For most characters, feasts and hunts will also reduce stress. Depending on your personality traits you can take actions that match these to reduce stress too. Additionally, there are various uncommon events in the game that reduce stress, such as the death of a rival.
How To Reduce Stress
Coping Mechanisms
When you experience a mental break, you have the option to choose a coping mechanism to help you reduce stress. Most of these are negative and give you debuffs if you use them. For example, flagellant makes you whip and injure yourself, and you can get infections that lead to death. However, using any coping mechanism reduces stress. So it might be worth it if you’re about to go up a level or reach max stress. Some coping mechanisms are considered positive and are shown with a green color. These are Athletic, Journaller, and Confider. Positive coping mechanisms give you minor and predictable debuffs each time. They reduce a good amount of stress. Sometimes you may get events that allow you to take positive coping traits without experiencing a mental break. This is a great way to control your stress levels, so you should always try to take these traits.
Other Ways to Reduce Stress
Many events in the game cause a reduction of stress, not just coping mechanisms. For most characters, these are convenient and effective, so a coping trait is not always needed. These two events are the easiest to access for most players and will usually provide a stress reduction. If you have a personality trait that favors these events, you can lose even more stress! However, if your personality does not match the activity, you might not lose any stress. In some cases, you might gain stress. Another realistic way to reduce stress is to take actions that match your character’s personality. For example, if you’re Generous, giving gifts will reduce stress. Some personality traits provide more opportunities for stress loss than others. The death of rivals will also reduce your stress. This can happen randomly in any game or you can gain rivals and kill them yourself. Duels to the death or assassinations are both common ways to take care of a rival. Making rivals who are very old could also be a good idea to provide a lot of stress loss.
Events That Cause Stress
You may also want to reduce the amount of stress you gain on top of losing stress. Some events cause stress for all characters.
Acting Against Your Personality
As mentioned earlier, if you act according to your personality, you will lose stress. The opposite is also true and taking actions that go against your traits will increase your stress. For example, an Ambitious character gains stress when giving their titles to other characters.
Deaths of Family and Friends
When family members or friends die, your character gains stress. The amount of stress gained can be quite high and happens suddenly. Deaths in a large family can be especially deadly. Each family member gains stress at the same time you do – this can cause a chain reaction, where more and more family members begin to die of stress!
The Effects of Stress in CK3
Stress is a mechanic that punishes you for making decisions that do not align with your character’s personality. Stress can be gained and lost from a variety of events other than your own actions. There are three levels of stress. It takes 100 points of stress to move up a level. Every time you increase your stress level, you face a mental break. During a mental break, you must choose between random coping mechanisms or another stress penalty. If you remain at a stress level above zero for 5 years, you will face another mental break. Level 3 is the highest stress level and usually results in a catastrophic event, like a personality shift or abdication. Be careful because you can even instantly die at this level!
