Palworld TCG Keyword Abilities - All 10, and Retaliate Has 1

Open the rules walkthrough for this game and there is a table near the bottom: ten keyword abilities, one line each. Brave gives Power on attack. Taunt forces the attack. Interrupt cancels one. That table tells you what each word means. It does not tell you how many cards actually carry one, which keywords barely exist in print, or what happens when two of them collide on the same card.

I pulled every card tagged with a keyword ability out of Bushiroad's own database - filtering the official card list search by each of the ten values in turn - and cross-referenced the hits against all 97 published rulings. The spread is lopsided in a way the definitions table can't show: one keyword covers nine cards, four of them cover two or fewer, and one covers exactly one. And there's a genuine anomaly sitting in the middle of it: a cost-2 Pal that prints the same keyword ability twice on one card, which Bushiroad has ruled stacks - the Pal cost breakdown covers it from the price-tag angle, and it belongs here too because it's the only case of a doubled keyword in the whole 166-card pool, not just an outlier at cost 2.

Ten keywords, one summary table, and no counts

Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 does not define keyword abilities as a formal rules category the way it defines colour or element. They are shorthand: a bolded word in a card's text box followed by a parenthetical that spells out what it does in full. Official Q&A #21 confirms the parenthetical is flavour, not function - "the text written in parentheses ( ) is explanatory text, so its presence or absence does not change the card's effect" - so a reprint that drops the reminder text is identical to the original.

The ten words are Interrupt, Nocturnal, Taunt, Vigilance, Assault, Stealth, Brave, Retaliate, Breakthrough and Serious. The rules walkthrough defines all ten in a single table and moves on to phases and deck construction. That's the right call for a rules primer - it is not the right depth for "which of these am I actually going to see," and nothing else in the vertical answers that question either. Colours, elements and Work Suitability have all had this treatment. Keyword abilities have not.

Every keyword ability, counted

Searching the official card database by keyword ability and collapsing every parallel printing and promo reprint down to one entry per distinct card name gives this:

The total column reads 37 against 36 distinct cards because one card, Pyrin Noct - Steed of Azure Flames, carries two keywords at once. More on that below. Weighed against the pool's 166 base cards, a keyword ability sits on roughly one card in five - and that "roughly" hides an enormous spread, from Interrupt's nine Pals down to Retaliate's one.

Interrupt: nine Pals, and the event that only checks

Interrupt is the biggest keyword by a wide margin, and it's already the best-documented one in the vertical - the event cards guide covers its Quick-step timing in full, and the Lucky Pals guide covers which of the nine is worth running. The short version: rule 12.8.2 defines it as a Quick activated ability - rest one soul and discard the card, or discard the card plus one other from hand, to nullify an attack outright, skipping the damage step (rule 5.18). Official Q&A #51 confirms it only works from hand, never from the base.

Nine Pals carry it as a printed ability: Bushi - Ephemeral Blade, Blazehowl - Hellflame Defender, Cryolinx - Arctic Ordeal, Wumpo Botan - Tropical Sentinel, Pyrin Noct - Steed of Azure Flames, Foxparks - A Toasty Hug, Reindrix - Icy Gaze, Dinossom - Radiant Fragrance and Blazehowl Noct - Darkflame Defender. The tenth card the search turns up, Black Marketeer, doesn't have Interrupt at all - its text reads "choose up to 2 Pals without Interrupt from your graveyard" - it's tagged in the database because it references the keyword as a filter, not because it grants or possesses it. That distinction matters if you're counting: nine Pals actually defend with it, one event just checks for it.

One more ruling worth having that isn't in the event guide: Bushi - Ephemeral Blade also carries "at the end of the battle this card attacked, you may return this card to hand," and official Q&A #45 confirms that ability still fires even if the attack it's attached to gets Interrupted by the opponent. Cancelling the damage doesn't cancel the trigger.

Nocturnal: five Pals, and one structure that grants it to everyone

Nocturnal reads simply on the card: "if it is night, this card gets Power +300." Five Pals print it - Helzephyr - Wings of the Moonless Night, Pyrin Noct - Steed of Azure Flames, Depresso - Late Night Hustler, Daedream - First Slumber and Daedream - Deep Slumber - and two Structures interact with it without carrying it themselves. Shoddy Bed only checks whether you have a Nocturnal Pal resting, for a card-draw payoff. Lamp does something bigger: its continuous ability reads "all of your Pals get the skill in 〈 〉. 〈CONT Nocturnal (If it is night, this card gets Power +300)〉" - which hands Nocturnal to every Pal you control, not just the five that print it. Official Q&A #80 confirms the effect is live: a Pal that doesn't naturally have Nocturnal can still trigger Helzephyr's on-deploy graveyard ability once Lamp is out, because Lamp made it Nocturnal.

Night itself is a named game state, not a keyword - official Q&A #13 defines it as "a game state that changes via card effects" with no rules effect of its own beyond what individual cards check for. It doesn't expire when its source leaves play either: Q&A #94 confirms that if the card that turned it night gets removed mid-effect, night stays in force until the duration it named runs out.

The card that prints Nocturnal twice

Depresso - Late Night Hustler is a plain cost-2 Common: 100 Power, Strike 1, no other text. Its ability box reads "CONT Nocturnal (If it is night, this card gets Power +300)" on one line, and then the identical clause again on the next. It looks like a database duplication error, the kind that gets silently fixed in an errata pass. It isn't one.

