Adventure Time RPG Buddy Guide

Buddies are equippable companions in Adventure Time RPG — you slot one next to your hero and it fights with you. The game's own description lists "equip a buddy" as one of its five core pillars, alongside heroes, weapons, dungeons and the Tree House. What it does not list is a buddy roster, a passive table, or an upgrade cost.

What the Beta does give you is a very lopsided set of numbers, and that lopsidedness is the most useful thing on this page:

Read the first two rows together. Ten times as many players have upgraded a buddy as have unlocked three. That is not a quirk of the tutorial — it means the average player runs one or two buddies and pours every material into them, instead of collecting wide.

What Is Actually Confirmed About Buddies

The confirmed list is short and worth stating precisely, because most of what circulates about buddies is inference:

• Buddies exist as equippable companions and appear in the game's core feature list.
• You start with access to at least one — otherwise "upgrade any buddy" could not be earned by 50,450 accounts.
• Upgrading is a material sink with its own badge ladder, separate from weapons.
• There are at least 30 buddies in the design (the Buddy Hoarder threshold), but only a handful are obtainable now: nobody has reached 15.

Everything else — passives, active abilities, damage contribution, whether a buddy can be swapped mid-run, whether buddies stack with squad members — is unpublished. Any "buddy tier list" ranking this game today is ranking its own assumptions.

The One Buddy Name in Circulation

Community reports, including one competitor guide, say Tree Trunks is awarded for first reaching Room 25 in the Dungeon Train. That is consistent with the milestone-reward design the badges imply, and Room 25 is the exact threshold where the Deep Delver badge fires (19,977 holders). It is still unconfirmed by the developers, so treat it as a likely reward and not a guarantee.

No other buddy has a verified name or source. If a list somewhere gives you twelve names with passives, it is extrapolating from Adventure Time canon, not from the Beta.

Why the Upgrade Path Beats the Collection Path

The 50,450-versus-4,999 ratio is not an accident of difficulty. Unlocking three buddies should be easier than fully upgrading one, yet the opposite happened by a factor of ten. Three explanations fit the data, and they lead to the same advice:

1. Upgrade materials drop more often than buddies. Mobs and chests feed the upgrade ladder continuously; buddies arrive at milestones.
2. A second buddy has no obvious use. If only one can be equipped at a time, a second buddy is inventory space, not power.
3. Upgrade costs are back-loaded, but the first level is cheap. The Getting Warmer badge is the cheapest real power spike in the game.

Then look at the deep end: 16 accounts have upgraded fifteen buddies, and zero have done thirty. Whatever the upgrade formula is, it does not stay cheap. Pick one buddy you can actually obtain, level it, and stop.

Priority List: What to Do, In Order

Since buddy strength cannot be ranked from published data, rank the actions instead:

What to Test in Your Own Runs

• Does the buddy's damage number change when you upgrade it, or only its support behaviour?
• Does a buddy revive you, and if so, how often? That would make it strictly better than any damage passive.
• Does the buddy count toward squad-size badges like Come On Grab Your Friends, or is it excluded?
• Can you swap buddies between rooms in the Dungeon Train, or only in the Tree House?

Each of those answers changes the ranking more than any passive percentage would.

Buddies and the Rest of Your Build

Buddies sit on top of two systems you control directly: the hero you play and the weapon you upgrade. Weapon upgrades persist on the weapon and are the biggest documented material sink, so a buddy that duplicates your weapon's role is redundant — a buddy that covers your weakness (sustain, crowd control, ranged chip damage) is worth more than a same-role upgrade.

That is the whole strategic argument for the buddy slot in this Beta, and it is provisional by design. The game ships weekly content, the roster is designed for thirty, and the first patch that adds a second obtainable buddy will reprice this entire page.

FAQ

How many buddies are in Adventure Time RPG? At least 30 exist in the design — the Buddy Hoarder badge requires owning 30. Nobody has reached 15 yet, so the current obtainable pool is small.

How do you get your first buddy? Through early progression; the game guarantees one, since 50,450 accounts have upgraded a buddy. The exact trigger is not documented by the developers.

Is Tree Trunks a real buddy in the game? Community reports say Tree Trunks is the Room 25 Dungeon Train reward. It fits the milestone design and the Deep Delver threshold, but it is unconfirmed.

Should I upgrade one buddy or several? One. Ten times more players have upgraded a buddy than have collected three, and only 16 accounts have upgraded fifteen.

Do buddies make you stronger in solo runs or only in squads? Unpublished. The game lists buddies as a core feature without qualifying group size, and 78,238 players have cleared a run solo, so the safe assumption is that a buddy always helps.

Official source: Adventure Time RPG on Roblox — feature list and the official badge set. All holder counts are the game's awarded counts on October 26, 2026. Tree Trunks: community report, unconfirmed.

Related Guides

• Weapons and upgrades — the material ladder your buddy competes with.
• Dungeon Train — where the second buddy appears, and how far players actually get.
• All 5 characters — pairing a buddy with a hero that has a gap to fill.