Starting tips for Kingdom Come Deliverance

This chapter contains a few tips and advice for Kingdom Come: Deliverance. They can help you survive the first few hours with the game. You can also learn how to solve some of the problems that are caused by the game’s more realistic approach to certain elements.

You cant save your game freely

One of the biggest difficulties in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is that you can’t save your game whenever you want. This has a great impact on the gameplay and it forces you to play the game in a certain way. You can save your progress by:

1. Starting a new quest or making progress in your current mission – The game will save your progress automatically. Note – The game won’t create a new automatic save if you didn’t start another quest after completing a previous mission.
2. Using your own bed (the bed icon on the world’s map) – The game saves your progress only after resting and sleeping for at least 1 hour. Initially, you have only one “personal” bed but you can unlock more by progressing through the game and discovering more locations.
3. Using a bed in a tavern – Taverns are located in most of the villages and towns. The game saves your progress after you pay for a bed (the fee depends on how long you want to rent a bed).
4. Using a bath house – They are located in every bigger village and town. The game saves your progress when you pay for services offered by a bath house (the amount of money that you have to pay depends on which services you want to use). Note – A bath house can also wash your clothes and restore all stats (including those related to your Energy and Nourishment).
5. Reaching a camp in a forest – The games is saved automatically.
6. Drinking Saviour Schnapps (the picture above) – This is a unique drink that lets you save your progress whenever you want. Sadly, this drink is limited which means that you should use it only during long quests where you have to complete a risky action (e.g. infiltrate an enemy camp). Schnapps can be received as a quest reward from NPCs, bought from traders or created by yourself after developing your alchemy skills. Note – Drinking too much Schnapps can turn Henry into an alcoholic. Avoid that by waiting a bit before you drink another one.

You should approach each quest with a mindset that you won’t be able to repeat a given part with ease. Try to think hard before making a decision and prepare yourself before each risky action (e.g. pickpocketing or attacking bandits). As for free roaming the game’s world – you should remember to go back to the places where you can save your game manually. Thanks to that you won’t, e.g. lose your progress from the last few dozens of minutes by dying suddenly.

Note 1 – The game doesn’t ask you if you want to “sacrifice” Saviour Schnapps to save your progress. Think twice before making a decision, especially during the first few hours where the game gives you only a few bottles.

Note 2 – The game has only 3 slots for manual saves – the oldest one is overwritten automatically whenever you are creating a new save. However, this doesn’t include automatic saves that are created during quests.

Prepare yourself for each fight

1. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance each fight is unique. You shouldn’t underestimate any of your opponents. Your character can die easily or receive serious wounds (including breaking a bone or bleeding) if you act in a wrong way or you make a grave mistake.
2. Check your surroundings carefully before you start a fight (if this is possible). This is easier to do when your enemies are in, e.g. a camp and don’t know that you are nearby. You can sneak on them. Try to estimate how many enemies are in a given location and examine their equipment (and find out if there are any archers). Use this information to choose your equipment (weapon and armor) and increase your chance to win an upcoming fight. For example, equip a blunt weapon (e.g. a mace) if you notice that an enemy wears a heavy armor. Wear a full helmet when you want to attack archers – this type of equipment will protect Henry from being shot in the head and dying. Saving a game before you fight someone is highly advised.
3. As you already know from the previous chapter, saving the game is very limited. You should decide to save your progress only when your last save (manual or automatic) was done a long time ago and when you are getting closer to a dangerous location (e.g. a camp with multiple or well-equipped enemies).Some fights happen instantly which means that you can’t prepare yourself before you start them, e.g. a battle that starts right after a cut-scene. Try to quickly estimate the difficulty of a fight and see which enemies can be the most problematic. You can also decide to run away if you think that you have no chances to win. However, archers can cause you problems here.

