Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord: Character creation, development and skills Mount and Blade 2 guide, tips
Character development in Bannerlord is extremely important - it affects not only the hero, but also the entire party. On this page of the guide, you will find all the skills and attributes.
Last update: 03 November 2022
At the start of the campaign mode in Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord, you need to create and customize your character. You can decide upon the character's appearance, skills, and even his origin story. Advancing to further experience levels will allow you to develop and improve your skills and attributes. On this page of the guide, you will learn how to create and develop a character in Bannerlord.
All skills
Check out the skills in Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord before you start playing the game - you will decide which of them you want to improve when creating a hero. The table below has all the skills along with information on how to develop them and related attribute.
Skill | Attribute | Development |
One handed | Vigor | Attacking with one-handed weapons and using a shield |
Two handed | Vigor | Attacking with a two-handed weapon |
Polearms | Vigor | Attacking with polearms |
Bow | Control | Shooting opponents with a bow |
Crossbow | Control | Shooting opponents with a crossbow |
Throwing | Control | Hitting opponents with throwing weapons |
Riding | Endurance | Riding in campaign map mode and combat mode |
Athletics | Endurance | Walking on foot in combat map mode and combat mode |
Smithing | Endurance | Crafting equipment, converting gear into crafting materials |
Scouting | Cunning | Traveling in unfavorable areas (snow, forests, mountains) and finding hideouts |
Tactics | Cunning | Commanding troops during combat, winning battles where you don't outnumber enemies |
Roguery | Cunning | Bribery, attacking towns, villages and caravans, controlling bandit units |
Charm | Social | Improving relationships with characters, trading |
Leadership | Social | Having a large army and maintaining high morale |
Trade | Social | Trading with profit, controlling caravans |
Steward | Intelligence | Developing your locations, maintaining high morale by providing diverse food |
Medicine | Intelligence | Treating soldiers in settlements |
Engineering | Intelligence | Building and using siege equipment |
Character creation
In Mount and Blade 2, you create your hero from scratch. A powerful editor allows you to change his appearance by choosing facial features, hair style, and beard. Nevertheless, these choices are only superficial - to affect the gameplay, you need to develop skills and abilities. You must decide whether you want improve fighting skills of your character or improve abilities that help him manage a group of soldiers. During the character creation process, you'll also choose your character's culture and background, which also affect his current skills.
Choosing a character's culture is the most important thing - you can't change the culture during the game. When creating a character, you are also able to determine their abilities - when you click on a given option, you will see what bonuses it offers. To make your choice easier, check out the table above to learn all the skills. The way a given skill is developed will tell you what it is for. However, choosing skill bonuses is less important than choosing culture - you can develop skills as you play.
All cultures
Culture | Effect |
Vlandians | Bonuses: 5% more reputation from battles, 15% more income from mercenary service. A 10% production bonus for villages that are connected to castles. Penalty: Recruiting lords into the army costs 20% more reputation. |
Sturgians | Bonuses: The cost of recruiting and upgrading infantry units is 25% less. Armies lose 20% less cohesion each day. Penalty: 20% greater penalty to the relationship resulting from the kingdom's decision. |
Empire | Bonuses: 20% less pay for the garrison. You gain 25% more influence for being in the army. Penalty: Farm increase is 20% smaller. |
Aseri | Bonuses: The cost of creating caravans is 30% less. A 10% smaller penalty to trade. No penalty to movement speed in the desert. Penalty: The daily wage of units in the party is increased by 5%. |
Khuzaits | Bonuses: The cost of recruiting and upgrading mounted units is reduced by 10%. 25% bonus for breeding horses, mules, cows and sheep in villages ruled by Khuzait rulers. Penalty: 20% less income from taxes in towns. |
Battanians | Bonuses: 50% less penalty to movement speed and 15% bonus to range of sight in forests. Cities ruled by Battanian rulers receive +1 to volunteer growth. Penalty: 10% more time to finish building town projects in districts. |
You don't know what culture to choose? Take a look at a separate page of our guide - - Which one is the best culture?.
Leveling up
You can gain experience by killing opponents, winning battles, or completing missions. Once enough experience is gained, the hero advances to the next level. By improving attributes, assigning the so-called Focus Points and picking perks, hero gains skill points which can be spent on the chosen ability. This enables you to e.g. upgrade weapon skills, even if you previously invested more points in leadership abilities. Higher experience levels and adding additional skill points to attributes enables you to use better equipment.
Attributes
Attributes (like Vigor, Control, Intelligence) help you to develop skills that belong to a given attribute - all attributes and their skills can be found in the table at the beginning of this page. You get an attribute point every 3 experience levels. Investing a point in a given attribute will make the skills related to that attribute develop faster.
Focus Point
Another way to develop a character is to use Focus Points. You get one Focus Point every new experience level. Allocating a point to a skill will make it develop faster.
Perks
Each skill has several perks - these are minor abilities that offer various bonuses. These can improve your damage, provide bigger trade revenue or increase party size. You can choose new perks every 25 skill levels - at the 25th skill level you choose the first perk, at the 50th skill level you choose the second perk and so on.