Once a monster has joined you in DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Withered World, four things shape what it becomes: the levels it gains, the Talents you invest in, the Traits it was born with, and its personality.
Leveling
Monsters earn experience from every battle they win. Accumulating enough levels them up, and leveling up sometimes earns Talent Points, which the Japanese copy calls skill points. Along the way they learn spells and abilities of their own.
Level 10 is the threshold that matters beyond raw strength: a monster has to reach it before it can be used as a parent for Synthesis.
Talents
Talents are the investment layer. A single monster can hold up to three of them, and the Talent Points it earns from leveling are spent inside those Talents. Points can be put toward teaching the monster new abilities or toward raising its base attributes, so the same Talent can be pushed for utility or for raw statistics.
Maxing out a Talent has a payoff beyond the monster holding it. If a parent's Talent is fully invested when you synthesize, that Talent may evolve as the child inherits it, which is a reason to finish one Talent rather than spread points across all three.
Element | Detail |
|---|---|
Talents per monster | Up to 3 |
Source of Talent Points | Leveling up |
What points buy | New abilities, or higher base attributes |
Inheritance | A child can inherit a parent's Talents; a maxed Talent may evolve on inheritance |
Traits
Traits are innate rather than bought. Every monster comes with its own set, and they produce special effects during battle independently of whatever action you ordered that turn. Large monsters carry more Traits than small ones, on top of often acting more than once per turn, which is part of what pays for the two party slots they occupy. See Battle and Party.
No trait list has been published for any monster in this game.
Personality
Personality is rolled per individual, not per species. It sets the upper limits of a monster's attributes and the rate at which they grow, so two monsters of the same species can end up quite different. Square Enix says there is a wide variety of personalities, and that items exist for changing between them, which means an unlucky roll on a monster you like is fixable rather than final.
How growth feeds the rest of the game
Level 10 unlocks a monster as a synthesis parent, and a fully invested Talent can evolve when inherited. See Synthesis
Traits and multiple actions per turn are what large monsters trade their extra party slot for. See Battle and Party
Seeds of Skill from the purchase bonus sets grant Talent Points directly. See Editions and Pre-Order Bonuses
Personality, size, rank and family are the four structural properties of every monster. See Monster Families and Ranks