Palworld Tips: Best Early Pals, Base Mistakes I Made, and Bosses That Hurt

My first Palworld base lasted four hours. My second base lasted two hours. My third base is still standing, and that's the one I'm going to tell you about.

The first one burned down because I built wood walls in a game where every third enemy has fire attacks. The second one fell apart because I built on a slope and my Pals kept sliding into a ravine where they'd get stuck, starve, and die. I'd come back from exploring to find them all unconscious and my production at zero. Felt like I was running a disaster shelter, not a survival base.

After about 60 hours and a lot of trial and error, I figured out what actually works. Here's the stuff I wish someone had told me before I started.

The Pals You Need in the First 30 Minutes

Foxparks is the first priority. Yellow-orange fur in the grassy plains east of the Plateau of Beginnings. It's a tiny fire fox that cooks food without needing a campfire, and its attacks melt early-game enemies. A standard Pal Sphere at full health has about a 5 percent catch rate, so bring extras.

Lifmunk spawns near trees in the same area. Two smacks with a wooden club and a sphere get the job done nine times out of ten. This little guy handles logging and gathering, and its sub-machine gun partner skill is hilarious: you carry Lifmunk on your head and it sprays bullets at enemies. Not the most effective combat Pal, but definitely the funniest.

Cattiva is everywhere. It's not flashy but its Partner Skill adds 50 to your carry weight. In a game where you're constantly hauling ore, wood, stone, and random monster parts back to base, that 50 capacity is worth more than any combat stat.

For mid-game, head to the Desolate Church around coordinates 200, minus 300. Direhowl spawns there and it's the first mount that actually feels fast. It cuts travel time roughly in half compared to sprinting on foot. Nitewing, your first flying mount, is nearby too. Wixen is in the same zone and doubles as fire damage and a base chef.

The Breeding Shortcut You Should Use

Breeding unlocks at level 15 with the Breeding Farm, which costs 30 Wood and 10 Stone. The recipe that got me through the mid-game was Lamball plus Nitewing equals Direhowl. But the real prize is Cattiva plus Direhowl for Grizzbolt, an electric tank that stomps the first two tower bosses.

You need a Cake in the Breeding Farm box: 3 Flour, 2 Berries, 1 Milk. Takes about 10 real-world minutes per egg. If you can't find Milk, the wandering merchant at the Small Settlement sells the ingredients for 100 Gold each.

I bred a Grizzbolt early on my third playthrough and the difference was night and day. Its electric attacks stun-lock boss adds, giving you room to heal and reposition. Before that, I was trying to solo bosses with a crossbow and getting wrecked.

Base Mistakes I Actually Made (So You Don't Have To)

Flat ground first. Water source second. Fast travel nearby third. The Forgotten Island zone around coordinates 100, 400 is ideal: no raids spawn there below level 10, plenty of flat space, water access. If you're feeling lazy about finding the perfect spot, this one works.

Stone walls, never wood. A single fire Pal can burn a wooden wall in about 15 seconds during a raid. Stone takes at least 45 seconds, which gives you time to get back to base or for your turret Pals to handle the threat. I learned this watching my entire storage go up in flames while I was three biomes away.

Workstation spacing matters more than you'd guess. Give every station two blocks of clearance. Pals path poorly when things are jammed together. I group stations by type: food production in one area, crafting in another, farming in a third. It looks organized and actually works.

The Pal box needs a two-tall ceiling minimum. Flying Pals get stuck on single-height roofs and then you find your Nitewing wedged into a wall corner starving with full inventory. Build an extra block of height even if it feels wasteful.

For the first 10 levels, build three Berry Plantations and a Stone Pit. That's your passive food and building material supply. Coal isn't worth it until level 20. I wasted early resources making a furnace I couldn't fuel properly and had to tear it down.

Three Bosses, Three Approaches

Chillet at level 11 is weak to fire. Bring Foxparks. Stay at mid-range and dodge sideways when it rears back: the ice breath has about a two-second wind-up, which is generous once you know the tell. Tanzee's Poison Blast chips away about 15 percent of its HP per hit while you kite. Drops Chillet's Horn for upgraded armor.

Grintale at level 17 is Dark type, weak to Dragon. If you don't have a dragon Pal yet, Neutral attacks from Direhowl work fine. Grintale teleports every four seconds. Here's a weird trick: throwing a Pal Sphere at it right as it teleports stuns it about one in three times. Not reliable, but when it works you get a free damage window. Use a shield to block its claw swipe, which does 40 damage unarmored. Drops Grintale's Claw, craftable into a 70-damage sword.

Zoe and Grizzbolt, the first tower boss at level 25. Ground attacks from Digtoise or Dumud are the play. Focus Zoe first: she has 2,500 HP and calls Grizzbolt every 20 seconds. A shotgun (level 20 craft) does about 50 per shot. When Grizzbolt charges its electric beam, hide behind a pillar. The beam doesn't penetrate walls. Bring 10 cooked berries and at least 5 healing potions. My first attempt I brought three potions and died with the boss at maybe 5 percent HP. Don't do that.

Capturing Pals is the fastest way to level. Each first capture gives bonus XP, and defeating groups of 3 or more Pals shares XP across your party. A group of five Direhowls at level 15 gives about 1,200 XP.

For Pal sanity, build a Hot Spring as soon as you hit level 10. Depressed Pals recover SAN at 5 points per minute in the spring. They can't use it if you don't build it. Cook food instead of feeding raw berries: cooked gives 10 SAN per meal, raw berries give 2. It's a massive difference when you're running 10 plus Pals.

That's what I've got. Build stone, space your stations, breed a Grizzbolt early, and bring more potions than you think you need. The rest you'll figure out the hard way like I did.