Attributes - CK3 Wiki (2024)

This article has been verified for the current version (1.8) of the game.

Attributes represent certain statistics that each character has, and determine mainly how good a character is at certain actions.

Skills[edit | edit source]

Skills represent a character's expertise across various fields and together with traits determine how good or bad a character is at a given task. Each character will be born with a skill level between 0 and 10 in every skill category, partially determined by both parents. Between the ages of 6 and 16 a child can gain up to 4 more skill points spread across all skill categories, once again determined by the skill of both parents. Skill will be further increased or decreased by various traits and modifiers. All skills cap at 100. The five main skills are diplomacy, martial, stewardship, intrigue, and learning. Prowess is a secondary skill that reflects a character's aptitude in personal combat.

Skill	Effect per level
Diplomacy	+1 General opinion (starting from −8 at level 0) +1% Monthly prestige (starting from −8 at level 0) Determines the opinion gain from certain character interactions Determines the effectiveness of diplomacy schemes
Martial	+2% Levy size (starting from −16 at level 0) +2% Levy reinforcement rate (starting from −16 at level 0) +1 Advantage
Stewardship	+2% Domain taxes (starting from −16 at level 0) +0.2 Domain limit
Intrigue	+1% Scheme discovery chance +1 Hostile scheme success chance Determines the effectiveness of intrigue schemes Determines imprisonment success chance
Learning	+0.1 Monthly piety -1% Conversion cost +0.2 Foreign language limit +1% Cultural fascination bonus if cultural head Determines the prestige cost to increase crown authority Determines the success chance of Demand Conversion
Prowess	+10 Toughness as knight +100 Damage as knight Determines the combat moves available in a duel Determines muscle mass in character appearance

Value thresholds[edit | edit source]

The final value of each skill, including modification by education and other traits, is tested against certain thresholds in the game data. One is used to set the human-readable description of the skill level shown in the tooltip while mousing over one of a character's skills, to give a general assessment of their ability.

Dread[edit | edit source]

Dread is a measure of how feared a ruler is by their vassals. A character's dread can range from 0 to 100. Enough dread compared to another character's boldness can make characters either intimidated or terrified, allowing most diplomatic actions to succeed despite negative opinion.

Dread is gained by various actions that inspire fear, such as torturing or executing prisoners. However, it is also possible to lose dread through actions showing compassion or weakness, including releasing prisoners and accepting faction demands. Each character additionally has natural dread which is the value towards which dread will drift over time (either up or down), at a base rate of 0.5 per month. The lifestyle perk Forever Infamous prevents dread from decaying.

Each character has a hidden boldness attribute, which is decided by its traits. A character becomes intimidated by characters whose dread is 20 above their own boldness and terrified by characters whose dread is 45 above their own boldness.

Intimidation and terror[edit | edit source]

Intimidated characters are less likely to join factions or schemes against the character they're intimidated by, while a terrified character will never join factions or schemes against them. In addition, it affects their acceptance for various character interactions:

Interaction	Intimidated acceptance	Terrified acceptance
Arrange marriage	+75	+150
Blackmail	+50	+100
Negotiate alliance	+50	+100
Offer guardianship	+50	+100
Offer ward	+50	+100
Ransom	+40	+100
Ask to take vows	+25	+50
Imprison	+25	+50
Retract vassal	+25	+50
Revoke title	+25	+50
Demand conversion	+10	+20
Offer vassalage	+10	+20
Marry	-50	-75

Dread gain[edit | edit source]

The amount of dread gained through actions is modified by the following:

Source	Dread gain
The Tower of London	+30%
First Guile dynasty legacy perk	+20%
Authority focus	+20%
Dreadful perk in Torturer tree (Intrigue lifestyle)	+30%
Hard Rule perk in Overseer tree (Martial lifestyle)	+20%
Public Display of Ruthlessness modifier ( Host Feast)	+25%
Suspicious Reputation modifier (Learning lifestyle event)	+20%
Dangerous to Know modifier (Learning lifestyle event)	+20%
Wind Spirits' Blessing modifier ( Seek Aid of the Spirits decision)	+25%
Torturer trait	+50%
Paranoid trait	+25%
Callous trait	+25%
Vengeful trait	+15%
Irritable trait	+10%

Natural dread[edit | edit source]

The natural dread of a character is modified by the following (default value is 0):

Health[edit | edit source]

Health is a measure of how likely a character is to die. Male characters are born with health between (and including) 4.5 and 4.9; female characters are born with health between (and including) 5.0 and 5.4.^[1] Once a character reaches the age of 25, they have a 7.5% chance to lose −0.125 health each year. The chance increases by 2.2% each year.

