The roleplaying aspect of Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is a brilliant combination of short-term goals and long-term conquest that can span several in-game decades. This mechanic, which most RPGs try to capture in their leveling system, makes Bannerlord’s skill selection so fun.
You know that each choice will affect how your player interacts with the world around him or her for years to come, and even though mistakes can be corrected through respec now, it can still be costly to make a decision you’ll regret before money becomes no object.
Bear in mind, though, that these are the skills geared toward the consensus idea of survival and success at the beginning of the game: making money, getting the best troops, winning battles, and gaining renown. They don’t reflect the paths you might take after you’ve become established and start to branch out or specialize.
As such, the focus is divided between the two overarching playthrough types–combat-focused and diplomatic–where we consider the merchant type to be part of the latter since they are both on the ‘non-violent’ side of conquest.
Our aim is to give you the best start in Bannerlord with these skills.
Best Starting Combat Skills in Bannerlord
Your default weapons setup will usually depend on which faction and history you choose for your character, but most of them will come with a one-handed weapon of some type. Swords, axes, or a polearm all fall under the one-handed weapon category, so choosing this skill gives you points to spend on the game’s most common weapons before they unlock. Also, if you want to play it safe and use a shield with this weapon, all of the shield-related perks are also found in the one-handed skill tree.
This means you’ll be better equipped to survive the first forays into combat when your hit points and other attributes are severely lacking. As a bonus, you’ll also get more levels in the arena, in both the melee practice fights and the tournaments, since these events favor one-handed weapons outside Battania. Faster leveling of this skill means faster overall leveling, which means more points to spend on other skills.
You also want to make sure you put some points into athletics or riding since these two skills will gain experience points as you move about the map. You can shift between them as you go, but this won’t allow either to become overpowered later.
We recommend focusing on Athletics early when Riding skill isn’t as important since it will give you extra hit points, more smithing stamina, and make your character faster on foot. Riding skill is important to a character who will spend all his or her time fighting from the saddle, but this can be offset with a superior horse. In contrast, there’s nothing to enhance your Athletics skill in Bannerlord.
Best Diplomacy Skills in Bannerlord
Since your character will always be the leader of your party, it makes sense to put him or her in the Quartermaster role instead of a companion. You might be tempted to put your character’s brother or spouse there if they have a 150+ Steward rating in the campaign, but this would be a mistake. It might lead to some perks and a few extra party members that would really help make the early grind easier, but you’re robbing your main character of a chance to level a skill (Steward) that goes up automatically if your player is assigned as a quartermaster.
Later in the game, when you’ve taken a castle or two, you’ll want to assign those companions or family members with high Steward ratings as governors. You’ll find that your character is still at level 20 in Steward instead of 100+, with no adequate replacement for the Quartermaster role that decides how many troops you can take to battle.
That’s on top of missing out on a handful of easy level-ups that would make your character that much stronger in the skills of your choice. That said, Steward should be the first skill you invest in whether you’re playing diplomatic or not, but it’s beneficial to garner all those perks that make the game easier.
Steward should be the first skill you invest in
Of course, the Charm skill is the most necessary to enhance your ability to avoid conflict and pull forces to your side without fighting. This is another relatively easy skill to level, as any interaction that convinces a conversational party to do something will raise it quickly.
Where Steward skill will let you field big enough armies to intimidate enemies into avoiding confrontation, Charm will let you talk them into it. Of course, you can’t have a diplomatic playthrough without lots of money to smooth over conflicts and buy your way into good graces, so each diplomacy playthrough usually evolves into a merchant playthrough.
For that, you’ll need to invest in the Trade skill early; the rest is buying low and selling high like any trade simulator. The infamous Smithing exploit–weapons selling for way too much once you reach a certain level–has always been an easy way to pile up denars. This has been nerfed a bit as of 1.8, but it’s still a good way to make lots of money once it’s above 150.
There you have it: the best starting skills in Bannerlord, from top to bottom, are One-Handed, Athletics, Smithing, Charm, Trade, and Steward.
Again, this is pure to give yourself the best chance at success navigating the early game, but any combination of skills can yield success if you consistently perform the actions that gain you XP. The key is simply to focus on the skills you will use most from the beginning of the game.
Focusing on the right skills will give you the Bannerlord best start!