Your health does not regenerate during combat

1. Kingdom Come: Deliverance doesn’t let you regenerate health in a middle of a fight. Remember that when you start the game. Approach each fight with a mindset that you can’t heal yourself if you receive damage (although avoiding them all together is preferable).
2. However, the game helps you stay alive. The first few clean hits done by your enemy reduce your stamina bar first. Your health starts dropping after depleting your stamina bar completely. Remember about that and try to avoid situations where your entire stamina bar is gone. It can regenerate during a fight but only after you stop using any attacks and other activities that require stamina (try to keep your distance from an enemy). Note – Stamina bar doesn’t protect you from “unique” attacks. Your hero can die instantly when he gets, e.g. shot in the head with an arrow. Don’t treat stamina as a “free armor” but more as a reserve health that you can use on a battlefield.
3. Try to heal your hero after winning a fight or escaping from a battlefield and running away from enemies. It should be mentioned that eating food and using herbs won’t heal you instantly. Healing process is slow in this game. Always check if your hero doesn’t need to be healed with bandages. They are necessary if you want to treat more serious wounds such as bone fracture or bleeding. You can’t ignore these negative “statuses” because they weaken your character greatly. Bandages can be found in the game’s world or can be bought from traders so try to always have a few spare ones in your inventory.

Take good care of your hero

1. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance taking care of your hero is a rather complex topic because it goes beyond regenerating your health bar with various medicaments. Your character can feel hunger and fatigue. You have to deal with them because ignoring these mechanics can weaken your hero which means that he won’t be able to fight well.
2. Reach any of the resting places in the game (various beds, mattresses) and sleep for a few hours to deal with fatigue. Each resting place has a certain comfort value. A lower number gives you few profits after using it. You should either go back to the bed “reserved” for the hero or pay in taverns. Sleeping in hay or on a low-quality mattress under the stars should be your last option. The later part of the game lets you “oppose” this mechanism by unlocking perks that reduce penalties from “low-quality beds” and postpones penalties caused by lack of sleep.

Additional note – You always have to pay for resting in an inn. Renting a bed for a single night costs 2 Groschen and it is the best solution. You can also pay 250 Groschen (or less if you haggle) and have a permanent place to rest. However, the price is too high when compared to the profits. A better idea is to return to any of the beds that belong to Henry and rest as much as you want for free.

1. A solution to hunger is rather obvious. Remember to have something to eat in your inventory. Sleep can deplete this bar rather fast. You don’t have to buy food from traders. You can, e.g. find or steal fruits and vegetables from huts and camps (don’t get caught when you try to steal something). Note – Your hunger meter should be always at 100%, don’t go higher than that. Otherwise, your character can experience negative effects of overeating which will have an impact on the character’s health. Each type of food in your inventory has a quality value which can be understood as an expiration date. Don’t eat food that has this value below 50% and is marked in yellow, orange or red. Your character can get food poisoning and the only way to heal yourself is to use an antidote

Another way of taking care of Henry’s state of being is to visit bath houses (they can be found in most of the villages). One visit lets you regenerate a few different stats of your hero. Always remember to select the first dialog line from the list (the picture above shows an example). By spending 30 Groschen (or less if you haggle a bit) you can save your game, heal all wounds and restore both Energy and Nourishment stats to 100%.

1. Besides hunger and fatigue, your character can also experience other negative statuses that can have a negative impact on you Besides the aforementioned effects of being stuffed and poisoned (this effect can also be inflicted on you after getting damaged with a poisoned weapon or an arrow) your character can also suffer from, e.g. being overburdened (too many items in your inventory) or breaking one of his limbs (received after being damaged by an enemy or by falling from heights). Open the character’s menu to check these statuses. Try to eliminate them right away.