Health	Can die	Description	Interval
Dying		You are at Death's doorstep	health < 0
Near Death		You are not long for this world...	0 ≤ health < 1
Poor		You are ailing	1 ≤ health < 3
Fine		You are feeling fine	3 ≤ health < 5
Good		Your humors are balanced	5 ≤ health < 7
Excellent		You are full of vim and vigor!	health ≥ 7

Some traits, tenets and modifiers provide bonuses Disease resistance (health). This means that any health penalties applied to the character are negated by the amount of disease resistance the character has. Note that there is also disease resistance for fertility.

Health boosts and penalties[edit | edit source]

Health effects have different names depending on the value:^[2]

Displayed as	Range of values
Catastrophic Health Penalty	value < −4
Critical Health Penalty	−4 ≤ value < −3
Severe Health Penalty	−3 ≤ value < −1
Major Health Penalty	−1 ≤ value < −0.75
Moderate Health Penalty	−0.75 ≤ value < −0.5
Minor Health Penalty	−0.5 ≤ value < −0.25
Tiny Health Penalty	−0.25 ≤ value < 0
Small Health Boost	0 < value < +0.25
Medium Health Boost	+0.25 ≤ value < +0.5
Significant Health Boost	+0.5 ≤ value < +0.75
Huge Health Boost	+0.75 ≤ value < +1
Massive Health Boost	+1 ≤ value < +2
Godlike Health Boost	+2 ≤ value

Death[edit | edit source]

Death is the end of a character's life. For landed characters, it triggers succession for any held titles. There can be multiple causes:

• When health is either Poor, Near Death or Dying, there is a chance at a given interval to die. The lower a character's health, the bigger this chance is.
• Upon success of a murder scheme, the targeted character dies.
• The Attempt Suicide decision has a chance for the character to die.
• Knights may die in battle or in duels, with this chance increasing with low prowess and other factors.
• Characters may die when the holding they are currently residing in is captured in a siege.
• Imprisoned characters may be executed by their jailors.
• Various events may cause death.

Fertility[edit | edit source]

See also: Family (relation)

Fertility represents a character's chance to have or cause pregnancy. Married couples and lovers who are a man and a woman, have a monthly chance to get the woman pregnant based on the average fertility of the two partners.

A character's base fertility is determined by their age:

Gender	Age
	16–25	26–30	31–35	36–40	41–45	46–50	51–60	61–70	70+
Male	100%	100%	100%	90%	80%	80%	70%	60%	50%
Female	100%	90%	70%	50%	33%

Traits, such as lustful or melancholic, can affect fertility. Concubines and secondary spouses effectively have half fertility. In addition a mother loses 5% fertility for each childbirth. Fertility is reduced by 15% between non-ruler characters.

Note: Males can have a maximum number of children; 9 living children plus 2 per additional consort or wife (so 15 total with 4 wives). This does not stop event driven pregnancies and special cases such as multiple pregnancies setting off while having 14 children and/or the 15th pregnancy resulting in twins. Females can have a maximum number of 9 children unless the 9th pregnancy results in twins.

Disease resistance (fertility)[edit | edit source]

It is possible for fertility penalties to be negated by the Disease resistance (fertility) modifier. Currently, only the Iron Constitution perk in the Whole of Body tree provides some.

Stress[edit | edit source]

Stress is a measure of a character's mental health and is gained whenever a character responds to an event or decision in a way that conflicts with their personality traits, someone they're close to dies, the character is imprisoned in a dungeon or is tortured. Serving as a guardian for a ward can also cause stress if the guardian elects to change the child's personality traits. Stress ranges from 0 to 400, with higher levels of stress imposing various penalties and making the character vulnerable to mental break events.

Mental Breaks[edit | edit source]

A character breaching the threshold of 100, 200, or 300 stress for the first time will immediately suffer a Mental Break. Mental breaks range in severity from level 1 to 3 and grant the option to either lose some stress with a choice of gaining one of two traits (a Coping Mechanism or worse, see table below) or gain additional stress. A level 3 mental break event can sometimes injure or kill the character, cause them to kill another character in their court (including their own heir) gaining the Murderer trait, or force them to abdicate. If a character reaches 400 Stress, it will trigger a level 3 mental break event and they will lose 100 Stress. 400 is the maximum stress value, even if more stress is accumulated it will not surpass that number.

