Maxwell (Don't Starve Together)
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In DST, Maxwell's Sanity increases by 6.75 
/min. He starts the game with 6 Nightmare Fuel and a Codex Umbra. He can also craft a Magician's Top Hat and Magician's Chest, both of which, alongside Shadow Chester, share the same storage of 12 items (4 by 3), allowing all items to access the same inventory. Note that there are two separate shadow storage areas: one for the Surface and one for the Caves.
Maxwell does not suffer sanity drain from shadow items, such as the Dark Sword, Night Armor, Dreadstone Armor, Dreadstone Helm, and Magician's Top Hat.
Disadvantages
As with the base game, Maxwell is very frail (75HP, the lowest of any character), meaning he can take much fewer hits than the average character. His constant sanity regeneration also makes it difficult to stay at low sanity and take advantage of its various perks.
Magic
With the Codex Umbra, Maxwell is able to summon Shadow Servants and Duelists, Shadow Sneak, and Shadow Prison. Each cast that summons a shadow servant or duelist costs him 15% of his maximum sanity and 5% durability of Codex Umbra. The Codex Umbra can be refueled with Nightmare Fuel for 25% durability per fuel used.
Each use of the Codex Umbra has a cast time, making it very risky to use it while in combat. Shadow Servants and Duelists will only stay within a four-turf radius of the area they were summoned and will "die" if Maxwell wanders too far (which refunds Maxwell's max sanity, but not any missing sanity).
Shadow Servants will harvest Trees, mine Boulders, dig Graves, and give items to the player from their one slot inventory from items on the ground. They will harvest whatever is within their area-of-effect for their duration. They will attempt to pick up consumable items on the ground to give to the player, dropping them if the player is unable to hold them. Shadow Servants will automatically switch to a shovel to dig up tree stumps, but won't do so for other plants (eg. Berry Bushes). Shadow Servants instantly die if attacked by mobs.
Shadow Duelists will fight enemies, dealing 20-60 damage depending on the equipment the player is wearing (listed below). The duelist has two types of attacks: normal strike and dash. The dash has a cooldown of 8 seconds and deals 1.5 times the damage of the normal strike, and the Shadow Duelist will always use it as their first attack. If the summoner is not within the summon range of the duelist, the dash cooldown is increased to 16 seconds. If hit, Shadow Duelists will teleport away, like a Shadow Creature.
Even though the duelist has only 75 health, it is still durable in combat due to its damage reduction. From the time of summoning, the damage that another creature can inflict on them is limited to a value of 15 HP, which increases by 5 HP every 2.5 seconds if the duelists don't take damage. This means that damage taken will be equal to the duelist's total health in 30 seconds. Shadow Duelists will die after 2 minutes if they are in active combat or if the summoner is within their range, but they will die in 10 seconds if they are not actively engaging in combat.
Shadow Sneak can transform Rabbits, Bunnymen, and Splumonkeys into their Nightmare variants regardless of Sanity, and cause about 15 seconds of fear, like from fire or Wigfrid's songs, during which they can be freely hit without fear of getting hit. This has no effect on bosses and mini bosses, such as Deerclops and Treeguards.
Shadow Prison can be used to trap enemies in place within its area-of-effect, trapping all creatures in the area in shadowy prisons, including bosses. The duration of Shadow Prison is reduced for larger creatures and will trigger aggro to Maxwell.
Shadow Tiers
Maxwell's Shadow Duelists will get boosted damage based on the equipment worn/held which is split into 4 tiers of damage buffs. Maxwell will comment if the player equips an item that boosts their damage.
| Tier | Items | Damage Boost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |                
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+4 |
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| 2 |           
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+8 |
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| 3 |      
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+12 | |
| 4 | 
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+16 |
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Tips
Codex Umbra
- During the first few days, it is effective to find an area with many Stage 3 Trees or Boulders, then summon several Shadow Servants to harvest them. This will allow Maxwell to attain large amounts of items for minimal resources, especially if he lacks materials to craft certain tools.
- This can be done even during early nights; find a suitable location, craft a Campfire, and simply spend the night cooking food while the Servants clear the area.
- Shadow Servants make Maxwell one of the best characters for mass-clearing tree farms, alongside Woodie. With only one or two Servants, it is possible to attain more than 70 Logs within a short time, with stumps automatically dug up without any player effort. For this reason, he is also great for crafting anything that requires Boards, such as Chests and Boat Kits.
- With just how many trees his Servants can chop down in a short period, Maxwell has a high chance of spawning a Treeguard or Poison Birchnut Tree, which gives him a reliable way of obtaining Living Logs close to his own base. They will aggro Maxwell on spawn, so the player should take precautions for the chance of this happening (eg. having a stack of Pine Cones ready).
- Treeguards can be kept pacified within the camp for an easy source of insanity aura, allowing for convenient farming of Shadow Creatures. Poison Birchnut Trees are typically not worth keeping around due to the difficulty of fighting them, but Shadow Duelists can be summoned in order to fight their Birchnutters for large amounts of Birchnuts and Twigs.
- Summoning multiple Puppets to reduce maximum Sanity is a good way to get Maxwell to stay almost insane for long periods of time, which is not easily obtained normally due to his Sanity regain buff. However, note that Shadow Duelists will not help Maxwell with fighting Shadow Creatures, similar to most other followers.
