Granted, that's just the way that I prefer to think of it and play; so to each their own. The biggest issue with that however, is starting out. You're gonna hit some major roadblocks without using them if you play casually and really only benefits people who have gone through the story at least once.

Just makes me sad that there isn't going to be any expansions on the world of Dragon's Dogma. I'd love to dive into it more. The premise and overall design was well executed even if not original.

Pawns are an aspect of the game that they tried to make a big part of the game. That much is without question. However, yes here comes the but. They only play a role in the lore aspect and safely be ignored to get the full experience out Dragon's Dogma. If anything, I'd say that it's far more beneficial to do so - not just from a gameplay stand point, but from a world lore stand point as well.

Pawns wander around the roads doing exactly nothing, but through immersion, you can safely presume that they keep the roads safe while wandering between tethered Rift Stones. The weave so to speak. Meaning it's actually MORE lore friendly to NOT recruit them and let them keep the roads safe. As a byproduct it also saves the player a massive headache of trying to manage them.

Pawns are a big part of the game, that'd be sad not to use them, even if they're kinda retarded

Your better option is to...you know...run without pawns and actually play the game with a modicum of challenge. Great game, don't get me wrong but the difficulty is questionable at the best of times and the only real restraint is your action to stamina economy vs groups. Which is easily bypassable at a high enough level...which isn't hard to get too. You don't even need to micro manage levels unless you're being a derp. No point to it.

Soooo, in conclusion. Just ignore pawns and have a reasonable amount of challenge instead of running around the field every 10 seconds to revive a dying pawn only for it to get knocked out of the running 3 seconds later after collecting that rock mid combat. Because. Reasons.

The problem is that this set is just too good. When dragonforged it gives 50% physical damage reduction plus armor reduction. Combine with bastion and the pawn is pretty much immortal.