Mental break events can only trigger once every 5 years (8 years with the "Mental Resilience" lifestyle perk from the "Whole of Body" lifestyle). If a character does not reduce their stress below 100 before this time is up, they will suffer another mental break. All coping mechanism traits bestow grant a stacking +20% Stress loss benefit and a related stress-reducing decision on a 3-year cooldown, making it easier to de-stress before the next mental break occurs.

Your character's stress level is indicated by a reddish bar to the left of your character's portrait at the lower left corner of the map screen.

Level	Stress	Fertility	Health penalty	Attempt Suicide decision	Mental break traits
	0–99	0	None		No mental breaks
	100–199	−10%	None		Coping mechanism
	200–299	−30%	Severe (-1)		Coping mechanism, Arbitrary, Witch
	300–399	−50%	Severe (-2)		Wrathful, Lunatic, Melancholic, Murderer, Death, or Abdication

Domain[edit | edit source]

The Domain is the collection of all holdings a ruler owns personally. Each ruler has a Domain limit; this determines how many holdings from which they can efficiently collect Taxes and levies. Once the Domain limit is reached, newly controlled holdings will stop providing taxes and levies after a year passes. Domain limit is calculated by:

• +1 per 5 points of effective stewardship skill (which includes any traits and spousal assistance)
• +1 for each of the following cultural innovations: Ledger, Bailiffs, Guilds, and Court Officials (all in the Civic track)
• +2 if Primary Title rank is Count or Duke
• +3 if Primary Title rank is King
• +4 if Primary Title rank is Emperor
• +2 with Divided Attention stewardship perk
• +1 with level 5 Law Dynasty Legacy
• +1 with Pacifism or Dharmic Pacifism tenet
• +1 with Crown of Justinian artifact

Known languages[edit | edit source]

Known languages are the languages that a character can speak fluently. Speaking the language of a different culture reduces the different culture opinion penalties with both characters and counties of that culture in half. Each character will always know the language of their culture and can learn a number of foreign languages via the Learn Language scheme.

Each character has a foreign language limit of 1, which is increased by 1 for every 5 points of learning. If a character knows more foreign languages than its foreign language limit allows it has a yearly chance to be forced to choose between forgetting a language or gaining a stress level, or two if Lazy. The chance increases with every foreign language above the limit.

Children learn new languages more easily than adults.

Age[edit | edit source]

A character is considered a child if they are below 16 years and an adult once they reach 16 years. A character can die of old age after reaching 60 years. Each starting character will have a number of lifestyle perks unlocked based on its age.

• Once a character reaches the age of 25, they have a 7.5% chance to lose −0.125 health each year. The chance increases by 2.2% each year.
• Once a character reaches the age of 45, they have a 10% chance to lose 1 prowess each year. The chance increases by 1.5% each year. A dynasty can prevent this by completing the Kin legacy.

Education[edit | edit source]

This Information is outdated

Characters up to the age of 6 can be given an Education Focus geared towards one of the skills. This will default to one of the two attributes in their Childhood trait, but a parent can choose it manually with the button at the lower left of their portrait. This can only be done once per child, and not be changed later on. When the character becomes an adult, they will gain an education trait for the matching attribute.

Once an Education Focus is selected the game will track a hidden education score. Absent other modifiers, each year the score has a 60% chance to increase by 2 and a 40% chance to not increase. Once the character reaches the age of 16 they will acquire an education trait based on that score.

The chance of the child getting a higher tier education is increased by the guardian's relevant skill plus half of their learning skill, as well as the child or guardian having a positive intelligence trait (Quick/Shrewd, Intelligent, Genius). The guardian or child having a negative intelligence trait (Slow, Stupid, Imbecile) will negatively affect their education, as will pushing them to an Education Focus that does not match their Childhood trait. These modifications are further explained and calculated below.

A child of a culture that discovered the Knighthood innovation, has a Martial education focus, and is of a gender that can be knighted will also be trained as a squire, receiving a Prowess education trait when they come of age in addition to a Martial one. For Prowess, the educator's abilities or any other effects that enhance education are irrelevant; only the child's traits matter. Traits that boost Prowess (Hale, Robust, Herculean, Strong, Giant) will increase the chance of a high-tier Prowess education, while negative Prowess and other sickly traits (Delicate, Frail, Feeble, Weak, Dwarf, Spindly, Wheezing, Hunchbacked, Inbred, Bleeder) will diminish it.

