Requirements for Master Archer to spawn

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Is there any?

I'm on day 200 and a bit more and a Veteran/Veteran ironman run and I cannot see them. I have the bounty hunter but I'm not sure it helps as there're not "champions".
Do I have more chances to find some in the south with nomads, other mercenary companies or regular raiders? I only recall one run a long time ago with one of them and it was with a Beginner/Beginner settings. I'm speaking like probably 3 years ago so maybe 5-6 run ago.

There're only those guys missing in my runs mostly. I tend to avoid lindwurm because I don't fare well against them, but it's a choice, like not doing alps with a low resolve party, or being afraid to lose to the kraken, again.

Thanks in advance is there's an answer apart from RNG. If it's just RNG, well, I'll wait for them to show their face.

[Gilius Thunderhead]

It's just RNG, the main place to find them is bandit camps, the same size ones that spawn hedge knights

The game is just like that, some runs just never give you what you're looking for, other runs the same thing is all common and something else will be scarce

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Thanks. I thought so as I remember finding them in my first runs while without any of the DLCs. On my current I'm happy to see plenty of schrat (usually, I don't find any forest with them in it), they're fun to fight. And many of them go with some hexen that charmed them.

[turtle225]

Enemy compositions are defined by a spawnlist file that details all of the enemy combinations that can spawn for each faction.

The game then uses a system we'll call "resources" to determine which spawn to use, and will use the mob in the spawnlist file that is the closest match for the "resources" of the given camp or contract.

The reason Master Archers (and Hedge Knights and Swordmasters) are so rare is because it is rare for Brigand camps/contracts to get up to a "resource" count high enough to actually get to a spawnlist that has them. Even in cases where you might be able to get them you might just get a list that has a large amount of Brigands instead.

Your best bet for seeing them would be 3 skull destroy Brigand camp contracts in a late game, as more skulls and later game time will both increase "resources", and the destroy Brigand camp contracts also tend to be harder than "follow the tracks" contracts.

If you started a new game on expert difficulty that would also help, as expert gives a +15% modifier to "resources." If you modded the game to have x5 difficulty then you would basically see top spawnlists in every camp (ie Master Archers would be common).

Time based scaling on expert stops at day 267. Not sure if it is the same for veteran or if it happens later, but if you do play for hundreds of days then there comes a point where that no longer matters.

Don't look for Master Archers among Nomads, they have their own version which is Desert Stalkers.

[bulbatrs]

They are quite common among mercenary bands, so if you attack one there is a good chance you find one. unfortunately you can't tell if there is one before the fight.
You could pick a house or tow and attack all merks associated with them. get rich and find the holy master archer.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Thanks a lot turtle, that's pretty insighful when I'll be ready to spice things up. Also, I didn't find any Desert Stalkers, sounds as fun as the Underrail's death stalker. I find archers better in the south than with brigands overall.
It should trigger soon as hedge knights begin to appear.

And thanks also bulbatrs, I look for mercenary companies too then. They are quite challenging to fight, my only issue is the fact that they side with noble houses and those tend to have a large amount of well equiped soldiers in their armies.