Official Q&A #91 asks the question directly - "does BP01-079 Depresso possess two instances of CONT Nocturnal?" - and Bushiroad's answer is unambiguous: "Yes, that is correct. If it is night, it receives a total of +600 Power." A 100-Power cost-2 Pal that becomes a 700-Power body at night. Nothing else in the 166-card pool repeats a keyword ability twice on one printing, checked across all 36 keyword-carrying cards and their parallels - Depresso is the only card in the game where you have to double a number the card itself only states once.

It is the same design space Shadowbeak - Seed of Despair occupies from the other direction, doubling other cards' triggered abilities rather than its own static bonus - covered in full in the colours guide. Depresso does the doubling to itself, printed directly on the card, and the ruling exists because someone asked whether that was intentional.

Taunt forces the attack, it does not block it

Taunt reads "your opponent cannot attack other targets if a card with taunt can be targeted for an attack" - it doesn't stop damage, it removes your opponent's choice of who takes it. Three Pals carry it intrinsically: Warsect - Iron Fortress, Eikthyrdeer Terra - Guardian of Nature and Broncherry - Brimming Adoration. Two Structures are involved differently. Wooden Wall has Taunt printed on itself - a structure can be forced to eat an attack the same as a Pal - and draws you a card when it finally goes down. No Pals Beyond Sign doesn't have Taunt itself; its activated ability grants it to whatever Pal is assigned to it, until the end of the opponent's next turn, turning any Pal you're willing to rest into a temporary lightning rod.

Official Q&A #40 closes the one rules question Taunt raises with multiple copies on board: "the attacking player can choose the target of the attack from among the cards that possess Taunt" - Taunt narrows the legal target pool down to itself, it doesn't dictate which Taunt card gets hit if there's more than one.

The four keywords with two or fewer cards

Four keywords sit at two cards each, and none of them behaves quite the same way underneath.

Vigilance - "at the end of your turn, stand this card" - undoes the normal rest-to-attack tempo cost. Suzaku Aqua - Way of the Current has it printed permanently. Grappling Gun, a Blue Gear, grants it to whichever Pal you choose for the turn when you rest the Gear itself.

Assault - the keyword the rules walkthrough calls out as the sole exception to "you cannot attack a standing Pal" - lets its holder target Pals that haven't rested. Grizzbolt - Rumbling Tank has it as a permanent CONT ability. Gumoss - Curious Sprout only gets it for one turn, granted to itself by its own On Deploy trigger alongside a Power bump.

Stealth - "this card cannot be blocked" - belongs to Cawgnito - Looming Shadow and Felbat - Lifestealer permanently, plus Cawgnito Hat, a Purple Gear that lends it to any Pal you attach it to.

Breakthrough - the answer to Taunt and to standing Pals in general, converting a kill into face damage on the opposing player - belongs to neither Digtoise variant by default. Both Seismic Drillback and Keen Needleback have to pay 2 Ingredient and activate an ability to grant it to themselves for the turn, alongside a Power boost. It's the only keyword in the pool with zero permanent holders; every copy of it that hits the table was paid for that turn. Official Q&A #65 has already settled the one edge case that matters here: if the attacking Pal's Strike gets reduced before Breakthrough triggers, the extra damage uses the reduced number, not the card's printed value.

Retaliate has exactly one card in the whole game

Menasting - Darkness-Dwelling Scorpion, a Purple cost-5 Pal, is the only card in the 166-card launch pool with Retaliate: "when this card is put into the graveyard during battle, put the opposing combat Pal into the graveyard too." Trade your Pal for theirs, guaranteed, regardless of the stat line on either side. Menasting also returns a Normal Pal to your hand when it dies for any reason, so the card is doing two jobs even before Retaliate triggers - it's covered from the resource-recursion angle in the dual-element table and the Pal cost breakdown, neither of which flags that its combat clause is the rarest keyword in the game. Whether that stays true past the launch set depends on Legends Awaken, which has no card list published as of this writing.

Brave and Serious are the two remaining keywords, and both are two- and three-card commons respectively that read the same way on every copy. Foxparks - Light of Courage and Univolt - Valiant Thunderclap both print "Brave 300 (On Attack, this card gets Power +300 until end of turn)" - identical text, different Pal. Rooby - Brave Sparks, Teafant - Fountain of Cheer and Tanzee - Cheerful Worker each print "Serious 400 (On Assign, choose 1 Pal and it gets Power +400 until end of turn)" at cost 2 - one in Red, one in Blue, one in Green. There is no Purple Serious card and none Colorless; every colour that has one has exactly one.

Granted vs. printed: half these keywords are borrowed

Sort the 36 cards by whether the keyword is permanently printed on them or only shows up conditionally, and the picture changes:

Four of the ten keywords - Vigilance, Assault, Stealth and Breakthrough - have a Gear card or a self-granting ability doing at least some of the work, rather than a Pal simply printing the keyword and having it always on. Breakthrough is the extreme case: nobody owns it permanently, so every point of Breakthrough damage in a real game was a soul-and-Ingredient investment made that turn, not a stat line you drafted around. Interrupt, Brave, Serious and Retaliate sit at the other end - every copy that exists does the thing every time, no activation required.

Quick reference

Counts read from Bushiroad's official card database (166 base cards) and the official Q&A (97 entries) on 2-3 September 2026.