Welcome to my ranking of 15 worst personality traits in CK3. A bad personality will give stress, reduce relationship with vassals, cost piety by being sinful, and / or lower ruler skills. It can have one negative or multiple modifiers. But above all, the worst of the worst traits are the unnecessary stress generating ones. If you can’t manage it which is extremely hard, your ruler will end up dead!
Without warding and guardianship, the children will develop random personality traits. So, if you want your heir to have good personality traits, you must have good traits yourself and tutor them. That way you can have a variety of personality choices to pick for your heirs. If you don’t have good personality traits, let someone else with good traits to tutor your heir and hope for the best. Because it’s not guaranteed that an NPC with good personality traits will teach %100 good traits to your heirs.
CK3 BEST PERSONALITY TRAITS < Opposites.
You see, getting good personality traits each generation is tough. In one save, all my rulers had craven trait because their father was also craven. By the way, nothing is certain if you do everything right. Some random low chance event might get you a super good trait or a really bad one.
1. Shy
Shy is the worst personality trait in Crusader Kings 3. I avoid it at all costs if I can.
You can’t host feasts, can’t attend to feasts, can’t invite courtiers, can’t plot, and can’t even get treatment without experiencing major stress. Literally every human interaction will cost you stress. Some say it’s me in real life! Ha ha, it maybe you IRL but a ruler can’t be shy.
Here is an anecdote. I once inherited a kingdom with a shy character. But I didn’t check the personality. Anyway, I’ve sent alliance request to all my 8 relatives on pause to prevent inheritance revolts. What happened next? My stress went up to level 3 instantly for negotiating alliance 8 times and I’m dead now.
All in all, it’s the worst possible personality trait ever in Crusader Kings 3.
2. Paranoid
Can’t recruit courtiers, can’t invite claimants, and can’t plot. But these are just what’s on the surface. Any random, unpredictable, or unexpected event will cause stress. Because a ruler with this trait can get paranoid from even slightest event happening around him.
Gotta admit though, the surprise party assassins act event in the grand tour is super fun if you’re paranoid. Have at you bampot
There was also an event in which you escape from the court and gain unpredictable bonus if you’ve the paranoid trait.
Overall, Paranoid is kind of fun, but ultra bad for stress.
3. Craven
What’s the worst thing in this game? It’s CK3 shy paranoid craven dilemma! When the event hits, you have to pick a personality amongst the worst three traits. Craven is the third worst. It gives bunch of stress for martial related events, reduces martial, lowers vassal opinion, sinful to Asatru, etc.
But the absolute worst thing about it is the ugly character posture. I can’t stand it! Actually, I prefer paranoid over craven on my playthroughs because of this posture thing. Have some backbone man!
4. Greedy
Can’t give away titles, can’t grant vassal, can’t send gifts for relation boost, and can’t bribe agents. All because your greedy character will suffer major stress. It’s ridiculous.
Being greedy will also cost you relation. Not only because it gives -2 diplomacy and -15 courtly vassal opinion, but also because of the events. You must choose money over relation, prestige, piety, or whatever in every event you encounter. Otherwise, you’ll get stressed.
What did we learn today fellas? Don’t be cheap! Ha ha.
5. Generous
Can’t demand taxes during grand tour and can’t revoke titles without dying from stress. It’s a pretty bad trait for a ruler. Not to mention you get -10% monthly income.
At the beginning of the game, every penny counts. You need to be able to build your powerbase. Of course, it’s super hard to build if you’re generous.
I mean, the relation bonus is okay. Generous trait is not really bad in the late game where you’re filthy rich already. But in early game, it must be avoided.
You see, both greedy and generous personalities are bad. So, avoid extremism at all costs!
6. Compassionate
There you go. It’s one of those traits look good but doesn’t work. It’s good to have virtuous traits for opinion and piety boost but compassionate does not worth it.
It sucks because being a compassionate trait is not an option for a medieval ruler. You gain stress from almost every action! Such as kick from court, disinherit, denounce, break up with lover, dismiss concubine, fabricate hook, blackmail, imprison, move to dungeon, execution, murder, abduction, torture, and title revocation.
All in all, you should avoid this trait like a plague.
7. Callous
Callous does not give you any stress, because you do whatever you want without caring. But it cost you lots of negative relation.
-2 diplomacy sucks, but -10 courtly vassal opinion, -5 close family opinion, and -5 attraction opinion sucks more.
If you’re callous and can’t balance it with other ways, you’ll encounter many revolts and murder schemes against your ruler.
8. Deceitful
-2 diplomacy, and -10 relation with every other catholic. Not to mention extra -10 with zealots and -1 piety. I mean, it sucks for all characters but sucks more for Christians.
I mean, at least deceitful gives more intrigue than callous. Also, you can study the art of scheming for extra hostile scheme success chance.
9. Impatient
Impatient is another trait with bunch of negative opinion bonuses. Learning -2 is also a no for me because I value learning skill above all else. Cultural fascination is super important.
Expedite Schemes decision increases progress of your active schemes. That’s not that important but at least it’s something.
10. Stubborn
+3 stewardship bonus is quite good actually. You can manage one extra holding thanks to the stubborn trait. But it lowers opinion of your courtly vassals, parochial vassals, and minority vassals. That’s basically half of your subjects.
Disease Resistance (Health) is not something I look for particularly. It only takes effect when your character suffering some form of illnes. If it was a general health bonus, stubborn would be a much better trait.
11. Wrathful
Wrathful is only good if your character is following martial lifestyle and leading your armies as commander. Because +3 martial bonus is huge.
But yeah, if your character is following another lifestyle, you don’t feel the martial advantage and suffer vassal relations. At least +20 natural dread counters negative relations a bit.
Punish criminal interaction will allow you to duel with criminals and imprison them if you win. Again, that will only work if you’re focused on martial lifestyle and have high prowess ability.
12. Cynical
-15 relationship with zealous vassals is not a great thing. But to me the worst thing about it is the -20% monthly piety. I want to declare my holy wars!
To be honest, I’m surprised that the cynical trait is not sinful in all religions. If it were, it would be much much worse trait to have.
13. Arbitrary
Arbitrary personality trait is considered sinful for Muslim, Slavic, and Turkic religions. As if that’s not bad already, arbitrary trait lowers relation with your vassals and reduces stewardship and learning.
I really don’t care about the intrigue bonus that much because that’s not that really important. You can still pull of successful murder schemes by sending gifts and bribing agents. Besides, murder scheme not really going to help you in long run. Because eventually people start uncovering your secret and blackmail you!
14. Vengeful
Vengeful is sinful to Christianity which is a big no for me. But for Asatru, it’s actually a virtue! So, if you don’t mind the -2 diplomacy, it’s okay for Asatru characters. But I would never choose Vengeful trait for a Christan character because sinful traits impact you very negatively.
15. Chaste
Some people love chaste traits for succession management. I disagree. I want to have as many children as I can to spread my dynasty. If you move your capital to a county with bunch of castles, you don’t really need to worry about succession management.
It’s a virtue in Christianity but if you can’t have children, your succession is doomed.