With deckhands being free and promotable with merely money and jewels, pretty much everyone will have deckhands now. And I figured, it’s best to inform people if they want to get stylish deckhands of how best to do that.
As of right now, we know that all randomly spawned deckhands in the Bronze Sea will be lv 20 - 30 and rookie/common tier, while Nimbus Sea deckhands spawn at lv 80-100(?) with the same rarity. The low level on Bronze Sea ones also means few to no accessories, which could be a problem if you’re looking for a cool NPC. However, I’ll go over how to identify outfit types and how they generally evolve.
Now, first things first, accessories (and weapons) are the only things deckhands can change. As your deckhand level up, they gain new accessories added to their pool while others get removed. Deckhands’ appearances are based off this pool, which is determined by outfit type. Some have accessories available from lv 20 all the way to 136.
Keep in mind, this mean deckhands can’t character customize, meaning they can’t change the following aspects: name, title, hair and hair color, face, eye color, skin color, fighting styles (mainly for idle stances and accessories like boxing gloves), magic (irrelevant as they’ll never use it outside of a bug), and clothes (though most of the time they will have armor on which covers their clothing).
Anyways, onto deckhand identification. If you’ve read my NPC posts before, you’ll know these outfit types by now: Fighter/pugilist, sailor, pirate, samurai, warrior, mercenary, merchant, knight, and mage. Considering the NPCs will always spawn at low lv (“phase 1”), that’ll be the most important part of identification.
Deckhands also follow a color scheme, which is more prominent in some outfits like sailor or samurai more than others like knight. Note that you can only find this by looking at an accessory or armor that can be colored.
Fighter:
Fighter NPCs often spawn wearing a martial artist gi (most obvious), gloves, or a headband. Only the headband is shared with other outfits, so the other two would be a good giveaway, especially the gi. This outfit is slightly uncommon, but still pretty frequent.
As they level, they gain iron and spiked fists, warrior boots, and a fighter jacket. None of their initial accessories appear to be removed from the pool except maybe the gloves. At lv 100+, they gain the bruiser set.
Below are some examples:
Sailor, Pirate:
Sailor and pirate are very hard to distinguish. It’s not until phase 3, their distinguishing phase, that their appearance splits off. Before that, it’s anyone’s guess, but there are still clues you can use. They are one of the most common outfits you can find, with pirate being slightly more common than sailor.
At early phases, they will use an assortment of shirts: striped, sailor, or undershirt jacket. They greatly resemble the crews of pirate or merchant ships. They may also use durags, merchant pants, or eyepatches.
As they level, all these clothes are removed from their pool, along with the durags. They instead gain sailor headbands, tricorns, sailor set armor, sailor jackets, and capes (sailor) or pirate captain hats, large jackets, pirate captain set, fighter jacket (not sure if this is a bug, it only started happening after easter update), and viking helmets (pirate). Seafarer coats are also added to bother of their pools. They will now resemble ship captains. At lv 100+, sailors gain the bruiser set, while pirates gain just the bruiser boots…
Samurai:
Another easy to spot one. Samurais frequently start out with straw hats, so they’re pretty easy to identify, however the straw hat is always beige/default color. They don’t switch it for one that matches their color until later. They also wear wizard pants sometimes, for some reason? Bandanas and eyepatches are also in their starting outfit pool. They’re uncommon, but just like fighters, not too hard to find.
At higher levels, they gain wanderer robes, bracelets/armbands, and as previously mentioned, colored samurai hats. They will also gain samurai pants but not the shirt, and use the pants to replace the wizard ones. Samurais can also use the samurai straw hat and samurai shirt, as well as warlock jackets, samurai helmets, and samurai armor/boots.
I know this is a hero but they as well as wanted bounties use the same outfit sets as deckhands
Warrior (Archer):
This one is a bit tougher to identify. Warrior NPCs start out with bandanas, but that’s not easy to tell apart from some other sets. Instead, look at their armor. Warrior sets often start out wearing hunting boots or both the boots and the chestpiece. This is how you find one. They’re pretty common.
