Ok.. made a Mage, thought i was doing pretty well.. my personal pawn was setup as a warrior through level 14, then switched her to heavy ranger (never gets old seeing her point blank shoot an enemy in the face and watch as he/she/it sails off into the sunset).. decided i was big enough to step off into a completely unexplored ( and not a recommended area(yeah i totally went into the boonies on a lark)).. ran into a Chimera along with a group of lizardmen (Samarions?)... fought for nearly 15 minutes before we emerged as victors , and while we WERE hurt, i didnt turn back...lol. turned a corner in a tightish canyon and ran face to face with an Ogre. the Battle was BRUTAL, we were getting our asses kicked.. my pawns were going down like Dominos... literally 30% of my time was spent getting them back up.. then i caught the Ogre with a triple fireball to the face while my fighter pawn tackled him in the knee and down he went.(not dead.. just dropped to the ground)... as he was face planted.. i climbed onto his back and positioned myself at the back of his head pumping him with shot after shot.. he stood up.. and in two swift motions..pinned me between his bulk and the canyon wall with a brutal body slam then chewed me into pieces... i died. 10/10 would die again.... i did. 20 minutes later when i encountered the dragon
Fought my first Drake, and had my first death. So, pretty much everything up until this point I was able to go toe to toe with in battle and just swing at it until it died. Not a Drake, though. I discovered melee combat is not what you want when you're fighting a Drake. "Alright cool, all of my pawns are ranged damage dealers. I'll just hang back let them wail on it and only go in when it falls out of the sky or snatches one of them up to mind control them. Easy day." Or so I thought. It was during this fight when I realized how limited the pawn AI system really is. Such as their apparent priority system when it comes to actions. For instance, if anyone in the party had even a tick damage on them, BOTH the casters would immediately drop everything they're doing to cast heal. Even if doing so meant taking a swipe or a flame breath to the face and probably dying. I fought this Drake for 8 in-game days and nights, got it down to it's second to last star, all the while my pawns are repeatedly dying because they're literally doing EVERYTHING BUT ATTACKING. The rare occasions where the thing decided to fly, and all my pawns were full health, and then managed to do enough damage to knock it out of the sky were the only times I ever got any reasonable damage on the thing. Also, it was in a forest that's "untouched by man" so each night I'm fighting off wave after wave of Hobgoblins in addition to the Drake. It was the most brutal fight I've ever been in outside of an MMO or a game like Dark Souls. And it was just a random encounter.
The pawns behavior is set by the creator to some extent. You can find a chair in the inns to direct your pawn how to behave, like focus on healing first, focus on small minions first, etc.
There are also potions at the Corp camp North of Cassadis. These allow you to set your main pawn's inclinations. http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/Pawn_Inclination
Issuing commands in battle also affects the overall(and long term) behavior of your Pawn.... issuing the "GO" command, i have found tends to make the pawn more aggressive..the "Help" command will,on the other hand, cause your pawn to favor healing instead of attacks.
