Fire Emblem: Three Houses monastery guide

Although Fire Emblem: Three Houses spends a lot of time on the battlefield, there’s plenty of opportunities to wind down and relax with your crew in the hub zone of the monastery.

Time is of the essence, however: There’s a limit on how many activities you can do, so we’ve compiled some of the best ways to use your precious Activity Points.

Talk to students (it’s free!)

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The cheapest thing you can do during any monastery visit is speak to your students — it doesn’t cost any Activity Points or gold.

Oftentimes your students will be happy to see you, allowing you to rank up your support level with them (denoted on-screen with an icon of their portrait, with floating hearts). Innocuous conversations can shed some light on their interests, which will help you give them more relevant gifts or know which lost items to return to them for further happiness boosts.

If you’re playing on a harder difficulty setting, every little edge makes a difference, so speak to everyone whenever you can.

Give gifts to raise happiness instead of resting

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You can’t run your students ragged all the time and expect them to keep grinding out more lessons. Although using the Rest function in the weekly activity menu does replenish the protagonist’s superweapon (which you’ll unlock roughly one-third of the way through the adventure), there’s an easier way to raise your student’s motivations — gifts.

You can acquire gifts through battles, quests, or through the marketplace. You’ll recognize them from their red and yellow gift box icon. Giving them to a party member personally can raise their happiness meter and ensure that they’re ready for their Sunday lessons.

Gifts may seem rare, but they’re given out like candy a few hours into the game, so part with them often and avoid wasting a week to rest.

Be on the lookout for support conversations

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Support ranks influence potential story opportunities and open up new cutscenes. You can gain support through fighting in close proximity with party members in combat, or by any number of activities, like talking or showering them with gifts.

Whenever a support boost is available, a blue speech bubble will appear in the Support option of the main menu. Just select the speech bubble, watch a short cutscene, and be on your way.

Sometimes you won’t be able to continue a relationship with a student by way of a normal menu-based support conversation. Fire Emblem: Three Houses will hint at this when you try to select a greyed-out option. To trigger these, you’ll either need to progress further with the story or locate a flashing marker on the map. Approach that location and a cutscene will begin as normal.

Learn which actions are repeatable if you need to burn professor points

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It’s a waste to have Activity Points remaining before you end your day, so be sure to unload them somewhere.

Most activities aren’t repeatable, but there is one that will allow you to offload all of your points for tiered rewards — gladiatorial combat. Even if you only best the first enemy or are woefully unprepared for the weapon focus of the week, defeating any opponents will yield gold rewards.

Alternatively, you can also speak to professors (before a big, spoilery event that takes place about halfway into the game) or students (after the event) to burn points through teaching the protagonist individual skills. It’s not necessarily a repeatable action, but there are usually more teachers/students available to burn points than your current maximum.

You can find a full breakdown of all of the activity costs in our Fire Emblem: Three Houses beginner’s guide.

Stock up at the monastery shop

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While the main menu does have a marketplace option with room to buy equipment or items and repair your gear, the actual monastery hub shop has a larger stock.

There’s also a smaller bazaar right by the steps leading into the marketplace. It sells exclusive items like food and reagents/materials for repairs.

Do not take the monastery for granted, as each visit is technically a resource —time that you could spend doing another action like battling, resting, or holding a seminar.

ABP: Always be planting at the greenhouse

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The first thing you’re going to want to do every time you zone into the monastery is visit the greenhouse.

On your first visit, you can plant a seed (via a quest), which you should do immediately. Seeds take roughly a week of in-game time to grow, at which point you can harvest them for rewards. Those rewards don’t just amount to items, but a large amount of Professor Experience. That can help rank you up and earn you more daily Activity Points.

The second thing you’ll be doing after harvesting is heading to the suggestion box in the church. Answering just a few questions a week can grant you a massive Professor Level bonus — try to be as caring as possible to get the best results.

Use all your amiibo if you’ve got ‘em

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After entering the monastery, you can access the amiibo gazebo — a location that allows players to scan real-life amiibo figures for in-game bonuses.

Unlike most amiibo-supported games, the gazebo does not have a daily lockout — though you can only scan each SKU into Fire Emblem: Three Houses per save file. Scanning each Fire Emblem amiibo — Alm, Marth, Celica, Chrom (Fire Emblem series), Ike, Robin, Tiki, Corrin (male), Corrin (female), Lucina, Roy, Chrom (Smash Bros. series) — will net you one music track each, which you can play via the main menu or in combat.

Scanning figures also nets you menial items such as restorative healing potions, which will be strewn about the gazebo’s lawn. Despite the scan limit, you can revisit the gazebo later in the game, and items that scale with your progress may appear on the lawn.