Riding guide

Bannerlord v1.5.7 · checked 2026-11-12 · updated 2026-11-13

This guide explains what the Riding skill and every Riding perk really do: how your horse gets faster, tougher and more agile, how mounted fighting penalties fade, what the captain and party-leader halves give your troops, and which perks behave differently from their tooltips. It is for game version v1.5.7. The battle rules (horse stats, damage, accuracy, morale) live in the SandBox module. NavalDLC extends the agent damage, agent stats, battle morale, carry capacity, wage and recruitment cost, security, armor and strike magnitude and village production models, and extends and replaces parts of the party speed models; at sea it uses its own party speed. Each perk half's tooltip also says where it works ("Land only", "Reduced effect at sea"); the list is below. StoryMode extends the wage and recruitment cost models in the story campaign.

For exact formulas, edge cases and links to the game code, see the deep dives: Combat agent stats (mount speed, maneuver, armor, health, mount loss, mounted penalties, accuracy), Combat damage (charge damage, mounted damage perks, speed bonus, stagger), Party and map (party speed, pack animals, breeding), Battles (battle morale), Settlements (governor perks) and Characters and politics (prisoner escapes).

Each perk has two halves. The primary half usually helps you personally; the secondary half helps others when you hold a role: captain (troops in the formation you lead in battle, not counting yourself), party leader (your whole party) or governor (the settlement you govern, usually only while you are in it). The verdict after each half says how the code compares with the tooltip:

• works: does what the tooltip says, or more; broader effects are noted.
• differs: narrower, different or extra conditions or values compared with the tooltip.
• unused: never read by the game.
• ui_only: only shown in the interface.

One Riding perk half is unused (Cavalry Tactics primary); none is ui_only.

The tooltip environment lines, which are not counted as differs:

• "Land only": both halves of Full Speed, Nimble Steed, Veterinary, Nomadic Traditions, Sagittarius, Sweeping Wind, Horse Archer, Mounted Warrior, Annoying Buzz, Thunderous Charge, Dauntless Steed and Tough Steed; the primary halves of Well Strapped, Deeper Sacks, Breeder, Shepherd, Mounted Patrols and The Way Of The Saddle.
• "Reduced effect at sea": the primary half of Relief Force.
• No line: the governor halves, both Cavalry Tactics halves, and the Deeper Sacks party-leader (trade) half.

What unlocks what

You pick one perk of each pair. Tiers 5 and 11 have a single perk.

The second half of each perk is described in its section below.

Riding 25: Full Speed or Nimble Steed

Full Speed

• Primary (works): +20% damage on horse charges (your horse running into someone). It counts when the hit is a charge by your own horse; the game reads the perk from you, the rider.
• Secondary, captain (works): +10% charge damage by mounted troops in your formation. As with most captain bonuses, you yourself do not get the captain half.

These factors are added to the other damage percentages of the same hit and applied once.

Nimble Steed

• Primary (works): +10% maneuvering for the horse you ride. It is added to the maneuver bonus from your Riding skill.
• Secondary, captain (differs): +30 Riding skill to troops in your formation, but only troops who have a horse get it; the tooltip suggests every troop. The extra Riding is real effective skill, so it makes those troops' horses faster and more agile, makes them harder to dismount and shrinks their mounted weapon penalties.

Riding 50: Veterinary or Well Strapped

Veterinary

• Primary (works): +20% hit points to your mount.
• Secondary, party leader (works): +10% hit points to the mounts of everyone in your party, heroes included.

Sledges (Medicine) adds flat hit points first; both Veterinary percentages then add together and apply to the horse's hit points including that bonus: mount health = (base + Sledges) × (1 + both Veterinary halves). See the mount health worked example in Combat agent stats: a horse with 100 base health ends at 149.5 with Sledges and both Veterinary halves.

Well Strapped

When your horse is killed in battle, the game rolls once: normally there is a 5% chance the horse is lost for good and a 20% chance it becomes lame.

