die after just a couple hits and I spend so much time running around reviving them I end up dying in the process. Is there something I'm doing wrong or is the game just this difficult? It seems ridiculous that the pawns are that bad. They are all around level 10 or so.

SgtSutton

So if i start getting beat up to bad I just run?

Just picked up this game, and I'm having some difficulty. I just beat the hydra and brought its head to the castle of the Duke or whatever his title was. Now I keep going past this group of bandits on my way to the next mission and I always lose. My pawns die after just a couple hits and I spend so much time running around reviving them I end up dying in the process. Is there something I'm doing wrong or is the game just this difficult? It seems ridiculous that the pawns are that bad. They are all around level 10 or so.

SgtSutton

Are you upgrading equipment or swapping your pawns entirely (for higher level ones)? It sounds like you are doing the same thing I did early in this game, and that's not realize that you are supposed to constantly be swapping out your pawns for more powerful ones. I just assumed it was a "permanent" party like in other RPG, but it's not that at all. I just remember having the same "this can't be right, I'm always getting my ass kicked" thought, and then once I learned how the pawn system worked... the game became alot more fun. There are still plenty of enemies that will wipe you out in a hurry, so you do need to run away at times if it's an enemy you can't handle. But if you are going into battle with underpowered and underequipped pawns then just about *EVERY* battle will start kicking your ass after a few levels.

Anyway I had great fun with this game for about 30 hours, then got hit with a save-file glitch that completely killed all of my progress. So I never got to come anywhere close to finishing :(

So if i start getting beat up to bad I just run?

SgtSutton

Are you playing as a mage?  That's what I started as and it was ridiculously underpowered.  Switched to fighting with a sword and it was like I was suddenly invincible.

Are you playing as a mage?  That's what I started as and it was ridiculously underpowered.  Switched to fighting with a sword and it was like I was suddenly invincible.

Jackc8

A bow is also very good, as it's difficult to get hit by the enemy.

As for running away from enemies, yeah, it's definitely going to have to happen, but it's pretty cool when you start to level up and taking down harder foes becomes easier and easier (in the upgraded archer class [magic archer or whatever it's called] you can rain down magic arrows from the sky, always awesome). 

And pawns can be kind of confusing, I'd definitely try to get some higher level ones using the rift crystals (I believe that's what they're called).  It may seem like a lot to spend on a pawn, but as long as they don't randomly walk off a cliff (which does happen) you'll have an easier time. 

Sadly, I didn't know how to manage all this on my first playthrough so I almost stopped playing at a big boss battle because I was almost not a high enough level and there was no way to back out of the arena.  But there always seems to be a way to get through a battle (now, the DLC area is apparently kind of unbalanced so surviving that area may be harder, IDK, I just started it).