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Instead of doing school/housework like a normal person, I decided to answer @BrennanLM'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'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'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't mean kill) I'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't worry, the English have a lot of soldiers splitting the xp (3,810,000 and 5,712,500 respectively)
Because dead people don'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'll have more to say on the limitations and risks of this approach.
Okay so we're back to talk about limitations! There are a couple of big ones. The first is that, honestly? The Black Prince isn't the *best* stand-in for Amethar. They're both nobility who lived during wartime, prided themselves on their fighting, and were maybe made of candy.
(No one's ever tried to eat the Black Prince, so we don'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'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.
I'm sorry, Sir Theobald; I shouldn't disrespect him like that.