The sooner you start upgrading Herbalism, the better

1. Herbalism is one of the most interesting skills through which you can develop your character in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Invest in this skill and you will help Henry to grow wealthy much faster. Furthermore, you can spend additional income and buy better equipment or pay skill trainers to learn useful skills.
2. Herbalism skill allows you to collect and sell plants. At first, you won’t have any knowledge about herbs, and interacting with a plant will result in collecting only one herb (of very little value). However, as you reach new levels in Herbalism the situation will change. Henry will be able to collect more plants of the same type. A single interaction will grant you several or even several dozen plants. You can take your plants and sell them to merchants. At first, selling your herbs will earn you “only” several dozen pennies, but you can easily reach 100-200 pennies once you reach further levels and gather more plants.
3. Herbalism offers some additional profits. Upgrading this skill will unlock perks which improve your attributes. Reach level 1 to unlock a passive Resistance perk which increases your Vitality by 2. Other useful perks are Flower Power (gives you a +2 Charisma bonus if you have got enough fragrant herbs in your inventory) and Leg Day (Herb-picking activity will add experience to your Strength stat too).

Stealing is profitable but you have to be cautious

1. Stealing can give you a lot of profit in a form of money as well as valuable and useful items. However, there is a risk that someone can see you. This can have very negative consequences. Prepare yourself for each theft and save your game in case your hero gets caught. Another recommended way of stealing is to do it right after creating a manual or automatic save. In worst case scenario you will only have to reload your game and replay the last few minutes.
2. Try to steal from houses when it is nighttime because most of the NPCs will go to sleep. You can be easily caught during a daytime. What is more, your hero can’t enter some of the houses that are in the game. Their owners will ask you to leave. Ignore them and they will become alarmed. Regardless of circumstances, a failed theft has two negative consequences. You lose reputation in that village and your hero can be treated differently (in a negative way) by NPCs. The second negative consequence is that guards become alarmed and they start looking for the hero. You have a few ways of behaving when you get caught by them. You should pay a fine if it isn’t too high. You can also try to use persuasion but it will work only when your hero has high charisma. Combat or escape are both bad ideas – even if you manage to win without losing health, you still won’t solve the problem of a committed crime.The last option is to go to jail voluntarily. The hero “loses” a few days and becomes weaker after being released (this status disappears after some time).
3. Don’t try to steal everything that you come across in houses. Your hero can carry only a certain amount of equipment. Selling stolen goods to traders can also be a problem. Look for locked chests because they usually hold the most valuable treasures. They can be opened with lock picks, that can be found in the game’s world or bought from traders. Note – Fail at a mini-game and you will break your lockpick. During the first few hours you should focus on opening only the easiest locks. Reload your previous save if you broke a few lockpicks (reload your game only when your last save wasn’t done too long ago).
4. Pickpocketing is another way of stealing. It becomes available after making enough progress in the main story line and meeting with a miller called Peshek. Ask him for free training. This method is risky, too. Your first targets should be sleeping people. Sneak near them (after removing your armor) and see if they try to wake up. This method of stealing also has a mini-game. Start by waiting 8-10 seconds, try to remove a few items from their inventory and exit IMMEDIATELY for the time runs out. Don’t try to steal from moving characters or those who are in someone else’s view.

Remember – if you have got nothing against a more aggressive approach, you can sneak on other characters from behind and stun them or perform stealth kills (if you unlocked Stealth Kill – one of the Stealth perks). It will be much easier to rob a given person (fully when skipping the pickpocketing mini-game). However, your victim can successfully defend himself/herself and you may get yourself into greater trouble if you get spotted or you kill and important NPC by accident.

Practice makes perfect

Character progression in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is done similarly to, e.g. Skyrim. You raise your character’s stats by repeating certain actions. This is related to both main attributes (e.g. Strength or Speech) and all skills. Below you can find a few examples that explain how this mechanic works:

1. Attacking someone with a sword can increase your Strength and ability to use that weapon.
2. Shooting a wild animal with an arrow can increase your Agility, ability to use a bow and hunting skills.
3. Using persuasion or intimidation during a conversation with a NPC can increase your Speech.
4. Opening a locked chest in someone’s house can increase your stealth and lockpicking abilities.

The game always informs you about that by displaying an information in the upper left corner of the screen – the picture above shows an example. You also get a chance to select a perk connected to that particular stat after each few levels. For example, after increasing your Strength to a certain level you can select a perk that lowers your stamina depletion while blocking and after developing your hunting skills you can select a perk that lets you get trophies from killed animals.