• Primary (differs): −50% to both chances, so 0.025 to lose the horse and 0.1 to make it lame. It works only for the main hero (you). Companions and other heroes with the perk get nothing. A lost horse also loses its harness from your equipment; the harness goes back to your inventory. A horse that is already lame is always lost.
• Secondary, governor (works): +0.5 daily loyalty in the settlement you govern.

Riding 75: Deeper Sacks or Nomadic Traditions

Deeper Sacks

• Primary, party leader (works): +20% carrying capacity from pack animals. Each pack animal carries 100; the perk raises only that part, not your men's or horses' capacity. Land only, as the tooltip shows. It adds to Beast Whisperer (Scouting) and Arenicos' Mules (Steward).
• Secondary, party leader (works): −10% trade penalty when buying and selling mounts.

Nomadic Traditions

• Primary, party leader (works): +30% to the "footmen on horses" speed bonus, the bonus you get when footmen in your party ride spare horses. With no spare horses it does nothing. Land only, as the tooltip shows: at sea the ship-based speed rules are used instead. The wet-weather speed penalty still uses the unscaled footmen bonus.
• Secondary, captain (works): +10% to the speed bonus that mounted troops in your formation get on melee hits. It raises the speed part of the blow, for swings, thrusts and couched or braced lance hits alike.

Footmen on horses bonus = 0.15 × footmen riding spare horses ÷ men in the party

• Footmen riding spare horses: the smaller of your men without a horse and the spare horses in your inventory.
• Men in the party: everyone in your party and attached parties.

Nomadic Traditions adds 30% of that bonus again.

Worked example. A party of 100 men, 40 on their own horses and 20 footmen on spare horses. The footmen bonus is 0.15 × 20 ÷ 100 = 0.03, shown as +3%. Nomadic Traditions adds 30% of it, only +0.9%. Sweeping Wind (Riding 100) adds a flat +2%. The 40 men on their own horses add a separate cavalry-share bonus of their own (the cavalry ratio row). All the percentages add together before they multiply the base speed:

A land party of 100 men, 40 of them on horses and 20 footmen riding spare horses, whose leader has Nomadic Traditions and Sweeping Wind. Inputs: total men 100, mounted men 40, mounted footmen 20, mounted footmen modifier 0.03.

With these inputs, party map speed is 4.6114.

Riding 100: Sagittarius or Sweeping Wind

Sagittarius

• Primary (works): −15% to the two accuracy penalties of a ranged weapon while you are mounted: the penalty for moving and the penalty for an unsteady aim. It applies to bows, crossbows and throwing weapons.
• Secondary, captain (works): the same −15% for mounted troops in your formation who use a ranged weapon.

It stacks with Mounted Archery (Bow), Steady (Crossbow) and Mounted Skirmisher (Throwing): all the percentages add together.

Sweeping Wind

• Primary (works): +5% top speed to the horse you ride, added to the speed bonus from your Riding skill and the formation banner.
• Secondary, party leader (works): +2% party speed. Land only, as the tooltip shows: at sea NavalDLC uses its own ship-based speed.

Riding 125: Relief Force

• Primary, party leader (differs): +10 starting battle morale for your troops ("Reduced effect at sea" in the tooltip). The tooltip says "when you join an ongoing battle of your allies", but the game only checks that your party is not the leading party of its battle side. Joining an ally's fight does that, but so does any battle where another party leads your side. Your own agent (the party leader) does not get it.
• Secondary, governor (works): +20% to the security that mounted troops in your garrison provide.

Security from mounted troops = garrison security × mounted share of garrison strength × 20%

• Garrison security: the daily security your whole garrison gives.
• Mounted share: how much of the garrison's strength is mounted troops.

Riding 150: Horse Archer or Mounted Warrior

Horse Archer

• Primary (works): +10% damage with arrows, bolts and throwing weapons while you are mounted.
• Secondary, captain (works): +5% to the same hits by mounted troops in your formation. The tooltip says mounted archers, but mounted crossbowmen and mounted throwers get it too (broader than the tooltip).

