Companions guide

Bannerlord v1.4.8 · checked 2026-11-10 · updated 2026-11-12

This guide explains how the wanderers you meet in taverns are made: how many are around and where, which kind turns up next, and where a wanderer's age, skills, level, attribute points and focus points come from. Everything here was read out of the game's own code (v1.4.8), with all official modules active. The rules are the base campaign's. SandBox supplies 67 of the wanderer templates; NavalDLC adds 11 more, adds the three naval skills, and gives every wanderer 6 extra focus points.

Each rule is written in words with a worked example. For the exact formulas, the full level table, every edge case and links to the game code, see the deep dives: Wanderer generation and Spreadsheet ratings.

What is rolled and what is fixed

Every wanderer comes from a template: a fixed character in the game's data, such as "the Scholar" of the Empire, with an age, skills, traits and equipment. There are 78 templates. When a wanderer appears, the game copies the template and rolls a little randomness on top.

The only roll that changes the build is the skill roll. It moves the level by at most 1 and shifts a few attribute or focus points.

How a wanderer is built, with the Scholar's values at each step.

Age is the template age plus a random 0 to 4. Each skill above zero gets a random +5 to +9.

Worked example. The Scholar's template has Engineering 130 and age 25. In your game he has Engineering 135 to 139 and is 25 to 29 years old. His traits and equipment are the template's. Whatever the roll, he ends up level 16 with 18 attribute points and 26 focus points. The sections below take each step in turn.

How many wanderers are around

Target = 0.6 × the number of towns

• Number of towns: every town on the map.

The game keeps the count near the target:

• New game: the towns are shuffled and one wanderer appears in each, until the target is reached.
• Every day, in this order:
  1. With a 10% chance, a random living wanderer is removed. It survives if it is your companion or is in the settlement you are in.
  2. Two random towns, one from each half of the town list, swap one free wanderer each. A free wanderer is one who is nobody's companion.
  3. If fewer wanderers than the target are alive, one new wanderer appears in a random town that is not yours, is not under siege and has no free wanderer.

Worked example. On a map with 50 towns the target is 0.6 × 50 = 30 wanderers, and a new game starts with one wanderer in each of 30 towns. On a day when one is removed, fewer than 30 are alive, so step 3 brings in a new one that same day.

Which kind of wanderer appears

Every template has a type:

• mariner if it has the NavalSoldier trait;
• otherwise, the type of its highest skill above 20 among: Engineering (engineer), Tactics (tactician), Leadership (leader), Steward (steward), Trade (trader), Roguery (rogue), Medicine (physician), Smithing (smith) and Scouting (scout);
• fighter if none of those skills is above 20.

Worked example. The Scholar has Engineering 130, Steward 120, Medicine 90, Tactics 60 and Leadership 50. Charm 110 is high too, but Charm is not on the list. Engineering 130 is his highest listed skill, so he is an engineer.

When a new wanderer appears, the game picks the type that is furthest below its share of the target. Only types that still have a template not alive right now take part.

Score = (weight − wanderers of that type alive ÷ target) ÷ weight

• Weight: the type's share of the target, from the table below.
• Wanderers of that type alive: living wanderers of that type.
• Target: the target count from the previous section.

The type with the highest score wins, and a random template of that type that is not alive appears. Its birthplace is a town of its own culture, but it appears in the town chosen above.

The world aims for 0.6 wanderers per town. Every day there is a 10% chance that a random living wanderer is removed (your companions and anyone in your current settlement are spared).

Weight of each type when a new wanderer spawns, with the number of templates of that type (of 78).

No template is a fighter, so the fighter weight is never used.

Worked example. The target is 30. 4 scouts are alive: 4 out of 30 is 13.3%, just above the scout weight of 13.2%, so the scout score is slightly below zero (−0.013). 1 smith is alive: 1 out of 30 is 3.3%, well below the smith weight of 5.3%, so the smith score is 0.367. Between the two, the smith wins, although scouts have the biggest weight of any type that spawns. A type with no wanderer alive at all scores 1, the highest possible score.

Age

Age = template age + a random 0 to 4

• Template age: the age written in the template.

A template younger than 20 can end up older because of its traits; the deep dive has the rule.

Worked example. The Scholar's template age is 25, so he is 25 to 29 years old. A template age of 25 is above 20, so traits play no part.

Skills

Skill = template value + a random 5 to 9

• Template value: the skill in the template. A skill of 0 stays 0 and gets no roll.
• Random 5 to 9: rolled for each skill on its own.

Worked example. The Scholar's Engineering of 130 becomes 135 to 139, his Steward of 120 becomes 125 to 129, and his Roguery of 10 becomes 15 to 19. He has no naval skills, so they stay 0.

Level

The level is not rolled. The game turns the skills into experience and looks up the level that experience buys.

Experience = (2 × each skill to the power 2.2, added up over all skills) − 2,000

• Each skill: the skill after the roll. Because of the power 2.2, high skills count far more than low ones.
• 2,000: subtracted once from the total. Experience is never below 1.

The wanderer gets the highest level whose experience requirement is met.

Experience needed to reach each level.

The Scholar's skills turn into experience as twice each skill to the power 2.2, added up, minus 2,000.

