Pawns in Rimworld start with a few traits. Players often spend hours (if you’re like me) rerolling pawns until they get the perfect combination of traits and skills.
With over 60 traits to choose from in Rimworld, it can be hard to decide which one is the best for your colony. While the “best” trait may be dependent on your type of playthrough, there are a number of traits that are indisputably great for any colony.
Here is our tier list of the best traits in Rimworld. Please note, this list only includes vanilla Rimworld traits and not any that could be added by mods.
S-Tier Traits in Rimworld
- Industrious
- +35% work speed
- Jogger
- +0.4 c/s (movement speed)
- Sanguine
- Permanent +12 mood bonus
- Iron-willed
- -18% mental break threshold
- Fast Learner
- +75% global learning speed
- Beautiful
- +40 opinion from other colonists and +40% trade value
All of these traits are immensely powerful with no downsides. They do all have slightly less powerful versions you should keep an eye out for that are a little further down in our list.
All of them are pretty self-explanatory and if your pawn has average skills and any of these traits you should really consider keeping them.
A pawn with Sanguine and Iron-willed will almost never have a mental breakdown – even when times are tough! Jogger will let your pawn move around the map faster. (ranwhenparked.net)
This can be useful in combat or just useful in day-to-day tasks. Fast Learner is great for making a pawn an all-around guy/gal. Fast Learner paired with a passion for a skill can easily get your pawn to level 20.
A-Tier Traits in Rimworld
- Super Immune
- Immunity Gain Speed +30%
- Fast Walker
- +0.2 c/s ( Movement Speed)
- Pretty
- +20 opinion from other colonists and +20% trade value
- Masochist
- +5/10/15/20 mood bonus for being in pain
- Optimist
- Permanent +6 mood bonus
- Steadfast
- -9% mental break threshold
- Hard Worker
- +20% work speed
- Kind
- Will not insult other colonists. +5 mood bonus to anyone who was told kind words by this pawn
- Nimble
- +15 melee dodge chance
- Night Owl
- +16 mood bonus during the night and -10 during the day
These are Rimworld’s A-tier traits. They include the lesser versions of the traits in the S-tier list and some others.
These traits have no downside but are not as powerful as the ones in the S-list. Nimble is great for pawns that you want to use on the frontlines.
Kind is an all-around good trait, no need to worry about that pawn starting brawls. Masochist is a good way to counter the mood penalties that come from fights and being in pain.
All-in-all, if one of your pawns has these traits it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to keep them if their stats are average too. It’s easy to build up skills, but you can’t change traits!
B-Tier Traits in Rimworld
- Nudist
- +20 mood bonus when nude but -3 mood for wearing any clothing
- Psychically Deaf
- -100% psychic sensitivity
- Trigger Happy
- -50% aiming time and -25% shooting accuracy
- Brawler
- +4 Melee and -4 shooting. +4 melee dodge chance and -20 mood penalty when wielding a ranged weapon
- Psychopath
- Pawn not affected by sight of death, dead bodies, prisoners sold into slavery, organ harvesting, butchering of humans OR friendly interactions with other colonists
- Careful Shooter
- +25% aiming time and shooting accuracy
- Bloodlust
- +3/+5/+7/+8 mood bonus for wearing clothing made out of human skin, +8 mood bonus for witnessing a stranger’s death, +13 mood bonus for killing strangers, no mood penalty for wearing tainted clothes and the pawn is four times as likely to start a social fight
- Psychically Dull
- -50% psychic sensitivity
- Ascetic
- Mood not affected by food quality. +5 mood for having an awful bedroom. -5 mood for having a slightly impressive or better bedroom.
Our B-tier traits are traits that while not the best, aren’t the worst either. They generally have more upsides than downsides and aren’t considered an immediate reroll.
Nudist is nice since you don’t have to worry about the colonist’s clothing however it can be a death sentence if you are located in a biome that gets too cold or hot.
Psychically deaf and dull are great to ignore the penalties psychic phenomena inflict on your colony.
Trigger-happy is great to pair with miniguns in the late-game and careful-shooter is great for long-range weapons like snipers. Again, if you roll a pawn with one of these, take some time and think about how it fits with your colony and your other pawns.
These aren’t necessarily an immediate reroll!
C-Tier and Lower
- Psychically Sensitive
- Psychically Hypersensitive
- Very Neurotic
- Too Smart
- Teetotaler
- Neurotic
- Prosthophile
- Prosthophobe
- Greedy
- Chemical Interest
- Jealous
- Abrasive
- Misandrist
- Misogynist
- Ugly
- Annoying Voice
- Creepy Breathing
- Lazy
- Slowpoke
- Pessimist
- Nervous
- Chemical Fascination
- Staggeringly Ugly
- Slothful
- Wimp
- Depressive
- Volatile
The traits in this list either have minimal upsides or almost no upside and a lot of downsides. If you see a pawn with this trait, I would personally reroll them because almost any other trait is better.
Unless they have an amazing set of skills and passions that fit what your colony needs, reroll them. While some of these traits are better than others, they’re all generally bad to have in a colony.
The Absolute Worst Trait in Rimworld
- Pyromaniac
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT take a pawn with this trait. It will be the end of your colony I guarantee it. Unless you’re doing a challenge where your pawns are pyromaniacs, reroll this colonist immediately I don’t care how good their stats are.