Mounted Warrior

• Primary (works): +5% damage with melee weapons while mounted.
• Secondary, captain (works): +5% to mounted melee hits by troops in your formation.

All of these add to the other damage percentages of the hit (One Handed, Polearm and so on) and are applied once.

Riding 175: Breeder or Shepherd

Breeder

• Primary, party leader (differs): each day there is a 1% chance that your animals multiply. On success you gain about one animal per 50 you carry (at least one) of a random animal type you already have. You need more than one livestock, pack animal or mount, which the tooltip does not say. Land only, as the tooltip shows.
• Secondary, governor (differs): +5% village production, but only for villages that trade with the town you govern. A castle's governor gives nothing, and a town's governor also boosts castle villages that trade with that town.

Shepherd

• Primary, party leader (works): halves the speed penalty for herding animals, as the tooltip says; land only, as the tooltip shows. Villager parties never get it.
• Secondary, governor (differs): the tooltip promises a chance at "tier 2 horses", but there are none. Instead, for a village that produces a basic (tier 1) horse, with a 15% chance the village makes one extra of that same horse before the village size multiplier is applied. As with Breeder, it is the governor of the town the village trades with who counts, and that governor must be in the town. The roll is made every time the game calculates the production.

Riding 200: Annoying Buzz or Thunderous Charge

When a troop falls, its AI-controlled allies lose battle morale. These perks make that loss bigger when the killer is mounted. Player-controlled agents are never affected.

Annoying Buzz

• Primary (works): +20% morale loss for enemies when you kill with a bow, crossbow or throwing weapon while mounted.
• Secondary, captain (works): +5% for such kills by mounted troops in your formation.

Thunderous Charge

• Primary (works): +20% morale loss for enemies when you kill with a one-handed, two-handed or polearm weapon while mounted.
• Secondary, captain (works): +10% for such kills by mounted troops in your formation.

Unlike most captain halves, these do not exclude the captain: if you lead the formation, your own kills get both halves (broader than the tooltip). They add to Terror (Two Handed) and Heroic Leader (Leadership).

Riding 225: Cavalry Tactics or Mounted Patrols

Cavalry Tactics

• Primary, clan leader (unused): the +30% cavalry volunteer rate is never read. The volunteer code applies this perk's secondary half instead (below).
• Secondary, governor (differs): −50% wages of the mounted troops in the garrison. The town needs a governor, but it also works when the clan leader (rather than the governor) has the perk. It also cuts the daily chance that a notable fills a volunteer slot with a cavalry troop by 50%, in the town or castle whose governor holds the perk and is there (for a village, the town it trades with), which the tooltip does not say.

Wage reduction = −50% × mounted troops' share of the garrison's wages

• Mounted share: the wages of mounted troops divided by the garrison's total wage.

Mounted Patrols

• Primary, party leader (differs): −50% escape chance, but only for hero prisoners (lords, companions). Regular troop prisoners escape as before. Land only, as the tooltip shows.
• Secondary, governor (differs): the same −50% for hero prisoners held in the town or castle you govern, while you are in the settlement.

It adds to other escape modifiers. Together with Keen Sight (Scouting) the reductions can add up to −100%, so the prisoner can never escape; see the worked examples in Characters and politics.

Riding 250: Dauntless Steed or Tough Steed

Dauntless Steed

• Primary (works): +50% to the damage needed to interrupt your attack while you are mounted, so weak hits no longer stagger you.
• Secondary, captain (differs): +5 armor to the head, body, arms and legs of mounted troops in your formation. The tooltip says equipped armor pieces, but the +5 is added to every body part, even one with no armor on it.

Tough Steed

• Primary (works): +20% armor to the horse you ride. The percentage also multiplies the captain bonus below.
• Secondary, captain (works): +10 armor to the horses of troops in your formation.

Mount armor = (horse and harness armor + captain's Tough Steed) × (1 + your Tough Steed)

• Horse and harness armor: the armor of the horse and its harness.
• Captain's Tough Steed: +10 when your formation's captain (someone else) has the perk.
• Your Tough Steed: +20% when you, the rider, have it.

