The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante – Pro-Tips About Stat Distribution and Relationship Checks

This guide contains spoilers and is mostly for those who have already played through the game and want some check list to remind them what attributes they want boosted and to what level. Or you can just read the first section to make your charater early development better in your first playthrough

Stat Distribution and Relationship Checks Tips

All credit goes to hellfusion!

First Chapter Goals

Your goal here is to develop stats as high and evenly as possible. Your main stats depend on both of these characteristics so if one of them is much higher than the other (like 7/0) you may have trouble with difficult checks later in the game. Ideal would be something like 5/6 or 5/5.

But don’t overdo it – relationship with relatives is also important (I’ll write later what bonuses it may yield), as well as Unity/Reputation. So 4/5 Determination/Perception also may be OK if you got other useful bonuses.

What you don’t really need to strife to here is Willpower because later on you’ll get events where you can boost it almost for free. The only exception is the Kaleidoscope event because it’ll cost you 15 (5 + 10 not recovered) Willpower to boost 1 stat instead of usual 10.

First Chapter Special Events

There are 2 special events worth having in this chapter: secret training with father and ant farm gift. Both require 4+ stat. These are strictly beneficial because even if you refuse to gain a trait you’ll get +1 relationship with parent and +5 Willpower.

Fencing lesson

Almost a must have for a noble playthrough cause it let’s you win the tournament and is almost useless for others. Still even if you dont want to be a noble +1 Determination is a good thing.

There is a trick about this event – you can get training even if your Willpower is lower than 0. But your Willpower cant go lower than -10, so if you activate it with -5 Willpower you’ll get training for just 5 Willpower instead of 10.

Revelation

Kinda useful for priest because it gives an opportunity to boost Spirituality without getting relationship hit with Jeanne in 2nd chapter, but it isnt really crucial. Relationship with Jeanne is completely useless for anyone but priest so… yeah (the same applies to other love interests in the game btw). You can skip and gain Willpower +5 and relatition with mother +1 instead of -1 Unity and +1 Perception.

Good strategy is boosting Determination first to 3 then raising it to 4 with Toy soldiers event (telling the truth). The thing is that there are more options to raise Perception later in this chapter than Determination. And you want both of them raised at least to 4 to get special events.

Kicking your grandad

Not super lucrative option because you… die in this case. What you get for your precious life is +1 stat (well +1/+1 but other options give +1/+0 without you dying). There is a better value-for-your-life option at the start of 2nd chapter – saving Sophia, getting +3 stats. You can take them both but then you’ll have only 1 spare life left. You can make do with it, but it can be tricky sometimes. Still it’s an option if you desperately need to boost both stats to level 4.

Nobleman’s sacrament

Isn’t really a good choise either. Statwise at least. You spend 10 Willpower and receive nothing except for trait. You receive +1/-1 to stats but if you raise Determination to 4 that way training with father event WON’T trigger. Chapter will end. Generally you’d better just raise your head (+5 Willpower).

Relationship Status

Most relationship related choises are made in chapter 2 but you boost some here so you have to plan what you want to get from the start.

You have an opportunity to get special Grateful relationship state with 4 of your relatives at the cost of 1 stat and -5 Willpower. These are the benefits for having it:

Father

• +1 relationship initially
• If you have Perception 4+ you can ask him to inroduce your mother during dinner event. Receive +1 Unity and -1 Reputation for it
• Such trade off options are not very valuable since you usually need both these family stats. And if you don’t care about Reputation at all, keeping Unity high will be relatively easy
• At the end of chapter 2 you can go to him to get +2 Nobility and another +1 relationship. Usually you need 4+ relationship with father
• Isnt really worth it, you can improve relationship with him in other ways and get Nobility training anyway.

Mother

• +1 Stephan’s relationship initially
• Can calm her down during the crisis with Nathan gaining +1 her relationship and +1 Unity instead of +1 stat or Nathan’s Grateful state
• At the end of chapter 2 you can go to her to get +2 Spirituality and another +1 relationship. Again if she’s not Grateful you’ll need 4+ relationship with her to do it…
• Better than father’s but still not very good because you’ll be forced to skip 2 stat points in chapter 1 to reap profit (+1 Unity). And this makes special events hard to activate.