Worked example. The Scholar's skills add up to 910 with the lowest roll and 982 with the highest. That is 366,001 to 405,035 experience. Level 16 needs 357,142 and level 17 needs 444,564, so he is level 16 every time. Without the roll he would be level 15.

Attribute points

Attribute points = 15 + (level − 1) ÷ 4, rounded down

• 15: the points every wanderer starts with.
• (level − 1) ÷ 4: one more point for every 4 levels above level 1.

All attribute points are spent before any focus point. The six attributes are Vigor, Control, Endurance, Cunning, Social and Intelligence. Each skill belongs to one of them; each naval skill belongs to two.

1. Every attribute is first set to 1. That costs 6 points.
2. Each remaining point goes to the attribute whose skills are furthest above their learning limit, up to 10 per attribute.
3. Every point already in an attribute makes the next one there count for less, so the points spread over several attributes instead of all going to one.

The learning limit is the skill level above which a skill learns slowly:

Learning limit = (attribute − 1) × 10 + 30 × focus points in the skill

• Attribute: the attribute the skill belongs to. For a naval skill, the average of its two attributes.
• Focus points in the skill: 0 while attributes are being spent, since focus comes after.

Worked example. The Scholar is level 16: 15 + 15 ÷ 4 = 15 + 3 = 18 attribute points. 6 go to setting every attribute to 1, which leaves 12. With the middle roll (every skill +7), the first point goes to Intelligence, the home of Engineering, Steward and Medicine. The second goes to Social (Charm), the third to Intelligence again. He ends with Intelligence 5, Social 3, Cunning 3, Endurance 3, Control 2 and Vigor 2.

Simulated results for the Scholar (Empire), template type: engineer, base age 25.

Over all rolls the Scholar always has Vigor 2, Control 2, Cunning 3 and Intelligence 5; Endurance is 2 or 3 and Social is 3 or 4.

Focus points

Focus points = 5 + (level − 1) + 6

• 5: the points every wanderer starts with.
• (level − 1): one more point for every level above level 1.
• 6: added by NavalDLC to the starting points. They are ordinary focus points and can go to any skill.

Each focus point goes to the skill that is furthest above its learning limit, up to 5 per skill. A focus point raises that skill's learning limit by 30, so focus spreads across the best skills instead of piling onto one.

Worked example. The Scholar at level 16 has 5 + 15 + 6 = 26 focus points. With the middle roll his Engineering is 137 and his Intelligence 5, so the learning limit of Engineering is (5 − 1) × 10 = 40 and Engineering is 97 above it. His Charm of 117 with Social 3 has a limit of 20 and is also 97 above it. On a tie the skill that comes first in the game's skill list wins, so Charm takes the first point and Engineering the second. After its point the limit of Engineering is 70 and Engineering is only 67 above it, behind Steward (127, limit 40, 87 above). In the end Charm has 4 focus points, Engineering and Steward 3 each, Medicine and Tactics 2 each, Roguery none, and every other skill with a template value 1 each.

Traits, perks and equipment

• Traits are copied from the template as they are, with no roll.
• Perks: the wanderer gets every perk its skills allow. Where a perk has an alternative, the game picks one of the two at 50/50.
• Equipment is the template's own, with the companion item modifiers for armor, weapons and horse applied.

Worked example. The Scholar's template has Mercy 1 and Generosity −1, so every Scholar you meet has exactly those traits.

Strongest wanderers

The rankings below are spreadsheet heuristics from the author's wanderers.xlsx, not game rules. The game never computes them. They score each template by its template skills, before the roll, counting the naval skills, over all 78 templates. The formulas are in the Spreadsheet ratings deep dive.

These are spreadsheet heuristics from the author's wanderers.xlsx, not game rules.

Warrior: the share of all skills held in vigor, control and endurance skills, plus 1 minus the wanderer's skill total divided by the highest skill total of any template.

Melee fighter: the share of all skills held in the vigor skills, Athletics and Smithing.

Archer: the share of all skills held in the control and endurance skills (the attributes, not Bow).

Party leader: the share of all skills held in the social skills plus the share held in the intelligence skills.

Worked example. The Scholar's Social skills add up to 205 and his Intelligence skills to 340, together 545 of his 820 skill points in total. 545 ÷ 820 = 0.6646, the best party leader score of any template.

Practical tips

• The template decides the build. Two copies of the same wanderer differ by at most one level and a few attribute or focus points. If you liked the Scholar in one game, he is nearly the same in the next.
• Compare skills, not levels. The level is worked out from the skills, so a higher level only means higher skills somewhere; check which ones.
• Hire the one you want. Every day there is a 10% chance that a random wanderer is removed from the game. Your companions are safe, and so is anyone in the settlement you are standing in.
• Wanderers move. Every day two towns swap a free wanderer each, so the one you saw last week may be elsewhere now.
• Rare types come back. The game spawns the type that is furthest below its weight. When a type has few wanderers alive, it is next in line, as long as one of its templates is not alive.
• Expect spread-out focus. A wanderer arrives with focus on many skills, at most 5 on any one, rather than all in their best skill.
• Take the rankings with salt. The strongest-wanderer tables are spreadsheet heuristics on template skills, not a measure the game uses.