In the later part of the game you can meet trainers and pay for training that will increase certain stats. This mechanic resembles the games from Gothic or Risen series. A given trainer is specialized only in a certain field (e.g. a hunter will only have knowledge about hunting) and each training costs a lot of money. More about this topic can be found in the chapter dedicated to character progression. Don’t waste your time on trainers during the first few hours – you won’t be able to afford their training. Besides, the first few levels can be easily obtained by yourself.

Try to perform those actions that will improve your character in a desired way. Look for chances to open a locked chest, pickpocket others and sneak if you want to play as a skilled thief. Don’t avoid fighting with weaker bandits and participate in arena fights if you want your character to become a mighty warrior.

Note 1 – Archery differs slightly from the rest of the combat skills. You can’t increase it by shooting at the sky or, e.g. at a haystack. You have to attack enemies, hunt or visit archery trainers.

Note 2 – Initially, Pickpocketing and Reading skills are locked. Miller Peshek can teach you the basics of pickpocketing (you will meet him during the main storyline). Visit a scribe in Uzhitz to learn how to read (one of the side quests).

The game features weight limit

The weight limit in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is one of those things you have to keep in mind right from the start of the game. You can easily overlook it – the result is that your character won’t be able to run. Moreover, with surpassed weight limit your character is much slower in combat. If you exceed the maximum weight limit, you should always try to solve this issue as soon as possible.

The easiest way to exceed the max weight limit is by putting too many armor pieces in your inventory. Try carrying only one of each armor piece (e.g. breastplate, gloves). A similar limitation should be applied to weapons. It is best to carry only two cold steel weapons (to choose from depending on enemies’ arms), and one bow together with one shield as an option. That is not all, as there are other objects that can be very heavy. Don’t carry too much e.g. food.

The easiest way of dealing with this problem is to move items from your inventory to any of your hero’s stashes (these chests are located next to all beds owned by Henry and in inns after buying a bed). You can also place items in your horse’s inventory (the first horse is “unlocked” after completing the first few main quests). Decide what to do with the unnecessary items after both inventories are full. You can use some consumables, throw certain items away, or sell them at particular vendors.

The weight limit doesn’t remain the same throughout the entire game. You can increase it by developing Strength. You can also unlock perks from the Mule group which can increase your weight limit even further. The first perk from this group can be bought at an early stage of the game.

Most of the quests can be completed in multiple ways

1. Most of the quests in Kingdom Come: Deliverance can be completed in many different ways. The non-linear nature of the game offers two different forms of questing. The first one includes all the routes leading players to one ending of the quest. You are asked to e.g. locate a missing person or an important item, you can complete that using persuasion when asking the witnesses or carefully investigating the indicated locations. In such cases, the option you choose is not extremely important.
2. The second one comprises choices and the behavior options that can lead to different endings of particular quests. For example, if you won’t protect an important NPC, he or she can die, which disables his or her help in later parts of the game. Moreover, should you perform poor recon of an enemy fort, your conquer attempt might fail. Both forms of non-linear nature of the game are difficult to differentiate at first. Just to stay safe, it’s a good idea to save the game manually before each quest. If the conclusion of a given quest is not satisfactory to you, you can always try again. Unfortunately, some decisions can have long-term results that are impossible to foresee while making a decision. This game guide comes in handy in terms of such issues.
3. Some of the quests have another, third, factor that is connected to the time in the game. Some mission objectives can only be done at a certain hour. You can, e.g. be asked to visit someone at morning. By missing this deadline, you can, e.g. angry the person that you were supposed to meet or you can change the course of that quest when that character stops waiting for Henry and goes alone. Quests with time limit are even more problematic. For example, you can’t wait too long to heal an NPC because they will die. This mechanic is related only to some of the side quests. The best option is to complete a quest right after receiving it. However, you can always check out our walkthrough – there, you can learn if a given quest has any of these conditions.

