To everyone complaining about combat difficulty, especially early game, here is how to KCD2:

[phoenixrms]

tldr:

Gather herbs. Raise Alchemy to 16. Make Henry's level Fox potions. Drink Fox potion. Max Marksmanship at Archery Range to gain massive boosts to Strength, Agility and Warfare. Make combat potions.




Immediately out of the intro, Step 1:

(Most of step 1 can can be skipped, I just did it because Survival is very easy to max and has great synergy with Marksmanship).

Gather any and every herb you can. As your survival ranks up the radius will increase, so target clumps of herbs in the center. Take Leg Day immediately at Survival 10 as this will give you ~4 or so levels of Strength as we max Survival. All the herbs you need are in or immediately around Troskowitz. If you get encumbered, great, walk around herbing raising your vitality a little at the same time. ~3k herbs in total is enough to max Survival. Target Wormwood to sell, otherwise just gather everything. Drying herbs and food gives massive Surival exp, but don't do it yet. If you don't feel like maxing Survival, just spend a few seconds to grab nettle and marigold for step 2.

Step 2: (This should probably be step 1)

Raise Alchemy to 16 with Marigold Decoctions(or Chamonile as another poster said, however healing pots sell for a bit more and have much more overall use. Just spam them), taking Secret of Matter 1 & 2 along the way. You can make tier 3(Strong) potions immediately with Alchemy 6. It may also be a good idea to make a stack of other potions like Chamomile, Embrocation, Digestive, for quests later.

At Alchemy 16 take Secret of Secrets and make tier 4(Henry's) Fox potions. Buy charcoal, boar's tusks, and Belladonna from the Apothecary in Troskowitz (Blacksmith Radovan in Tachov also has charcoal). Completing tier 4 potions with Secret of Matter 1 & 2 will yield 6 in total. From now on never be without the Fox potion buff. With the hidden Lab Dweller perk it lasts 2 days and 16 hours of game world time.

Drink your Fox potion and dry your 3k herbs. If this doesn't max Survival, go gather some more, or don't, it's not really needed. This should be plenty regardless to get the main perks.

Make a couple/few stacks of tier 4 Marigold, Artemisia, Buck's Blood, and Painkiller potions and Bane or Lullaby poisons. Every single herb you need can be found within 30 seconds of Troskowitz, and you will never need to herb again unless you want to. If you are struggling to craft Henry's level, use fresh herbs and take advantage of the Dark Arts Apprentice perk.

Henry's Marigold with the Alchemy perk Water of Life will heal 75 points in 45 seconds.
Henry's Artemisia will reduce the stamina cost of attacking and blocking by 35% while increasing Strength by 6.
Henry's Buck's Blood increases Stamina by 60% and Stamina regeneration by 30%.
Henry's Painkiller reduces the amount of Stamina loss due to health loss by 75%.

Step 3:

Find a ranged weapon and ammo for it. Pre-order(or gold?) players will have a nice free crossbow in their chest at Radovan. A free bow can be found on the way to Tachov from Troskowitz.

Go to the archery range at Trosky Castle or head west to the game warden's house. Shoot the targets from as far away as you can hit consistently. When you run out of ammo, go pick it out of the target. Weapon sway will decrease with levels in marksmanship. I see people complaining about the sway and I want to scream. You aren't even trying to level one of the easiest skills to level in the entire game.

To put in perspective how long it takes to max Marksmanship, it took me 25 shots to go from Marksmanship 29 to 30. My combat stats show I fired 429 projectiles to reach Marksmanship 30. You can get upwards of 60 exp per shot(or more but I couldn't even tell if I was hitting the target without going through the UI to see if I had gained exp), but even closer "only" getting 40 will level Marksmanship, Warfare, Strength and Agility very quickly.

Step 4: Stop complaining about how hard combat is.

Noteable stats/skills with Time Played 5.5 hours:

Main Level 21
Strength 25
Agility 21
Vitality 13

Alchemy 17
Survival 30

Warfare 25
Marksmanship 30

That's right, Strength 25, Agility 21 and Warfare 25 all from an hour of target shooting. I have not spent 1 second in combat. I have not thrown a single punch, I have not even drawn a melee weapon.

I hope this is helpful to anyone looking to gain some power at the beginning of the game.

[BANANA PHONE]

KCD1 player here, didn't need the guide but going to bump you up cus new players could definitely do with a read

[󠀡󠀡]

Fresh herbs are not even needed with the right perks. I am pretty much crafting henry's potions with rotten herbs or dried herbs. He complains but I still get the best potions.

[AllanWake™]

Trust me, no one will read this......especially those who suck, we live in 2025. Better to cry about it or worst label it woke for the same reason.

p.s. Cant make a game -> play a game -> cant play a game -> become a reviewer -> cant review -> cry on reddit

[Vanzann]

Originally posted by phoenixrms:

tldr:

Gather herbs. Raise Alchemy to 16. Make Henry's level Fox potions. Drink Fox potion. Max Marksmanship at Archery Range to gain massive boosts to Strength, Agility and Warfare. Make combat potions.

That's the point. I'm currently on run 2 and this is exactly how I started. I don't do anything without fox buff. Btw - if you want to hit scholarship 18 quicker (explorer) - don't read anything before, not even one single alchemy recipe. Just keep making chamomile decoctions until you hit alchemy 16 and unlock secret of secrets. There's a chance you can't obtain recipe for fox (Barnaby might sell it), in this case you have to discover it yourself.

[bylandt11]

I have also discovered archery training as the key to early leveling. I don't bother with alchemy much, apart from marigold healing potions, because it's so very tedious.

I don't just shoot at the targets, but participate in the contests. More fun. More money. No arrows required. I use a heavy crossbow (old field crossbow, bought from the carpenter). Cheaper and easier to repair and less sway than the pre-order crossbow.

