RimWorld Traits: Your Colonists Are Doomed (And Here's How to Fix It)

Biotech DLC (Oct 2022) – Children and Growth Moments

With Biotech (game version 1.4), colonists can have children, and those children gain traits as they grow. Babies have no traits, but at each growth moment (ages 7, 10, 13) the child gets to acquire a new trait, chosen from a few options if you've raised them well.

This was a major change – previously, pawns never gained traits after generation. Now, a well-educated child can effectively be "tailored" with up to 3 traits by adulthood.

Ideology Tweaks

The Transhumanist trait was renamed to Body Modder. Functionally it's the same (pawn gets mood buffs for having artificial body parts and a −4 mood if they have none), but the name change aligned it with Ideology's transhumanist meme.

Ideology also added a concept of role-based traits (e.g. leaders, specialists gaining abilities) and may influence traits indirectly.

Anomaly DLC (Apr 2024)

The surprise Anomaly expansion introduced horror-themed gameplay and with it some extreme new traits. It added special colonist types called "creepjoiners" who come with powerful benefits and equally dramatic downside traits to balance them.

New traits include:

• Void Fascination: Negates mood penalties from being near monsters
• Occultist: Deep knowledge of dark psychic patterns
• Body Mastery: No need to eat or sleep (essentially undead)
• Perfect Memory: Greatly slows skill decay

Tough

Effect: Halves all damage a pawn takes

Why it's great: Dramatically increases combat survival

Industrious

Effect: +35% global work speed

Why it's great: Massive productivity boost for any task

Fast Learner

Effect: +75% skill gain rate

Why it's great: Rapid skill development for any role

Sanguine/Iron-Willed

Effect: +12 constant mood/reduced break risk

Why it's great: Mental stability in harsh conditions

Jogger

Effect: +0.4 cells/sec move speed

Why it's great: "Movement speed is king" - affects everything

Very Neurotic + Industrious

A Very Neurotic pawn works extremely fast (+40% work speed), and while they may break more often, those breaks are typically minor because their threshold is higher.

Too Smart + Sanguine

Too Smart gives +50% learning rate but +12% break chance. Pairing with Sanguine (+12 mood) offsets the mental break risk.

Melee Combat

• Brawler: +8 melee hit chance
• Nimble: +15% melee dodge chance
• Tough + Jogger: Elite melee fighter combo

Ranged Combat

• Careful Shooter: +25% accuracy, 50% slower aim
• Trigger-Happy: 50% faster aim, -5% accuracy
• Bloodlust: +5 mood per kill, no corpse penalties

Pyromaniac

Problem: Fire-starting sprees, can't firefight

Solution: Draft another colonist to follow them with a fire extinguisher during episodes. For treating burn injuries, check our medical care guide.

Gourmand

Problem: Eats ~50% more, randomly binges on food

Solution: Schedule more work/less free time, ensure plenty of meals

Jealous/Greedy

Problem: Mood loss if not best/impressive bedroom

Solution: Give them a slightly better room than others

Chemical Interest/Fascination

Problem: Mood debuff without drugs, may binge

Solution: For newer versions, just forbid drugs to avoid binges

Vanilla Traits Expanded (VTE)

This mod by Oskar Potocki and team adds 55 new traits to the game, greatly increasing the variety of pawn personalities.

[KV] Consolidated Traits

Kiame Vivacity's mod adds 45 new traits focusing on core gameplay impact. The mod was created after finding that existing trait mods had some traits the author liked and some they didn't.

Notable traits include:

Dynamic Traits

Unlike vanilla where traits are static (except for Biotech children), dynamic trait mods let pawns gain or lose traits during gameplay based on their experiences.

Examples of trait development:

• A pawn who experiences many fights might pick up the Bloodlust trait
• Someone who endures a lot of pain might become Masochist
• Traits can develop after major life events

Psychology (unofficial)

This is a total overhaul of the pawn personality system, introducing a whole Psyche system with numeric values for various personality traits.

Key features:

• Dozens of subtle personality metrics visible in a Psyche tab
• Relationship formation based on personality compatibility. For managing social interactions in prisoner recruitment, see our prisoner management guide.
• Continuous Kinsey scale for sexual orientation instead of traits
• Therapy system to treat mental conditions

Check for Duplicate Traits

If two mods add a trait called "Hot-blooded" with different effects, disable one using VTE's menu.

Load Order Matters

Load "framework" mods first, then trait-adding mods, then pawn generation mods last.

Use Mod Options

VTE's menu is great for toggling off traits you feel are unbalanced or redundant.

Backup Your Saves

Always keep backups when adding/removing mods that affect pawn traits.

EdB Prepare Carefully

This classic mod allows you to design your starting colonists in the new game setup. You can choose each pawn's traits, skills, appearance, and starting gear – exactly like what you see in the character creation screen above.

Key features:

• Full customization of starting pawns
• Points system for balanced customization
• Save/load presets for future games

Character Editor (Zombrella's)

This is the go-to tool for editing pawns mid-game. It's an in-game UI that you can open at any time to edit almost everything about a pawn.

Features include editing:

Development Mode (Dev Tools)

Without any mods, RimWorld's built-in dev mode allows trait editing. Enable dev mode in settings, and you can use the debug actions to add or remove traits on pawns.

Numbers Mod

Provides a spreadsheet-like view where you can list all pawns and their traits in one table.

RimHUD

Displays traits more prominently on the pawn interface with a scrollable list.

Vanilla Trait Colors

Color-codes trait labels by category (green for positive, red for negative).

"Ugly? Into the freezer!"

Staggeringly Ugly pawns give −40 opinion to everyone, making social fights and rejections very likely.

Some players tongue-in-cheek say they use them for organ harvest or gene extraction, referring to them as "juicers."

"Very Neurotic is secretly OP"

A Very Neurotic pawn works extremely fast, and while they may break more often, those breaks are typically minor.

"It's much more likely they get a minor break and receive the huge catharsis boost...It's a pretty good trade-off."

The Pacifist Colony

A classic challenge: have all pawns incapable of violence (via backstories) or all with the Wimp trait.

Strategy: Stealth and avoidance become your weapons. Using a trait like Coward could enhance this.

All-Pyromaniac Colony

Make a colony where every colonist has the Pyromaniac trait to see if you can manage it.

Strategy: Build firebreaks, use all stone construction, and keep important items in fireproof rooms.

Cannibal Cult

All colonists have the Cannibal trait, running a colony that thrives on human meat.

Strategy: Combine with Bloodlust or Psychopath traits to completely avoid mood penalties from butchering humans.

S-Tier Traits

• Tough
• Industrious
• Sanguine
• Fast Learner

A-Tier Traits

• Jogger
• Iron-Willed
• Bloodlust
• Too Smart

F-Tier Traits

• Pyromaniac
• Gourmand
• Wimp
• Staggeringly Ugly