If the child has a guardian of a different faith or culture, when given the guardian, it can be specified whether the child should be raised in the parent's or guardian's faith and/or culture. The child also has a chance to copy the guardian's personality traits. If the guardian has the Witch trait or secret, they will have the option to try converting their wards to witchcraft.

A guardian has +5 towards the child and the ward has +15 opinion towards the guardian.

Point modifiers[edit | edit source]

Several factors can provide extra education score modifiers above and beyond those earned via the normal yearly roll:

• The guardian's council having a spouse that is focused on patronage, has a high learning education, high learning skill, or Scholar trait, can trigger adding +1 free point. This can occur happen multiple times over the course of the child's education, and the points are accumulated.
• Having a child educated by a guardian who has a University building in their realm (and paying gold for the privilege) provides a guaranteed +12 points. Thus, a university education is a nearly assured four star education trait for just about any child. The internal flag for attending a university is set on the child immediately and not removed if their guardianship changes, so even if the University holding is lost or the guardian dies, the bonus will still be awarded in full.
• If your court has the Court Tutor position populated when the child comes of age, an additional education roll occurs. The guaranteed minimum bonus of +2 points is most likely if the Tutor has Terrible, Poor, or Average aptitude, while Good or Excellent aptitude make getting +3 points more likely. With Excellent aptitude only, there is an approximately 10% chance of the bonus being an entire +4 points.
• If the child's dynasty has the second level of the "Kin" Dynasty Legacy unlocked, an additional education roll occurs when the child comes of age, with success (60%) equaling +3 and failure (40%) equaling +2 points. In essence, a guaranteed 2 bonus points with a chance of 1 additional.
• Some cultural traditions provide small modifications to educational outcomes, for instance:
  • The "Charismatic" tradition has a 60% chance of adding +1 point for diplomatic educations only.
  • The "Agrarian" tradition applies a penalty of -1 point for martial educations.

Note that, with the exception of the points earned sporadically via the guardian's spouse, none of these bonuses take into consideration how long the child "logically" would have been under their effect. As long as you have the Court Tutor, Dynasty Legacy, etc. on the day before the child turns 16, they will receive the full and complete benefit when they come of age. On the other side, this also means that if you have a working Court Tutor for the child's entire upbringing, only to fire them the day before the 16th birthday, there will be no bonus whatsoever.

Education roll calculations[edit | edit source]

Absent any of the above bonuses, a child with only the base 60% success chance for each Education Roll has a 10% chance of a level one education, 42% of a level two education, 41% of a level three education, and 7% chance of a level four education. There are nine Education Rolls and the child must be successful on almost every Education Roll to achieve the four star education trait!

However, a child will very rarely have only the base success chance on any given roll. The base Success Factor of 60 is increased by positive traits of the child and the guardian, matching the education to the childhood trait, and the attributes of the guardian. While the base Failure Factor of 40 is increased by negative traits of the child/guardian, a mismatch with the childhood trait, and not having a guardian at all.

The outcome will be the formula below.

or a default 60% chance when there's no additional factors involved.

For instance, a child with the "Genius" congenital trait adds 20 to the Success Factor. Under this circ*mstance, the Genius trait increases the odds of a successful Education Roll from 60% to 66.6%. The example math is provided below.

A guardian with the intelligence trait of Genius provides a Success Factor of 15. If a genius child (20) is being educated by a genius guardian (15) the chances of a successful Education Roll becomes 70.4%, with the example math provided below.

At the age of 3 each child is assigned a Childhood Trait. If the child's Focus does not match the Trait there is a factor of 20 added to the Failure Factor. For instance, if a child has the trait "Bossy" and the focus is Diplomacy, the child would receive the factor of 20 to Failure Factor. In this circ*mstance, the chance of a successful Education Roll drops to 50%.

The positive Traits a child and guardian can have that increase the Success Factor are provided in the chart below.

Trait	Child Trait Factor	Guardian Trait Factor
Genius	20	15
Intelligent	15	10
Quick / Shrewd	10	5
Guardian's culture have Northern Stories or Storytellers tradition	N/A	10
Childhood trait Matching	20	N/A

The negative Traits a child and guardian can have that increase the Failure Factor are provided in the chart below.