The day and night cycle has a great impact on the game

1. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, players can experience the day and night cycle. The time of the day may affect the gameplay and has high impact on solving encountered problems. This applies to both – completing quests and exploring the in-game world.
2. Keep in mind that most of the NPCs complete different tasks and can be found in different locations depending on the part of the day. During the day, they are most often occupied with their jobs or just hang around on the outside. After dusk, they go to rest. This information is very important if you are considering to break into a household or sneak into enemy camp. The risk of being detected at night is lowered by poor visibility at the dark. Darkness is also a problem you have to deal with. If you don’t have to sneak, use a torch to see more, but don’t use it if there is a risk of being detected.
3. You don’t have to wait for the specific time of the day to complete what you have planned in more suitable conditions. The game lets you speed up time whenever you are. Use this option only when you have to, e.g. wait an hour for a quest update. Henry won’t rest properly if you use this option. Instead, you should go back to Henry’s bed or try to find another high-quality bed – thanks to that you can speed up time and restore the energy value.

Additional note – Remember about the day and night cycle while you are visiting NPCs during a quest or when you want to trade with them. It is possible that doors to their houses will be closed. Don’t try to break in if you aren’t planning on stealing from them. Instead, you should go back here at a different hour or you can use the option to speed up time. A given character should leave their house or open the door if this is their work place.

Weapons and pieces of armor have a certain level of durability

1. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, items aren’t indestructible. You have to keep that in your mind from the first hours of the game in order not to wind up with partially (or completely) damaged equipment in front of a well-armed enemy. Cold steel weapons wear off in combat, while pieces of armor can be damaged when your character is successfully attacked by an enemy. You can check the current durability of your items in the inventory menu (by default, each item has 100% durability).
2. An important thing to remember is that damaged items lose the initial features they had when in perfect condition. For example, a cold steel weapon used in 50% deals only half of its initial damage. This means that you shouldn’t wait too long for repairs or replacement of damaged items, otherwise, your character is going to be significantly weaker on the battlefield.

The only solution is to find an item similar to the one that was worn out. However, it won’t be that easy if that item was a unique piece of equipment. You can also try to repair a given item:

1. Use a grindstone to repair a melee weapon by sharpening it. Grindstones are found in numerous villages, forts and camps. Sharpening also has a mini-game. Read the tutorial carefully when you try to sharpen your weapon for the first time. Also, remember to save your game before doing it. This step is important because performing wrong actions can have negative results – you can worsen that item’s quality or even break it. You can also visit a blacksmith and pay for repairs.
2. Elements of armor can be fixed with repair kits. They have different versions that differ in use and effectiveness. New kits can be found in the world or can be bought from traders. You also need to develop your Maintenance skill if you want to be successful at repairing your gear. You can also visit a blacksmith, a cobbler or a tailor and pay for repairs.

Better elements of equipment can require higher stats

1. In theory, Kingdom Come: Deliverance lets you use all weapons and armors found in the world. However, wearing items that require higher stats can have negative effects. Each item has a suggested minimal requirement. The mace from the picture above requires 4 Strength. The red color means that Henry doesn’t meet the requirements yet.
2. You can ignore this information BUT that weapon or a piece of armor will work worse (it will be less effective or will offer a worse protection than that offered by lower quality items). Because of that you should leave those items for later (e.g. place them in the hero’s stash or in your horse’s inventory) and use weaker items with requirements more suitable for your character instead.

The first horse is received after a few hours

1. The beginning of the game can be misleading – after completing the first part of the prologue Henry mounts a horse and rides to Talmberg. You can’t keep it because the horse’s “presence” is only plot-related. The horse inventory tab and its stats are still inactive.
2. You get your first horse after spending a few hours and completing the main quest during which you go hunting with Lord Capon. After that you will receive a horse – this moment is presented in the picture above. Remember that you don’t have to use this horse throughout the entire game. Henry can buy a new one that has more desirable stats.