Three in-game days at the archery training field and Henry is superman.

[Vanzann]

Originally posted by bylandt11:

I have also discovered archery training as the key to early leveling. I don't bother with alchemy much, apart from marigold healing potions, because it's so very tedious.

I don't just shoot at the targets, but participate in the contests. More fun. More money. No arrows required. I use a heavy crossbow (old field crossbow, bought from the carpenter). Cheaper and easier to repair and less sway than the pre-order crossbow.

Three in-game days at the archery training field and Henry is superman.

You don't get it, do you? Henry's fox gives you 50% exp boost for 2 in-game days.

[bylandt11]

Originally posted by Vanzann:

Originally posted by bylandt11:

I have also discovered archery training as the key to early leveling. I don't bother with alchemy much, apart from marigold healing potions, because it's so very tedious.

I don't just shoot at the targets, but participate in the contests. More fun. More money. No arrows required. I use a heavy crossbow (old field crossbow, bought from the carpenter). Cheaper and easier to repair and less sway than the pre-order crossbow.

Three in-game days at the archery training field and Henry is superman.

You don't get it, do you? Henry's fox gives you 50% exp boost for 2 in-game days.

I get it. But the XP cost of every level is progressive. Its not like you get 50% extra levels. Alchemy is mind-numbingly boring and the Fox-potion is one of the worst to get through. I'd rather shoot some more (at master level, it can collect 100O grosschen a day). Beating the guard commander is very satisfying.

[Leto]

is using the fox potion really a good idea?
i mean you have most of the skills and attributes well over 20 before you leave the first map, and the second is bigger, more content, so you max lvl quickly before you're even halfway through the game, it can get boring

[insolent1]

Originally posted by Vanzann:

You don't get it, do you? Henry's fox gives you 50% exp boost for 2 in-game days.

Henry's fox potion only boosts xp for scholarship no other skills. You can test this easily, do an action that gains xp(herb picking), check it before taking potion and check it after taking potion.

[rolfvonsmirker]

Difficult? If anything, the game is far too easy.

[bylandt11]

Originally posted by insolent1:

Originally posted by Vanzann:

You don't get it, do you? Henry's fox gives you 50% exp boost for 2 in-game days.

Henry's fox potion only boosts xp for scholarship no other skills. You can test this easily, do an action that gains xp(herb picking), check it before taking potion and check it after taking potion.

This is very interesting. Are you sure this is the case for Henry's Fox potion, because all the guides say differently. Can anyone confirm this? (I would do the test myself, but I don't have the alchemy level for a Fox potion)

[phoenixrms]

Originally posted by Leto:

is using the fox potion really a good idea?
i mean you have most of the skills and attributes well over 20 before you leave the first map, and the second is bigger, more content, so you max lvl quickly before you're even halfway through the game, it can get boring

This is absolutely a potential issue and perhaps should be saved for a 2nd run through where a player may which to be more "power game-y". I completely agree that going overboard with the min-maxing can undermine the gameplay experience.

I would expect each player to know how they want their experience to be in a video game and choose accordingly, there are always pros and cons.

[phoenixrms]

Originally posted by bylandt11:

Originally posted by insolent1:

Henry's fox potion only boosts xp for scholarship no other skills. You can test this easily, do an action that gains xp(herb picking), check it before taking potion and check it after taking potion.

This is very interesting. Are you sure this is the case for Henry's Fox potion, because all the guides say differently. Can anyone confirm this? (I would do the test myself, but I don't have the alchemy level for a Fox potion)

That poster is 100% wrong. I just picked a very easy lock and got 12 exp with Fox potion, waited till it expired and picked the exact same lock the next night and got 8 exp.

Then I rode Pebbles between two mud puddles from Troskowitz towards Semine. 219 exp to to 259 exp without Fox. 259 exp to 319 exp with Fox, exactly a 50% increase.

I do not understand why people make statements when verifying them takes literally 30 seconds.

[LoneWolf]

Alchemy? Dry your 3k herbs? If you don't know why people are "crying" you're missing the point. I can't stand games that I have to spend tons of time researching outside of the game in order to play. This is ridiculous. I'm just playing the game with the gear I was given and it keeps tossing me into unwinnable combat scenarios. I finished talking to the charcoal burners and it put me into another combat scenario against two guys and I'm just not getting past them. I even tried it three times because I really want this game to work with how good it has been so far. The point is, if I have to redo missions over and over and read forums about a bunch of stuff the game never even introduced to me, as much as it looks like an outstanding game, I'm better off moving on and rating it low on steam. That's probably how a lot of players feel even if they don't bother saying so.

[Crescent Dusk]

This is a nice guide toward smoothing the difficulty curve of the game, but misses the point of the complaints.

People don't want to do 2-3 hours of chores or "homework" to be able to function in a combat scenario for the game.

This is the age old argument of people who see no issue with grinding the same mobs in an MMO for hours and days with those people who find it as incredibly tedious gameplay and a barrier to entry and enjoyment.

I did what this guide did more or less before you posted it, not just because of the skills leveling, but because alchemy is one of the only reliable ways to make early game money to buy decent armor from Tachov's blacksmith if you had missed the Twitch or preorder starter armors.

But it was still a really boring slog. It was hours and hours of picking herbs, doing alchemy, running across towns encumbered to level strength and vitality, then going to Tomcat for masterstrike, and finish leveling up with the archery contest. It was a lot of hours before a 2 bandit ambush was not a totally aggravating affair.

That's just not something a lot of people enjoy. Personally, I found the best part of the game was the main quests, so probably on my 2nd playthrough I'll just console command in the stats to 10-15 to get an earlier start to being able to do story and quests without the annoying chores beforehand.