Best System for Mount & Blade + Sword & Sorcery

[Argyle King]

I highly enjoy the Mount & Blade games.

I enjoy the scaling nature of the game: starting with with a handful of brigands or farmers and then building upward toward political power. I also enjoy that combat feels more visceral (even if it is still video-gamey sometimes). Plus, I find things like castle sieges to be fun to play through -rather than just being skipped over with magic like is the case with many rpgs.

I'm not opposed to magic though. I'm also a fan of sword & sorcery stories such as Kull, Conan, and Witcher*.

* Yes, Witcher does contain a lot of magic, but it's rarely an "I win" button in the way it might be in a D&D campaign.

If we're talking D&D, I'd say that I enjoy the feel of the heroic tier the most. I enjoy saving the world as much as the next person, but some of my most enjoyable moments have been when dealing with smaller problems: goblins raiding farmland; a morally ambiguous fight between a tribe of orcs and barbaric human reavers; the long walk to visit a witch in the woods because she's one of the few powerful magic users around; and etc.

Is there a system you'd recommend for fitting into the general ballpark of Mount & Blade crossed with lower-tier fantasy?

I suppose that looks a little like early seasons of Game of Thrones. I'd also like character advancement to encourage breadth of play (gaining prestige, followers, and influence) rather than the more typical vertical (+N magical items; more HP; and so-on) advancement of a d20 game.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Its the same company that brought Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures which is a low-magic, village based adventure OSR-ish game.

This one is their new release for a sword and sorcery playstyle.

Its a d20 system with a roll under skill system, only 3 classes who go up to 10th level. Spells dont have level, they are al the equivalent of 1st-2nd level spell in D&D parlance; the rest is ritual based, which requires costly components and a couple hours.

It comes with a basic mass battle system.

If not there's the Dragon AGE or Fantasy AGE system which works well, with companions that provide rules for mass battles and an organization vs organization system. Magic is fairly weak in both case, but the character are really resilient if you dont use variant rules for hp. It uses a 3d6 system where a double generate ''stunt points'' to be spend on cool moves, so you dont have to be, like, 6th level to cleave thru 2 opponents and push a 3rd one prone, you just have to roll well!