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Character creation tips (Mount & Blade)

By ZanyScum

Some things to consider when creating a new character.

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Created by

ZanyScum
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Category: Characters, Gameplay Basics

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

21 Aug, 2016 @ 6:41am

22 Jan @ 10:29pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Basics about skill types

Selection of needed skill and attributes

Life choices

Warning

Companions

Comments

Basics about skill types

There are three types of skills:

Personal skills
Leader skills
Party skills

Personal skills

These skills only benefit the owner of the skill. An example would be "Riding" which allows the character with that skill to ride horses with higher requirements.

Your character will need some of these.

Leader skills

These skills are only active when they are owned by the leader of the party. That is you, the protagonist.

Your character will need some or even all of these.

Party skills

The highest value from the party is used. If not the protagonist but another party member has the highest skill and the party leader (you) has the skill too (lower), then the skill gets a small bonus.

You will want to avoid these, at least for a long time. Let your party members have these skills.

Selection of needed skill and attributes

The four leader skills and the needed attributes are

Inventory Management - Intelligence, you can take more loot, transport more wares
Persuasion - Intelligence - good for relations with the lords, late game
Prisoner Management - Charisma - you can have more prisoners at once - good for selling them
Leadership - Charisma - you can lead more people with less problems

If you plan to be a great ruler you will want "Persuasion" and "Leadership", so you will need Intelligence and Charisma.

If you just want to be a trader, you could get away with only "Inventory Management".

Depending on your choices here you know, if you will need intelligence and or charisma.

If you plan on fighting yourself, which most people want, you will need some personal skills.
If you go melee, bow or throwing weapons, you will need strength for this.

If you want

Weapon Master, higher and earlier weapon skill progression - Agility
Shield, needed against ranged attacks, good against melee attacks - Agility
Riding, not needed if you plan to fight on foot, you survive much better on a horse - Agility

you will need agility.

If you plan on having followers (you should plan to have these) you will want

Trainer, give every day xp to lower followers, Intelligence

so you will need Intelligence.

You see, whatever you do, you will want

Inventory Management - Intelligence
Power Strike, Draw or Throw - Strength

and there is a high probability you will need Agility and Charisma too, depending on your above choices.

So you will have to get all attributes up. No way around that.

Life choices

At the start of the character creation you will get asked some questions regarding different stages of your life.

These choices will give you

Attributes like Strength or Agility
Skills like Power Strike or Trade
Proficiencies like "one handes +14" or "Pole + 7"
Equipment like "Battered old round shield" or "Hunting crossbow"
Currencies like "+80 Denar (money) or "+15 Renown"

All choices are kind of equal in so far, as no choice has per se a clear advantage above another one.

But, there are two things to consider:

Depending on your plans points in Agility and Archery are much better than points in Charisma and Trading.
You don't want party skills on your starting character, that is a waste. You only want personal or leader skills.

You can find the tables I use for reference here: Warband Wiki[strategywiki.org].

So you choices come down to these:

Your father was...

Noble (male only), INT +1, CHA +2, Power Strike +1, Weapon Master +1, Riding +1, Tactics +1, Leadership +1
Warrior, STR +1, AGI +1, CHA +1, Ironflesh +1, Power Strike +1, Weapon Master +1, Trainer +1, Leadership +1

Early Life

Page, STR +1, CHA +1 , Power Strike +1, Persuasion +1
Steppe Child, STR +1, AGI +1, Power Throw +1, Horse Archery +1

Adulthood

Squire (male only), STR +1, AGI +1, Power Strike +1, Weapon Master +1, Riding +1, Leadership +1

Reason for adventuring

Revenge, STR +2, Power Strike +1
Loss, CHA +2, Ironflesh +1
Forced out, STR +1, INT +1, Weapon Master +1

Warning

All above is good to know however you plan to play.

But please consider this:
Some people play as female non-noble, because this is a very hard start.

So don't take the above as bible or be insulted because of the above.
This is just knowledge I want to give to you so you can make a better decision.

If you now decide you want to create a character which has certain party skills from the beginning like looting and path finding because you want to hunt caravans and be able to get away and get better loot than other beginners, then be happy about it.

Much of the fun in this game comes from the different ways to play it.

Me, I play many different games, so I wanted an easier start for certain goals.
Perhaps I can help others a bit with this guide.

Have fun, raise your kingdom and raze the others!

Companions

Just my LibreOffice Calc Sheet about Companions, perhaps it helps someone else too:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/ugc/50203276499620524/D39B8F2EF2CEF5C8D741460C4329E72607F54E4D/?ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

The most important conclusion, you can't have all companions in your party at once, because they will not like each other.
So, I take only these:

Bunduk, STR
Deshavi, INT, Tracking+Pathfinding
Jeremus, INT, Wound Treatment+Surgery
Katrin, CHA, Trade
Klethi, AGI, Looting
Marnid, INT, Spotting+Engineer
Nizar
Ymira, INT, Tactics+First Aid

7 Comments

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ZanyScum [author] 10 Mar, 2019 @ 4:23am

Sorry for the late answer Baskakov.Dima.
I stand with my statement.

If you want to play a trader who values inventory space and speed over all other things, STR and Power Strike are totally worthless.

The choices are equal, if you are not fixed on "your" "one" "only" "true" character build which is the only one anyone should use to play this game.

Baskakov.Dima 4 Dec, 2018 @ 3:06pm

The different options are NOT equal by any means, the "Male on of an Impoverished Noble who spent his early life as a Page and became a Squire as an adult, and started adventuring because of Revenge" is clearly better than anything else. The biggest advantage is Power Strike 4 with STR 10, allowing you to forget about buffing STR and still inflict decent damage. STR 9 is actually enough to wear any armor you want, and STR 10 allows you to use almost all of the weapons.

The only really good weapon that you miss with such a score is Great Lance, but you can have a Balanced Heavy Lance, so who cares? If you want to use a heavy weapon like a Sword of War, or a throwing weapon, or a bow, you'll have to invest heavily in STR. But the only thing that is actually important in the late game is if you can or can't win the tournaments, as your soldiers fight for you most of the time.

OnceUponaTime 4 Sep, 2018 @ 9:44pm

thanks

Arvan Shore 30 Aug, 2016 @ 10:32am

Nice guide. Even though I'm no new player to this game I still find it helpful.
Thanks. : )

RebelBanana 30 Aug, 2016 @ 3:20am

I was new a few days ago and I decided to poke around and found this thanks!

Tighty Dwighties 27 Aug, 2016 @ 1:50am

I suppose this is useful for newer players. Though there aren't many left of those these days.

tosac 24 Aug, 2016 @ 6:00am

hey, i think that this guide need alot more attention. If you agree you should feel free to share it here http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/GuideShowcase/discussions/0/353915309352842511/
And your guide should get a little boost ;), have a good day

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