Stress will also be healed when dealing critical strikes, killing enemies, receiving critical heals, disarming traps, or interacting with certain curios. It is also possible to relieve stress during an expedition, by using some camping skills at the disposal of many heroes, or during fights by using certain abilities. A hero that is left idle in the estate will recover 5 units of stress each week, increased to 15 a week with the fairly inexpensive Puppet Theatre District. Similarly to the many possible sources of stress, there are various ways of preventing and healing the stress accumulated during quests: the most typical and effective way is using two of the facilities available in the Hamlet, namely the Tavern and the Abbey, which, for a cost in gold and by holding the hero for a week, will relieve them of a large amount of stress, also ridding them of any acquired affliction. However, heroes that become virtuous will instead, upon reaching 200 stress, have their virtue removed and stress reset back to 0. Upon reaching 200 stress, a character will suffer from a heart attack and will either enter Death's Door or, if already on Death's Door, die outright. Afflicted heroes will often disobey the player's commands and will hinder the mission by inflicting additional stress damage on themselves and the party, potentially dragging their comrades along in their path to madness. A hero that's neither Afflicted nor Virtuous cannot have more than 100 stress if something would cause their stress to exceed 100, their resolve is immediately tested. The stress bar is a gauge from 0 to 200, with a threshold at 100 stress points: once this level of stress is reached, the hero will gain an affliction, with a chance of becoming virtuous instead. Stress persists on the heroes, rendering treatment mandatory in order to make use of a stressed hero again without heavy drawbacks, and making difficult decisions such as retreating from a failing expedition more grave, as fleeing from fights and missions also stresses out the heroes. When returning to the Hamlet, stress levels are capped to 100. Unlike combat damage, stress is not fully healed when finishing a mission. Many negative quirks will increase the amount of stress suffered by a hero in certain situations, as will the drawbacks of many trinkets. Heavy stress damage will also be applied, together with health damage, when failing to satiate a hungry party, when removing obstacles without the use of a shovel, or when witnessing a comrade either reach Death's Door or die. Extra stress damage is suffered if walking backwards through a corridor, when getting hit by traps, or through some interactions with curios, as well as when prolonging a fight excessively. A small amount of stress is also gained when entering a dungeon (depending on its level and the hero's resolve) and while travelling through it, and its magnitude is greatly influenced by the amount of light that the adventurers have at their disposal during any stressful event.

Stress is mainly gained by fighting during expeditions, through monsters' critical strikes and some particular attacks that specialise in dealing stress damage.

Jester darkest dungeon