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There is no single strongest recruit in DELTARUNE. If you want a livelier Castle Town, its activities, and a complete recruit roster, the best strategy is to spare or pacify every eligible enemy you meet. If you instead want stronger party stats for the current Chapter, defeating enemies violently offers a tradeoff—but can permanently prevent that enemy from being recruited.
This guide covers the recruitment system and practical priorities in the chapters available as of October 2026. Chapter 6 is still in development, according to the official FAQ.
What makes a recruit “best”?
Recruit value depends on your goal, not a universal character-strength ranking. The official gameplay reminder sheet says that recruiting makes Castle Town livelier and may unlock activities. Recruitment can also affect chapter-specific scenes or battle preparation, but those outcomes vary by enemy and chapter.
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- For completion: recruit eligible enemies and use the chapter’s check to see whether you have them all.
- For Castle Town: recruit enemies whose presence contributes to town activity or its atmosphere.
- For current-Chapter battle strength: consider the stat increase from violence, knowing it may cost you a recruit.
- For story-dependent outcomes: preserve recruitable enemies when you are unsure whether a chapter has a specific condition.
No source establishes a canon ranking of recruits by strength or popularity, so claims that one recruit is simply “the best” overstate what the mechanic shows.
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How recruitment works
Recruit enemies by sparing or pacifying
Starting in Chapter 2, sparing or pacifying eligible enemies recruits them. Use ACT options to raise an enemy’s MERCY until SPARE is available. Ralsei can PACIFY an enemy that is TIRED when the party has at least 16% TP. You may need to spare a certain number of the same enemy type before that type joins Castle Town on a later story visit.
A violent defeat can make a recruit LOST
If you defeat a recruitable enemy violently, it becomes LOST and cannot be recruited later. The official reminder sheet also describes a countervailing benefit: from Chapter 2 onward, violent victories raise the party’s HP, Attack, and Magic for the rest of that Chapter, up to a limit. This is a temporary, chapter-bound strength tradeoff—not a permanent upgrade across the whole game.
Chapter 1 enemies are handled automatically
Chapter 1 has no recruitment system. Its enemies are recruited by default at the start of Chapter 2, so you do not need to replay Chapter 1 to recruit them.
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Best recruitment strategy by goal
If you want a complete roster
- In Chapters 2 and later, use ACTs to reach SPARE or make enemies TIRED and use PACIFY when available.
- Check the recruit counter at Dark World SAVE points when the game displays it. The community-maintained recruitment reference describes counts for recruited enemies and remaining numbers for partially recruited types in Chapter 2.
- Before leaving a chapter, use its completion cue. The official guide says there will be a way near the end of each Chapter to confirm whether all enemies have been recruited.
For a run where completion matters, avoid FIGHT and damaging spells against recruitable standard enemies unless you have consciously chosen the stat benefit over the recruit.
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If you want Castle Town activities
Recruitment is the dependable way to add eligible enemies to town and may unlock activities. Specific activity requirements differ, however, so do not assume that a single named recruit unlocks the same feature in every chapter. Check the current chapter’s recruit count and cues rather than treating one general list as a universal checklist.
If you want stronger battles now
Violence can raise party HP, Attack, and Magic for the remainder of the current Chapter, but the gains stop at a limit and a defeated recruitable enemy is lost. Choose it only when that immediate advantage is more valuable to you than town content or the option to recruit that enemy.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Chapter-specific consequences: what is known
Detailed outcomes are chapter-dependent, and some concrete figures come from a community-maintained source rather than the official guide. The Deltarune Wiki reports that in Chapter 2 each recruited enemy adds 5 HP to the Thrash Machine, starting from 200 HP and capped at 250 HP. It also describes activity and dialogue conditions in Chapter 2 and conditional outcomes in Chapters 3–4. Treat those as chapter-specific details, not as a rule that recruiting every enemy is necessary to finish the game.
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The official guide’s more reliable general advice is to use the game’s own near-end-of-chapter confirmation for recruit completion. Bosses may follow different rules: the official guide cautions that some may not be defeatable either violently or nonviolently, so a fully pacifist result is not guaranteed for every encounter.
How far this guide applies
The official FAQ, updated June 24, 2026, says the full game is available on PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. It also says Chapter 6 is in development and not yet complete. Recruitment advice here therefore applies to released content as of October 2026; future chapters could add enemies, checks, or consequences.
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