- Going insane during Daylight and killing Shadow Creatures for Nightmare Fuel is a good way to keep his Puppets up 24/7 during the early days of the game. Killing Beardlings is also an option but Nightmare Fuel from them is not always guaranteed, unless Maxwell has used Shadow Sneak on them.
- Be careful not to summon too many Puppets for this purpose, as setting Maxwell's max sanity to extremely low will cause Terrorbeaks to spawn endlessly until his Puppets die or he makes enough distance to desummon them.
- Shadow Duelists can be used as an efficient, albeit expensive, method to kill passive mobs. For example, they can be used near flowers to kill Butterflies, near Berry Bushes to kill Gobblers, or near Rabbit Holes for Morsels. Birds can survive a hit from one duelist (since they do 20 damage, and birds have 25 health).
- Summoning Shadow Duelists should always be done before initiating combat or during gaps in an enemy's attack pattern, since it takes around 2 full seconds before the player regains control of him. Ideally, they should be summoned in an area where Maxwell can circle around, as they will not wander outside of their four-tile radius.
- The summoning animation can be cut in half by summoning another Puppet straight after, although Maxwell still won't be able to move till the animation is complete.
- Mobs will always focus their attention on Maxwell until his Shadow Duelists get a hit in, meaning that it is not recommended to summon Duelists for the sole purpose of distracting hordes (eg. a group of Spiders chasing from a Spider Den).
- While Shadow Duelists are great against weaker foes, fighting stronger Mobs will result in their death unless they're helped by Maxwell. Great support weapons are the Ice Staff and Fire Staff. The Ice Staff can be used to stun enemies before they land a hit on the Puppets, preventing them from taking damage. The Fire Staff can stun mobs for longer while also damaging them but comes at the cost of possibly burning the dropped loot upon the enemy's death.
- By using Shadow Prison, and quickly afterwards Shadow Sneak on a group of mobs that have shadow variants (such as Splumonkeys) and then killing them, Maxwell can obtain heaps of Nightmare Fuel, since Shadow Sneak will guarantee one to drop from each.
Other
- Since Maxwell has a natural regeneration of Sanity, players are recommended to do sanity-consuming things that other players would suffer from. For example: picking Evil Flowers, using Magic and Ancient Items, or eating sanity draining Food.
- Sanity-regenerating items such as the Tam o' Shanter, Tent, Taffy etc. are unnecessary for Maxwell. This allows him to wear armor such as the Football Helmet while still rapidly regaining Sanity. This also makes exploring during the Night or in Caves and Ruins ideal as the Sanity drain from darkness is negated.
- Due to Maxwell's low maximum Health, it is advised to have revival items on standby. Life Giving Amulets allow him to revive on the spot, but at the cost of Nightmare Fuel, which he might need to fuel the Codex Umbra. Meat Effigies can let him revive near base, but requires sacrificing more than half his current health, and requires the relatively rare Beard Hair from shadow mobs.
- It is necessary to keep track of Maxwell's currently equipped armor for the same reason: if the player accidentally goes into combat while wearing seasonal equipment like the Breezy Vest and Winter Hat, Maxwell will most likely die within seconds.
- Maxwell's low maximum health means that he requires much less healing items than most of the characters: two Healing Salves are enough to heal more than half his health, and most foodstuff that give health points can fully heal him within two or three consumptions. He can even use Spider Glands directly to heal decent amounts of health.
- Thanks to his Sanity regeneration, Maxwell will not lose Sanity even with 100 Wetness. However, he will start losing sanity if he equips wet tools or equipment.
- While this is usually not desirable for other characters, equipping wet items will allow Maxwell to lower his sanity over time to start farming Shadow Creatures.
- Once crafted, the Magician's Top Hat gives Maxwell a large inventory to store whatever he wants, although its inventory can only be opened by wearing the hat and then right-clicking it from the Head slot. Take note of its durability, as it will still go down when worn. The Magician's Chest is simply a chest variant one can place at base to access the same inventory.
- Avoid placing food inside Maxwell's shadow inventory, as it shares the same inventory and gimmicks as Shadow Chester (where food will spoil 50% faster), though this can be used to deliberately create Rot.
- The Surface and Caves both have a separate shadow inventory, which can be used to stockpile useful items for either environment (eg. having a Lantern stored in the cave inventory).
- It is recommended to store items that are useful while exploring but would otherwise take up precious space, such as Nightmare Fuel (for refueling the Codex Umbra), Healing Salves (for healing) or uncommonly used tools (such as a Razor for shaving Beefalo).
- Maxwell's affinity to shadow magic means the player should prioritize getting a Prestihatitator or Shadow Manipulator crafted at their earliest convenience: his Shadow Duelists will gain an increase in damage when he wears magic items, and magic equipment are powerful enough to offset Maxwell's frailty.
- If Maxwell is able to find some Evil Flowers, dropping some captured Bees near them will spawn more flowers, which then can be used to craft Nightmare Fuel.
- Maxwell will find trouble navigating lunar biomes such as the Lunar Grotto due to his constant sanity regeneration, meaning he will eventually get attacked by Gestalts. Any option for lowering his sanity will be useful in said biome, such as the Seawreath or sanity-lowering foods.
| Characters | |
| Don't Starve |           |
| Reign of Giants |   |
| Shipwrecked |     |
| Hamlet |    |
| Don't Starve Together |       |
| Removed |  |
| Unimplemented |         |
| Other |        Minor Characters |