Crusader Kings 3 is a complex strategy game where you have to make sure every couple of years that your kingdom doesn’t explode.
There are a lot of family and diplomatic relationships that can end up destroying your kingdom from the inside.
Recommended Read: Beginner’s Guide for Crusader Kings 3
One of these problems will usually be heirs. You will have many heirs, and if you don’t handle the succession properly, they will end up parting your realm in a thousand little pieces.
So, to make sure that your Roman empire is still feasible, here is how you can get rid of an heir in Crusader Kings 3.
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How to Get Rid of Heir in Crusader Kings 3
Unfortunately, unless your character has a lot of mental issues, there is no way to assassinate extra heirs in CK3.
However, there are still a few morally gray ways you can get rid of an heir in CK3 without personally killing them:
- Disinherit them
- Make them Knights
- Take Vows
- Imprison
Disinherit
The best way to get rid of one or two extra heirs in CK3 is to disinherit them. If you are the head of your house, you can disinherit as many possible heirs as you want.
However, there are a lot of problems you will get from disinheriting heirs, which you will have to accept to keep your kingdom together.
You will gain the Disinheritor trait, which will give you a -20 opinion with everyone for 5 years. Five years isn’t that much, so this part isn’t that bad.
Disinheritors will also lose 75 opinion with the disinherited and will have to pay 300 Prestige and 150 Renown to do this.
In the early game, 150 Renown might sound like a lot, but it can be a lot better long term than losing a kingdom and a lot of territories.
Knighting
This method is not foolproof but it can be a decent way to get rid of an heir in CK3. Being a knight in the army can be very dangerous, and you will often see that knights get lethal wounds every other battle.
If your heir is really bad in Prowess, then you can easily get rid of them by making them a knight. To make sure that they will lose their life, make sure that you don’t have any other knights in your army.
Send them to battle as often as possible and hope that they die. They are more likely to die in losing battles, so make a small army that just has your heir as a knight in it and send it constantly to its death.
If the heir has really good Prowess, this will usually not work that well. They will most likely kill all the other knights and impress all your vassals. In that situation, you would be better off getting rid of a different heir.
Take Vows
If you follow a faith with the Monasticism tenet then you will have the option to make heirs Take Vows. This means that you will send your heir to become a monk, relieving themselves of their possible future titles.
There are a few factors that will influence the chance of an heir to accept the Take the Vows choice. You will need at least a 0 in the calculations to get the heir to accept.
Here are the factors that can influence the Take Vows choice for your heir, positively and negatively:
- Opinion – -25 to +25
- Primary Heir – -150
- Secondary Heir – -75
- Third Heir – -50
- In Line of Succession – -25
- Virtuous Trait – +20
- Sinful Trait – -20
- Married or Betrothed – -50
- Weak Hook – +50
Taking these possible influences, it looks like you can get rid of most secondary heirs with just 100 opinion and a weak hook. If you are the House Head then you should automatically have a weak hook on all of your children.
If you somehow manage to get a strong hook on a child, you can force them to Take the Vows. By becoming a Schemer in the Lifestyle tree, you can fabricate hooks on your heirs and use them to send them away.
To use the Take the Vows option, you will also have to pay 350 Piety, which can be a lot at the start of a playthrough.
Imprison
One of the most straightforward ways to get rid of an heir is to just imprison them and put them in the worst prison possible
Imprisoning an heir will result in a -20 opinion with all your vassals, due to tyranny, and a -15 opinion with all of your dynasty.
Then, you will also have to send them to the dungeons, which will lower their health severely, but lower your opinion with your family by 15 again.
In total, you will lose around 50 opinion with your family members, and it isn’t 100% that the heir will die. However, if they are a child, we can almost guarantee that they will die.
That’s everything you need to know about how to get rid of an heir in Crusader Kings 3!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
