If you are diving into Pidroh’s acclaimed incremental game following the v0.31 update, you already know the Cathedral path changes everything. The charity resource Beggar's Life introduced in the Focus of the Church expansion is the primary bottleneck for climbing from a lowly Alms Collector to a high-ranking Priest. Without a steady income of Charity, your progression through the Parish and Cathedral hierarchies will stall out entirely. This guide breaks down exactly what this resource unlocks, the most efficient tasks to farm it, and how to balance it against your Faith and Service caps so you can dominate the endgame.
What is the charity resource Beggar's Life Focus of the Church Update?
The incremental mechanics in Beggar's Life have always rewarded patience, but Version 0.31 fundamentally shifted the economy. Inspired heavily by the classic Theory of Magic, the developer Pidroh introduced a multi-tiered religious progression system. You no longer just click for food or rely on basic street survival. Once you enter the Parish, you are introduced to three new pillars of progression: Faith, Service, and Charity.
While Faith is generated through internal meditation and Service is earned by completing menial Cathedral tasks, Charity is unique. It represents your outward impact on the medieval city. The charity resource Beggar's Life demands that you sacrifice your hard-earned material wealth—food, copper, and eventually silver—to aid those who are still stuck in the gutter. It is a brilliant mechanical inversion: the better you become at begging, the more you must give away to advance your holy standing. If you refuse to engage with this mechanic, your Cathedral Tier will permanently cap out, leaving you locked out of the best mid-game content.
The Transition from Sewers to Cathedral
Before the Focus of the Church update, the v0.28.3 Sewers & Holidays patch pushed players into the literal gutter. You cultivated sickness, raised rats, and relied on Ratkinship to survive. Transitioning from that grim reality into the pristine halls of the Cathedral is a massive paradigm shift. You cannot simply walk into the Parish covered in filth. The game forces a mechanical cleansing period where your previously overpowered sickness-based multipliers are stripped away.
This is where Charity acts as a bridge. By giving away the illicit gains you made as a Rat Warden, you slowly rebuild your societal standing. The thematic weight of this transition is what makes Pidroh’s design so compelling—you are buying your soul back one copper piece at a time.
How to Farm the charity resource Beggar's Life Efficiently
Farming this specific currency requires a tailored approach. You cannot simply idle your way to a massive stockpile without optimizing your active tasks, especially if you plan to bypass the Street Philosopher route and head straight for the advanced Priest class.
- The Alms Collector Loop: When you first transition from a basic beggar to an Alms Collector, your primary action is "Distribute Alms." This converts your baseline food generation into Charity. To maximize this, ensure your Scavenging and Beggarhood skills are maxed out for your current tier so your food income outpaces the Cathedral's demands.
- Parish Work vs. Street Work: You will unlock specific Parish encounters that offer burst payouts of the charity resource Beggar's Life. However, these encounters often cost Service. The optimal rotation is to spend 30 minutes idling on Cathedral Tasks to build Service, then burn that Service on "Organize Soup Kitchen" to generate a massive Charity spike.
- Avoiding the Sickness Trap: If you previously specced into Ratkinship or spent time in the Sewers, your character might carry sickness debuffs. The Cathedral actively penalizes sick characters, reducing your Charity yield by up to 20%. Cleanse your sickness before heavily investing in the Acolyte or Priest paths.
Best Uses for the charity resource Beggar's Life
Hoarding resources in an incremental game is a rookie mistake. You need to spend Charity to increase your multipliers and unlock the next narrative tier. If you don't spend it, you might as well abandon the church and become a Rat Warden in the sewers.
Unlocking the Acolyte and Priest Classes The most immediate use for the charity resource Beggar's Life is class promotion. Transitioning from Alms Collector to Acolyte requires a flat payment of Charity, alongside a high Faith threshold. Once you are an Acolyte, the cost to become a full Priest scales exponentially, demanding thousands of Charity points to prove your worth to the Cathedral hierarchy.
The Focus System and Mental Training Version 0.31 didn't just add church politics; it introduced the Focus system. This mental training arc allows you to allocate points into permanent passive buffs. Upgrading your "Focused Concentration" requires a steady burn of Charity. In the mid-game, you should allocate roughly 40% of your Charity income to the Focus system to ensure your action speed keeps up with the escalating costs of the new Cathedral housing options.
Upgrading Housing Options Your living situation in Beggar's Life directly impacts your baseline stats. Early on, a cardboard box or a sewer grate is sufficient. But as you climb the church ranks, the Cathedral demands that you maintain a certain standard of living to interact with high-society encounters. Purchasing a Parish Cottage or a Cathedral Cloister room requires massive amounts of Charity. These housing options aren't just cosmetic; they unlock new rest actions that vastly accelerate your Introspection skill, creating a feedback loop that skyrockets your Faith generation.
Balancing Faith, Service, and Charity
The true challenge of the Focus of the Church update is that these three resources are deeply intertwined. You cannot max out one without the others.
- Faith is your capacity. It dictates the maximum tier of religious tasks you can undertake.
- Service is your operational currency. You spend it to perform high-yield actions within the Cathedral walls.
- Charity is your reputation threshold. It unlocks the doors to new housing options and elite encounters.
If you pivot too hard into Animal Love or rely entirely on basic Scavenging, your Faith generation might drop, bottlenecking your ability to spend Charity. You must spend your Skill Points wisely. The meta strategy is to use the "Introspection" skill overnight to cap your Faith, then actively manage the Service-to-Charity conversion loop during your active play sessions.
Advanced Strategies for the Late Game
Once you have fully embraced the Priest class and unlocked the Cathedral's inner sanctum, the economy shifts again. The basic "Distribute Alms" task becomes woefully inefficient. Instead, you must rely on complex multi-step conversions.
First, you leverage your high-level Scavenging to amass raw materials. Then, you use your Cunning skill (if you managed to cross-train it without voiding your church standing) to trade those materials for silver. Finally, you use the "Fund Orphanage" or "Sponsor Parish" actions, which convert silver directly into the charity resource Beggar's Life at a highly favorable ratio.
This late-game loop requires meticulous balancing. If you drain your silver too quickly, you won't be able to pay your Cathedral tithes, resulting in a loss of Service. The interplay between these mechanics proves that Beggar's Life has evolved far beyond a simple clicker into a deep, strategic resource management simulator.
FAQ: The charity resource Beggar's Life
Q: Can I farm Charity if I chose the Thief or Pyromaniac path? A: No. The charity resource Beggar's Life is exclusive to the Cathedral progression tree. If you went down the sadistic pyromaniac or cunning thief route, you are locked out of the church politics unless you perform a hard reset or prestige.
Q: Does the Steam Deck version change how idling works for Parish tasks? A: The Steam Deck is fully supported and runs the exact same web/PC build logic. Idling offline will still accrue resources at the standard mathematical rate, provided you left your active task set to "Distribute Alms."
Q: Why did my Charity generation suddenly drop to zero? A: You likely ran out of the base resources (Food or Copper) required to fuel the conversion task. Check your Scavenging multipliers and ensure your input economy hasn't collapsed.
Sources
- Beggar's Life Official Steam Community Updates (v0.31 Focus of the Church patch notes)
- Pidroh's Development Log on itch.io
- Incremental Games Database: Beggar's Life mechanics and class trees