The great thing about KCD2 is how easy it is to create a version of Henry that feels unique to your playstyle. While most players will likely use weapons or their fists to overcome challenges, you can make a build that only uses your words and wits. The Traveling Scholar build helps get you out of most sticky situations without needing to resort to violence. Here’s how to make a Travling Scholar who uses the spoken word to get past his enemies in KCD2.

Player Skills

As you level up your Traveling Scholar version of Henry, there are several important skills to pick up to make this build sing. Below, we’ll focus on those skills, but keep in mind that you’ll also earn skill points in some of the other trees by playing normally. If it’s not listed below, your skill choices don’t matter for the build, so you’re free to pick whatever you want. With that in mind, here are the skills you’ll want to target for the Traveling Scholar build.

Main Level Skills

• Charming Man - This makes it easier for you to gain reputation, making it easier to make friends and influence people.
• Memorable - Changes to your reputation spread more quickly throughout the map. If you play your cards correctly, you’ll earn a good reputation very quickly.
• Radzig’s Heritage - With this skill, Henry’s scholarship improves much faster. Remember, this is a “scholar” build.
• Burgher - When you’re in town, this skill ups your speech by one. This is definitely a must-have for the build because we want our speech as high as possible.
• Local Hero - If you have good reputation (which you should because of Charming Man), you’ll get a +2 boost to your speech. Again, we want that number as high as possible.
• Good Natured - This skill makes it easier to convince people with persuasion, impression, or presence, meaning you can win everyone’s good graces.
• Pacifist - You don’t want to kill anybody, so this is an easy choice. Plus, you’ll boost your speech by 3 as long as you keep your hands clean.

Agility

• Nimble Stance - In case you do get into a fight, this makes it easier to dodge blows by decreasing the move’s stamina drain.
• Ranger Run - When you need to run away, this will give you a boost to stamina recovery after 10 seconds. An invaluable tool when talks go sideways.

Vitality

• Thick-Blooded - Hopefully, you never get into a fight, but if you do, you probably won’t have very good armor. This will at least stop you from bleeding out, giving you enough time to run to safety.
• Well-Dressed - This skill keeps you clean longer. That’ll keep your charisma topped up without having to wash.
• Hermes’ Haste - Faster sprinting is always a great thing when you can’t fight.
• Marathon Runner - Similarly, this skill makes sprinting cost less stamina, so you can run further.
• Diehard - If you take a blow that would kill you, you’ll get one free do-over. That can be the difference between getting out of a fight and having to reload a save.

Speech

• Jack of All Trades - You get a +2 boost to all skill checks. A must-have for this build.
• Ladies’ Man - It’s not so much that we care about wooing women, but you get a +2 boost to all skill checks with ladies via this skill, so you might as well take it.
• The speech skills related to buying and selling goods will help you earn more money, but aren’t necessary for this build. That said, you might as well grab them as you progress.

Houndmaster

• Charming Companion - When Mutt is with you, you’ll get a +3 boost to charisma. We’ll take every bit we can get.
• Heightened Scent - Mutt sniffs out trouble much better, meaning you won’t be ambushed during fast travel as much. Remember, the goal is to stay out of combat as much as possible.

Scholarship

• Cushion - This helps you study faster, which isn’t a must-have, but you might as well pick it up.
• Liberal Arts - You use this to recognize how tough skill checks are. You won’t know if you’ll pass it, but you’ll at least have a rough idea of your chances.
• Fundamentals of Law 1 & 2 - This makes it much easier to deal with guards. Hopefully, you won’t get in much trouble, but if you need to talk your way out of anything, these skills are invaluable.

Survival

• Flower Power - If you have 30 unspoiled herbs in your inventory, your charisma will be slightly higher.

Combat Skills

If you want to play a true Traveling Scholar, you won’t take any combat perks. Those are beneath your version of Henry. That said, we understand that combat in KCD2 can be tough to avoid in certain situations. In that case, pick your preferred weapon and kit yourself out. For our purposes, we’re going to list a few skills below that will at least help you run away from any baddies your words can’t soothe.

Warfare

• Evade - This makes it slightly easier to get around enemy attacks by giving you the ability to evade.
• River - When you dodge, your stamina recovers faster. That’ll be helpful when you run away.

Gear

Our goal here is to max out our speech and charisma. That means getting the fanciest clothes possible. Here’s what our Traveling Scholar is rocking in KCD2:

Armor

• Head - Noble’s hood, Nobleman’s hat
• Body - Noble gambeson, Fitted coat, Milanese cuirass, Noble’s belt
• Arms - Noble gloves
• Legs - Nobel quilted trousers, Noble boots
• Jewellery - Godwin’s ring and Leminger's spectacles

Weapon

As mentioned in the combat skills section, this is a dealer’s choice. A true Traveling Scholar won’t use weapons, but feel free to fudge the numbers in your favor by equipping the best version of your chosen weapon as possible.

That wraps up the Traveling Scholar build in KCD2. You should be more than equipped to sweet-talk your way through most situations, and if things go poorly, you’ll at least be able to run away very quickly.