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Instead of doing school/housework like a normal person, I decided to answer @BrennanLM& #39;s question for @briamgilbert - how much experience would a D&D character get fighting in a war of a similar scale to the War of Roses. Come and join me on this @dimension20show rabbit hole.
Lou Wilson& #39;s character, King Amethar, is a veteran of the Ravening War, a large scale conflict between several major powers. Despite this (or maybe because of it) he begins play at level 3. Multiple other members of the party questioned this - shouldn& #39;t he be higher level?
To answer this question, I used Edward the Black Prince of Wales, and his activities in the Hundred Years War to model how much experience a knight/soldier should expect to gain. Edward fought in a few major battles; I based my model on the first two, for my own sake.
At the Battle of Crecy (1346), a force of about 8500 English soldiers fought against about 25000 French knights and infantry. In 1356, at the Battle of Poitiers, a force of 6000 English soldiers fought a force of 11,000 French. In both cases, the Black Prince led the English.
We have decent breakdowns of the forces and casualties (which I got from Wikipedia), and using that, we can figure out how much experience was on the table at each battle. For ease of math (and because "defeat" doesn& #39;t mean kill) I& #39;m assuming the winners got all of the experience
I assigned the various soldier types D&D monster blocks, based on how I would run them. Men-at-arms were Knights on Horses (800 xp) for example, while Gascon infantry were commoners (10 xp)
Then, I just multiplied the xp values by the number of each and totaled it up.
Then, I just multiplied the xp values by the number of each and totaled it up.
For Poitiers, this gave me a total French experience of 6,430,00, while at Crecy, the French had 8,990,000 experience worth of troops. These are big numbers, but don& #39;t worry, the English have a lot of soldiers splitting the xp (3,810,000 and 5,712,500 respectively)
Because dead people don& #39;t get experience, I subtracted the number of English casualties from their force before I did the experience division. Luckily for the English, their casualties at Poitiers were minimal, while at Crecy, they suffered 170 dead or captured.
So, to total up the experience:
Poitiers: 6,430,00 xp ÷ 6000 = 1072 xp per surviving soldier.
Crecy: 8,990,000 xp ÷ (8500 - 17) = 1079 xp per surviving soldier.
Total *that* up, and you get 2151 xp for a soldier (or knight) who made it through both.
Poitiers: 6,430,00 xp ÷ 6000 = 1072 xp per surviving soldier.
Crecy: 8,990,000 xp ÷ (8500 - 17) = 1079 xp per surviving soldier.
Total *that* up, and you get 2151 xp for a soldier (or knight) who made it through both.
What does this mean? Well, it means that a knight who made it through both battles would be level 3, but NOT QUITE level 4. @BrennanLM noted that King Amethar probably only fought in two or three battles, which helps support this. Theobald would also have gained this much xp.
After I finish some lunch, I& #39;ll have more to say on the limitations and risks of this approach.
Okay so we& #39;re back to talk about limitations! There are a couple of big ones. The first is that, honestly? The Black Prince isn& #39;t the *best* stand-in for Amethar. They& #39;re both nobility who lived during wartime, prided themselves on their fighting, and were maybe made of candy.
(No one& #39;s ever tried to eat the Black Prince, so we don& #39;t know for sure)
With that said: Amethar was fourth in line for his throne, while the Black Prince was the immediate heir. As a result, he would have probably had more military training and political knowledge than Amethar.
With that said: Amethar was fourth in line for his throne, while the Black Prince was the immediate heir. As a result, he would have probably had more military training and political knowledge than Amethar.
The next problem is estimation: though I used some of the more up to date estimates regarding army size, we don& #39;t actually know for sure how big the English and French armies were, just their relative size. There is, unfortunately, very little I can do about this.
Even with these limitations, I still think the estimation holds. King Amathar and Sir Theobold should both be 550 experience shy of level 4 as a result of their brave service during the Ravening War.
