My characters stats are as follows:

VIT: 10

ATT: 11

END: 29
STR: 26

DEX: 18

RES: 12

INT: 11

Faith: 8

I'm currently using a Zweihander till I get one of the black knight weapons.

The necessity of VIT is largely based on how good you are. So... Yes yes yes. Unless you are dodging and never get hit you want to have a lot more VIT.

The only time you want to increase vitality is if you feel you are dying too much to single hits. Getting one shot by enemies can really slow you down so you'll want enough health to at least survive two normal hits.

As you're using a heavy, slow weapon, I think that would be wise. You've got enough strength and endurance that you can hit people very hard, you just need a bit more health.

Should I up my endurance to 40 first or switch to VIT now?

Switch to vitality. You get far enough in the game with 10 vit you will be getting one shot by most mobs, forget about bosses. Unless you are the god of dark souls and never get hit you need to start raising your vit to 30.

@bretf: Well, which bit are you at and what armour are you wearing?

Well I am at gaping dragon, and I was barely putting a dent into him so I went and upgraded my base Zweihander to a +7. I already took out Moonlight butterfly. The armor I am wearing is a mix betwork Elite Knight armor and Eastern armor.

@bretf: That armour is pretty good and will help absorb the hits you are taking now. I would suggest you pump up your VIT to somewhere around 18 by the time you reach Anor Londo. Also upgrade your shield when you can. High stability is very important if you are blocking hits.

You won't really need to worry about getting your Endurance much higher for a bit. Focus on VIT for a bit. I suspect by where you are in the game that you are a beastly man god with those stats and that weapon.

Wow, you really must be kicking the crap out of everything in front of you right now. I think that if you can get your Vitality to at least 20, then that will get you set for quite some time.

It is going a lot better since I upgraded my weapon since with just a base Zweihander I was doing 79 damage to Gaping Dragon. Least too say I got belly flopped.

EDIT: I have the Knight shield right now. I think thats what it's called. It's the one guarded by a baldur Knight in Undead Burg.

Don't forget to upgrade your armor. Elite knight armor is the best medium set in the game, and probably the best overall set in the game period, so you should probably roll with all that. Upgrading it as far as you can (afford) will really help your survivability with low VIT, and even after you level it up more defense never hurts.

I went through much of the game with 21 VIT and an upgraded Elite Knight set and it's served me well. When you get to Anor Londo, if you don't mind farming a bit, try to get a Silver Knight Shield to drop and upgrade that as well. It's pretty damn useful.

@redyoshi said:

While you're at it, farm a bit for the Silver Knight Spear, it will be of great use for when you go down in to the catacombs. The shield is pretty damn dope though.

On my first "real" character (the one I beat the game with the first time), I went 40 str 40 end before putting points into anything else. If you have good armor and a good shield vit is actually close to useless as there's more or less nothing in the game that can one-shot you. All you need to do is learn how to time your estus. To this day (after having spent hundreds of hours in both Dark and Demon's Souls) I still find Vit to be one of the most useless stats in the game.

I'm rolling around with the moonlight greatsword two-handed because my strength is too low to one hand. My int is 50 but only resort to sorcery in a pinch. With 12 vit and light armor, I'm making it through the dlc ok. Vit only matters if you feel like you're dying too much. If you're ok at blocking, parrying, or dodging, you don't need to worry too much about health.

I only starting dropping points into Vit after I got 34str 40end only because I really had nothing else worth dropping points into it is a stat that is only good early game but bumping str up early seemed far more effective a tactic.

When I am in Anor Londo I will be trying to get a full Silver Knight set since I just love the Black knight and Silver Knight armors.