Trait	Child Trait Factor	Guardian Trait Factor
Slow / Dull	10	5
Stupid	15	10
Imbecile	20	15
Childhood trait Not Matching	20	N/A
No Guardian	N/A	20

Attributes factor[edit | edit source]

The success of the Education Roll is also determined by the guardian's relevant attribute points. The "Primary Attribute" for a guardian (more important attribute) is the one which matches the focus of the child, and is determined by that value times 0.4. A guardian's Diplomacy attribute is part of the Factor for a child with a diplomacy focus. The "Secondary Attribute" is the guardian's Learning, which is multiplied by 0.2. The formula is shown below.

For instance a child with a focus in Diplomacy has a guardian with a 10 Diplomacy Attribute and a 15 Learning Attribute will provide a Success Factor of +7.

Guardian Attribute Quick Math
Guardian Attribute	Child Focus					Learning Factor
5	2	2	2	2	2	1
10	4	4	4	4	4	2
15	6	6	6	6	6	3
20	8	8	8	8	8	4
25	10	10	10	10	10	5
30	12	12	12	12	12	6

Strategy[edit | edit source]

The Education Roll bonus provided by guardians with congenital traits of Genius, Intelligent and Quick (or the non-congenital Shrewd) are significantly more important than the attributes of the guardian alone. Under these circ*mstances an "underachieving" Genius guardian can provide equal value with a character with amazing stats.

Therefore the most important factors when choosing a guardian are:

1. Someone you trust not to kill your child
2. Genius
3. Intelligent
4. Quick / Shrewd
5. Value of Primary Attribute (which matches child's focus)
6. Learning Attribute

Example[edit | edit source]

A Genius guardian with 5 Diplomacy and Learning Attributes will provide a Factor of +18 (15 + 2 + 1) and successful Education Roll chance of 66% on a average child, while a guardian with 30 Diplomacy and 30 Learning Attributes will provide a Factor of +18 (12 + 6) and successful Education Roll chance of 66%.

Hypothetical Guardian Attributes
Guardian	Congenital Trait
Guardian 1	Genius	5	4	2	3	5
Guardian 2	None	30	33	32	28	30

^[3]

Prowess trait[edit | edit source]

Children undergoing a Martial education can also receive a Prowess education trait when they come of age. To qualify, the child's culture or the educator's culture^[4] must have the Knighthood innovation and the child must be of a gender that can become knights. The system that determines which Prowess trait the child gets is completely separate from the other education traits. The perks, spouse or universities don't influence the outcome.

When the child finishes their education, the game creates a temporary score for them, which starts equal to the Martial education level they obtained. Then, the game changes this score depending on the child's physical traits (multiple traits stack):

Trait	Prowess Factor
Herculean	+3
Robust, Strong, Giant	+2
Hale	+1
Delicate, Spindly, Wheezing, Hunchbacked, Inbred, Bleeder	-1
Frail, Weak, Dwarf	-2
Feeble	-3

Lastly, there's a 25% chance the score increases +2, 25% chance it decreases by -2, and 50% chance it stays unchanged.

The final score is then the child's Prowess education level.

Weight[edit | edit source]

Each character in the game has a hidden "weight" value which ranges from -100 to 100. If your weight is -50 or below, you gain the Malnourished modifier, and the "Gain Weight" decision becomes available to you. If your weight is 50 or above, you gain the Obese modifier, and the "Lose Weight" decision becomes available to you.^[5] Being obese or malnourished gives −1 Health.

In addition to a character's current weight, each character also has a hidden "target weight" value, based mostly on traits, which is the weight they are drifting toward. Every year, your real weight will drift closer to your target weight. When you feast, your target weight^[6] increases by 7^[7], and when you hunt, your target weight^[8] decreases by 4^[9]. Afterward, your weight will eventually drift back toward your target weight. The "Lose Weight" decision decreases your target weight, and the "Gain Weight" decision adds to your target weight. Ending those decisions brings your target weight back to what it was before.

Switching to a Martial lifestyle will move your target weight closer to 0 (so that if you are underweight, your target weight will increase somewhat, and if you are overweight, your target weight will decrease somewhat). Being a Novice Hunter, Hunter, or Master Hunter, will also move your target weight closer to 0 by successive amounts.

The following traits and events also affect a character's target weight:^[5]

References[edit | edit source]