Worked example. A horse with 30 armor, ridden by someone with Tough Steed, under a captain who also has it:

A rider with Tough Steed on a horse with 30 body armor, in a formation whose captain (another character) also has Tough Steed. Inputs: mount armor items 30.

With these inputs, mount body armor is 48.0000.

Riding 275: The Way Of The Saddle

• Primary (works): for every point of Riding above 250, +0.3 flat damage on your horse charges and +0.3 maneuvering for your horse. The charge damage is added before the charge percentages (Full Speed and others) multiply it. Riding here is your effective Riding in battle.

Skill effects

Your Riding skill itself also does several things, whether or not you have perks.

• Horse speed (works): +0.2% top speed for your horse per point of Riding.
• Horse maneuver (works): +0.04% maneuvering per point of Riding.
• Dismount resistance (works): how much damage a blow must deal, as a share of your maximum hit points, to knock you off your horse. It starts at 40% and rises by 0.1% per point.
• Mounted weapon speed and reload penalty (differs): while mounted you swing, ready and reload slower. The penalty starts at −30% and shrinks by 0.3% per point of Riding; it never turns into a bonus. It also makes you wait longer for a steady aim with ranged weapons, which the tooltip does not mention.
• Mounted weapon damage penalty (differs): while mounted your hits deal less damage. The penalty starts at −20% and shrinks by 0.2% per point; it never turns into a bonus. Crossbows are exempt, which the tooltip does not say.

Mounted swing speed = 0.93 × (1 + weapon speed skill effect) × (1 − 30% + 0.3% × Riding), with the last part never above 1

• 0.93: the starting swing speed of every agent.
• Weapon speed skill effect: from your weapon skill, for example +0.07% per point of One Handed.
• Riding: your effective Riding in battle. The penalty applies after the weapon skill and before any speed perks.

Worked example. A mounted hero at One Handed 100 and Riding 50, swinging a sword without speed perks. The penalty at Riding 50 is −15%:

A mounted hero at One Handed 100 and Riding 50 swinging a sword, with no speed perks.

With these inputs, melee swing speed multiplier is 0.8458.

The skill level also enters two accuracy rules that have no tooltip line:

• Any weapon held while mounted gets an extra inaccuracy that shrinks as Riding rises and disappears at high Riding.
• The mounted movement and unsteady-aim penalties of ranged weapons shrink slightly with Riding, on top of your weapon skill.

What the skill level itself does

The game also reads your Riding level directly, without any perk. Effects that depend on any skill level are listed once in the skills guide.

Who the perks work for

Who counts as you, a relative or a wanderer, and why some halves skip one of them, is explained in the Skills guide.

Every other Riding perk half and skill effect works for every hero: you, relatives and wanderers.

All effects at a glance

Every effect site of the Riding perks, skill effects and skill level. Values are what each site applies; a value that grows with skill is shown at the perk's required skill (skill effects and skill levels: per skill point). ×N marks N identical sites.

Practical tips

• Horse archers: Sagittarius at Riding 100, then Horse Archer at 150. Riding also shrinks your mounted inaccuracy and speed penalties, so keep raising it.
• Crossbow cavalry: crossbows skip the mounted damage penalty, so they lose less damage on horseback than bows at low Riding.
• Lancers and shock cavalry: Full Speed and The Way Of The Saddle only boost horse charges, not lance hits. For couched lances, lead your cavalry formation with Nomadic Traditions (captain half) and take Mounted Warrior at 150.
• Nomadic Traditions is weak for party speed: it only scales the spare-horses bonus. Sweeping Wind gives a flat +2% on land plus +5% top speed for your own horse.
• Well Strapped protects only you: your companions' horses are not covered.
• Nimble Steed as captain helps only troops who already have a horse; use it on a cavalry or horse archer formation.
• Mounted Patrols stops lords escaping, not regular prisoners.
• Shepherd as governor gives extra basic horses, never better ones; be in the town, and the villages must trade with that town.
• Relief Force works in any battle where your party does not lead its side, not only when you rush to help an ally.