The wilderness is full of peril and opportunity alike, and the difference between suffering one and exploiting another is reflected by Henry’s Survival skill. This page will discuss what the Survival skill does, how to level it efficiently, and what the best Survival perks are in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

Page Breakdown¶

Survival Uses and Effects¶

Let’s be honest, compared to many other skills, Survival isn’t all that important from a gameplay perspective. It’ll grant you more meat when butchering game while also making it easier to hunt, it’ll increase the speed of gathering herbs, and it’ll make it easier for you to avoid incidents while fast traveling from place to place. Food is already easy enough to come by and there’s no shortage of herbs in the game, making the fast travel benefits probably the most welcome effect of this skill, and even that’s something you can avoid by simply travelling by foot (or hoof) or by saving before you fast travel.

Leveling Survival¶

Leveling Survival may not change the game drastically, but on the plus side Survival is easy to level, and has numerous useful perks that you’ll want to consider. Before we get to the perks (see below), let’s talk about the leveling itself; there are two main ways to level Survival, first by exploring and discovering natural points of interest, including bird’s nest, hunting spots… pretty much anything nature-related that pops up a map marker.

This is an awful lot of work for a scant amount of EXP, but fortunately there’s a better way. Picking herbs will also get you Survival EXP, and since herbs are pretty much everywhere, you can level up Survival stupendously fast if you just dedicate Henry to the task of making Bohemia’s fields less pretty for a few minutes. Best of all, you’ll get more Survival EXP if you dry these herbs, and you can also use them to brew potions (leveling Alchemy as well) and sell the resulting potions or herbs to fatten your coin purse.

Picking herbs is pretty much a cheat code for early game Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, especially if you unlock the “Leg Day” perk, in which case you’ll also level your Strength stat while you pick herbs. Pick herbs, level up, get money. It’s great. Now, onto the perks.

Best Survival Perks¶

Survival’s perks are a bit odd, in that they cover all sorts of ground, from smell good hippy buffs, marksmanship buffs, lucky find buffs and general outdoorsman buffs. It’s an odd mish-mash of perks that has the benefit of providing rather general benefits to a wide range of stats and skills, some of which almost everybody will find useful. We recommend considering the following perks:

Leg Day¶

When you harvest herbs, you’ll get Strength EXP as well. Strength isn’t exactly hard to level, but it’s not super fast like Survival is, either, and getting this perk as early as possible will effectively get you a few levels in Strength over the course of the game, provided you gather herbs regularly. If you want to make an already useful activity even more beneficial, this perk’s a no-brainer.

Heartseeker¶

Getting headshots is cool and all, but body shots are easier to pull off, especially in the heat of combat. This perk will cause such shots to deal +10% more damage, and its second rank improves this to +25% damage. If you don’t plan to use ranged weapons, you don’t need this perk, but if you do, it’ll make a good many of your shots more powerful.

Leshy¶

You’ll get a +1 bonus to Strength, Vitality and Agility, a +2 bonus to Stealth and 15% faster stamina regeneration… but only when you’re in the forest. Not amazing. If you get the followup perk, “Wild Man”, this bonus applies any time you’re in the wilderness, which is the vast majority of the map - stepping a few yards away from a town’s boundaries is enough to trigger this perk. “Leshy II” further improves the buffs you get to +2 bonus to Strength, Vitality and Agility, a +4 bonus to Stealth and 25% faster stamina regeneration, which is a hefty collection of buffs that apply in most areas. It costs three perks to get all this, but you’ll be hard pressed to find more significant buffs than this.

Flower Power¶

You keep 30 herbs on you (fresh or dried - not spoiled) and you’ll gain a +2 bonus to your Charisma. This can be any combination of herbs, and effectively you’re trading 3lbs of carrying capacity for a +2 bonus to Charisma. Not a game-breaking perk, but perk points aren’t exactly at a premium and you don’t have to carry the herbs around if you won’t be doing any chatting. If you will be haggling and attempting Speech checks, however, it’s a fine, low-maintenance buff that’s well worth considering.

If you plan to role-play Henry as a hunter, you may want to consider “On the Poacher’s Trail” and “Bounty of the Wild”, but these are a bit too niche in our opinion - potions are a more reliable source of income, food is readily available, and really there’s just not a ton of incentive to go around shooting deer, boars and rabbits. A full list of the Survival perks you can unlock can be found below:

List of Survival Perks¶