Back in the bad old days before modern medicine and creature comforts, when it wasn’t just seen as acceptable to expose a sickly or unwanted infant, but in many cases as a mercy, being naturally hardy was virtually a requirement, not merely a boon… especially if you were born into the serfdom. By the grace of God, Henry happened to be born with a robust constitution, but conditioning can always improve matters, and given Henry’s hard and hectic life, if he wants to thrive he’s going to need all the help he can get. This page will discuss the effects of leveling the Vitality stat, how to level Vitality efficiently and what the best Vitality perks are in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

Page Breakdown¶

Vitality Uses and Effects¶

If you’re familiar with games like Dungeons and Dragons, Vitality in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 may seem a little underwhelming at first - it primarily serves to boost stamina, both the maximum amount of stamina you have and stamina regeneration, as well as the rate at which your Energy stat declines, which in effect determines how much you need to sleep. No health boost. No saving throws. That said, stamina is a very, very important stat that’s consumed when you run, jump, draw and aim a bow, attack with melee weapons, block attacks, and dodge. Stamina also serves as a sort of protection against damage in combat, especially if you’re wearing armor, as you generally become much more receptive to sustaining damage if you stamina is depleted - something much less likely to occur if you’ve got a lot of Vitality.

You don’t really appreciate how much stamina affects pretty much every aspect of gameplay unless you level it up, get used to a higher stamina pool, then reload an older save. It becomes quite stark how much less durable and capable Henry is with a lower stamina - and hence, Vitality - score.

Leveling Vitality¶

Unlike some other stats and skills, there’s no magic bullet for leveling Vitality - it levels constantly, pretty much any time you’re using stamina, but not very fast in any case. This meaning you’ll get Vitality EXP when you run, jump (run and jump at the same time!), attack with a weapon, block an enemy attack, and so on. If you refrain from fast travelling and just walk (or run) everywhere you’ll end up leveling Vitality, but it’s one of those “just play the game” stats, when it comes to levelling. That said, if you want to just run back and forth, jumping around as you go, you can grind out a few levels for it, but there’s plenty of running and jumping you’ll need to do while completing other tasks that grinding out Vitality isn’t terribly engaging.

You do seem to gain more Vitality EXP the more weight you’re carrying, and if you want to grind up Vitality in a mindless way, just overburden yourself and go walking out in the wilderness. Picking herbs is a good way to get disposable weight (and level up Survival at the same time). Just walking down the road from town to town will get you dozens of Vitality EXP… which isn’t drastically faster than any other approach, but it is easier and more mindless. Shuffling around when overencumbered will also level your [Strength] stat, making the endeavor more lucrative, if dull and time consuming.

Best Vitality Perks¶

Despite Vitality not directly influencing Health, many of its perks are focused on keep you alive and functioning or merely reducing maintenance, either by giving you buffs when you’re injured, Health regeneration, Stamina regeneration, lowering your Nourishment depletion, making it easier to clean the dirt off Henry and reducing the severity of the bleeding debuff. Suffice to say, Vitality perks tone down a lot of the survival and simulation elements of the game, and some of these range from nice-to-haves to absolutely essential. We recommend considering the following perks:

Hermes’ Haste¶

You sprint 20% faster. You can’t fast travel everywhere, and this will speed up whatever on-foot traversal you end up doing. It might not seem like a big upgrade, but save your game, buy this perk, run around a bit, then reload. You won’t be going back.

Marathon Runner¶

This perk goes hand-in-hand with “Hermes’ Haste”, reducing the stamina cost of sprinting by 20%. It’s not quite as noticeable, but it’s still a welcome boost that’ll aid in getting around faster.

Balanced Diet¶

A flat 20% buff to stamina is a pretty big boon, and the extra Vitality EXP is a nice to have on top of it. This might sound like a pain to keep active, but you really just need to keep your Nourishment between 50 and 100 and refrain from drinking too much alcohol. Once you have rented a room at an inn you can eat from the inn’s stew pot in the morning and at night, making it trivial to keep your Nourishment at healthy levels. Failing that, buy dried meat and keep them handy for when you’re not need a convenient stew pot. If you want to make it even easier to keep this perk active, get the “Ascetic” perk, which is generally decent and reducing the chore of managing your Nourishment stat.

Ascetic¶

Your Nourishment decreases 30% slower, which effectively means you need to eat 30% less. Check out the Nourishment, Food and Food Poisoning page for more details, but you need to keep your Nourishment level above 50 else you’ll suffer the Hunger debuff. If it drops below 0 you’ll start starving, taking Health damage until you eat. It’s not hard to manage your food intake - food is cheap at inns, taverns and from general store merchants, you can hunt, and if you rent a bed at an inn you can eat some of their stew for free. Still, this will reduce the need to bother with the mechanic and removing inconveniences is always nice… especially if paired with “Balanced Diet”, which is easier to manage with this perk.

Diehard¶

Sometimes things don’t go the way we expect. A lucky crossbow bolt can easily remove half of Henry’s health, even with a good suit of armor! When the tides of battle turn against you, having a free “do over” can come in handy, especially if you haven’t quaffed some Survival Schnapps recently. This perk functionally allows you to play as if Henry had 125 Health instead of the standard 100, which is a fine boost.

There are other perks on the bubble you can consider: Thick-Blooded will give you a bit more time to escape or win a fight so you can apply bandages, but bandages are cheap enough and it’s very rare that you’ll die from bleeding. Well-Dressed might seem like it’s a time-saver, as you can spruce up at a trough, but since it doesn’t apply to your clothes its effectiveness is limited… plus you can just pay a bathhouse owner 20~ groschen to get Henry and his equipped gear cleaned. Finally, the “Revenant” perks might seem good - and they do effectively mitigate the need to fuss over your Health score, but they do not deal with injury debuffs or bleeding and it doesn’t work in combat - at that point, you might as well focus on leveling Alchemy and craft Chamomile Potions. You can just chug one every time your Health is low and save the perk points.

In any event, below you’ll find a list of all the Vitality perks and their effects:

List of Vitality Perks¶