Hi Grigg. Yes, I can see that my ASCII art
masterpiece was mis-interpreted :-)
I'll try to ask my question by answering yours.

1. The knee brace is in the way because
it's where I want to put the bottom of the
staircase. Just like in an entryway, you'd
whack your head on it.

2. The brace is perpendicular to an exterior wall. It is in the same plane as the bent, on an interior post.

3. Probably SIPS, but I'm not sure that's relevant since this is an interior post?

4. No, I was going to leave the brace out
entirely, and compensate by adding a post on
the other side of the staircase, and putting
the same knee brace there instead.

Let me try to describe what I want to do.
The post is not on an exterior wall at all.
It is the center post in a 3-post bent. It
would normally have knee braces to both the left and the right. The knee brace on the right is in the way. I propose adding another post about 3 feet to the right of
the original center post. The origianl center post would now have only a left brace, and the new post would have only a right brace. The stairway would then start between these two posts, and not have any knee braces hanging down into it. Make sense? Thanks, CB.