Gloria

• +1 relationship initially
• You can mock your grandad to gain +1 Determination and another +1 relationship with Gloria instead of +1 Perception and relationship with grandad. Can be useful if you chose to boost Perception to 4 first and need to boost Determination at the end of chapter 1.
• At the end of chapter 2 you can go to Gloria to get +2 Ingenuity and another +1 relationship. Usually you need 4+ relationship with Gloria. Good option for commoner path, the most use you can get from Gloria, ever
• Somewhat good if you want to embrace lotless path. Gloria’s relationship starts lower than father’s for example (1 vs 2).

Nathan

• +1 relationship initially
• Can ask him during your first meeting with Thomas to gain +10 Willpower and +1 Unity instead of +1 stat
• Surprisingly best in my opinion. Even with only 1 consequence choise. Unity is good and 10 Willpower compensates for the loss of 1 stat.

If unsure you can skip them all, none of these offer very good value for their opportunity cost.

Relationship Score Checks

Father

A lot of options, especially on noble’s route. But most of them are trade-offs, raising some stats at the cost of the other. Still it’s good to have options. Strictly (well, almost) beneficial options are:

• [2+, Willpower 0+] Can persuade him to seek justice for Gloria in court. Overall it’s the best option: you gain +1 Nobility, +1 Spirituality, +1 Unity, -1 Reputation, -5 Willpower
• [4+] Get +2 Nobility training, see above
• [3+] Option to reject duke’s present for +2 Unity instead of +2 Wealth, -1 Unity

Mother

Not a lot of options, but good for Unity.

• [4+] Get +2 Spirituality training, see above
• [3+] Gloria vs Stephan event. Get +1 Unity instead of -1 to Unity

Grandad

• More or less useless. There are options he unlocks, but they are usually available anyway if one chose to follow nobleman’s path.

Stephan

Moderately useful at even barely positive relationship.

• [1+, Diplomacy 11+] Option to give away duke’s present to nobles for +2 Reputation instead of +2 Wealth, -1 Unity
• [1+] Get a suggestion to wed Gloria off. You can reject for +1 Unity

Gloria

More or less useless for non-commoner.

• [4+] Get +2 Ingenuity training, see above
• [1+, don’t accept Stephan’s offer] Get a suggestion to force family into accepting her. You can reject for +1 Unity

Nathan

Actually quite helpful in keeping Unity high.

• [2+, Theology 11+] Another Gloria vs Stephan event. Get +1 Unity instead of -1 to Reputation, Wealth or Unity
• [3+, Mother alive] Suicide attempt. +1 Unity. You dont really need Unity at this point anyway, but still.

Thomas

Almost useless. You actually benefit from having low score with him. A bit of Willpower boosts later on if you were good to him.

• [1-] +1 Reputation and +1 relationship with father when he’s bullied by nobles instead of +1 to stat of your choise.

Second Chapter Goals

Now you have to decide what path you want to persue later in your life. Ideally you need 8-9 main stat and 4-5 other stats. That way your resulting main stats will be 13-14 and other stats 9-10.

Typical non main stat checks are 10 for your path events. Checks for universal events are a bit higher, but having 12 non main stat will be enough for almost any situation.

Main stat checks can be as high as 20 but there will be a lot of opportunities to boost these stats to this level before you encounter such high checks. You can train main stat from 12 to 20, but it can be tricky cause that’s not the only thing you need to raise. Starting at 14 on the other hand makes you very comfortable, you’ll reach 20 almost automatically. 16 is overkill.

Good idea is trying to reach all stats 4+ in this chapter. You trigger special event for each stat which give you EVEN MORE STATS (up to 6 in total). And they give you traits, that can be used in further chapters. Although only Nathan’s one is critical cause it gives him “best ending” if you don’t activate Tree’s revelation.

And it’s not that hard anyway because a lot of events give you stats without having to sacrifice other stats. Like when your grandad dies you always receive +1 Ingenuity whatever the choise.

Still you’d better die at the start of the chapter saving Sophia – +1 to all stats is good trade off even if you dont need influence on her. Just make sure you have at least 0 Willpower at the start of the chapter 2. Or have Grateful status with Nathan – he can give +10 at the start of the chapter.

Remember about training event at the end of the chapter I mentioned before. You’ll need 4+ relationship with Gloria or one of your parents. +2 to main stat is an excellent opportunity.

Blood tide trait requires 6+ Nobility, Nobleman’s Sacrament or good relationship with grandad to attain and useful only to noble.

And first feelings trait is completely useless.

Well that about sums it up. Third chapter is pretty straightforward once you set your mind on the path you want to walk.