As they level, they gain hoods, capes, eyepatches, bracelets, and swap the hunting set for a warrior set. They can now also wear the archer armor set and hood.
At level 100, they gain the deluxe hunting set.
I can’t find a picture of a deckhand in hunting armor so here’s a bounty with it:
Mage:
The notoriously rare mage set is pretty unique. It starts with explorer’s backpacks (which have no relation to mages), and spirit/scary hats. This makes them pretty easy to spot, if you can find one, that is. Eventually, they switch to a wizard set with warrior boots, gaining capes, and mystic hoods, and eventually transition to a sorcerer set, keeping the mystic hood. I think they have bracelets/armbands but I don’t remember.
Mercenary (Bounty Hunter):
This set is easy to confuse with the warrior set early on. The difference is that they don’t usually wear any armor, but instead have headbands or bandanas. Because of these accessories, you can determine the color scheme as well.
They gain capes, the mercenary set, eyepatches, and bracelets/armbands(?) as they level. I honestly don’t remember which set wears the bracelets and armbands cause quite a few do and I always forget them. At lv 100+, they gain the bruiser set.
Merchant (Wealthy):
Merchants sound simple to find but aren’t. Why? Often they don’t wear anything in their early phase. Your best bet to get a guaranteed merchant is if the NPC has a merchant coat on. One with merchant pants may turn out to be a sailor or pirate. They become a lot more distinguishable in the higher levels, gaining the fancy set, which doesn’t replace the merchant clothes set, monocles, capes, bracelets, and top hats.
Ignore my glitched and textureless character in this one. Loading bug.
Knight:
Lastly, knight outfit. They are one of the most common you’ll see on NPCs. Knight outfits always start with a leather set, including the armor set, helmet, and even shoulderpads sometimes.
They then transition to the iron set, switching out their helm and armor fully for it, as well as the pauldrons. They also gain capes.
Next they switch to a steel set, with spiked pauldrons.
Finally they get a titanium set, with spiked pauldrons being their final choice of pauldron. Fun fact, female NPCs with this outfit never seem to wear the helmets regardless of phase.
November 10th 2023 update:
Occult:
Starting accessories:
Wizard pants, spirit hat
Known accessories:
Wizard pants, spirit hat, mysterious mask, black capes, warrior boots, samurai shirts, wanderer robes, armbands
Mafia:
Starting accessories:
Fedora, merchant shirt and pants, black sunglasses
Known Accessories:
Fedora, merchant shirt and pants, black sunglasses, capes, sailor coats, bracelets
Casual:
Starting accessories:
Colored sunglasses, black-banded fedoras
Known accessories:
Colored sunglasses, bracelets, tropical jackets and shirts, mountaineer boots, large jacket capes, black-banded fedoras, warrior boots
Engineer:
Starting accessories:
top hat, merchant shirt
Known accessories:
head goggles, gloves, sailor coat, warrior boots, top hat, merchant shirt, headbands, capes
Cowboy:
Starting accessories:
Cowboy hat, eyepatch, bandana, leather armor and shoulderpads
Known accessories:
Cowboy hat, eyepatch, bandana, leather armor and shoulderpads, warrior armor, toothpick, sailor coat, mountaineer boots, large jackets
Barbarian:
Resembles Windrow bandits.
Starting accessories:
Leather shoulderpads, eyepatches
Known accessories:
Viking hat, steel armor, wolf pelts, leather shoulderpads, dark leather shoulderpads, eyepatches, mountaineer boots, steel shoulderpads, sailor coats
At lv 100+, they gain the bruiser set.
I have no clue what set this one is, my guess is mafia
Update: I finally figured it out, I think it’s a casual with black outfit and given a samurai shirt
I hope this guide helped you with learning about NPC outfits and how to find a deckhand you would like appearance-wise. If you want a deckhand location spawn list, click here.
I can’t wait to see the deckhands everyone will get. This update honestly fixes the entire system and makes deckhands even more useful. Good luck finding NPCs to befriend you and join your journey across the War Seas!
