Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen
I disagree. ST is much more trainable than the other attributes. Achieving then maintaining a high ST does require a good diet rich in protein, but soldiers could get that. We don't call the Medieval Age the Starvation Age. Food wasn't so much scarce as it was non-abundant.
A common full-time soldier or mercenary could well have ST 12, and I have no problems at all with a professional archer with ST 15 or even 16 (including the effect of Striking ST and other subsets of ST). The body responds to muscle challenges. If you keep challenging your arm and shoulder musculature by drawing a high-draw-weight bow, your muscles are going to become stronger.
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I think the more specific the repeated exercise the more specific the benefit you'll see, and the narrower its application will be.
Also I think the kind of combinations of diet and regime you alluding to wasn't really that common in the Middle ages not so much due to scarcity of protein (although most people didn't that much protein, there's reason why the animals have anglo saxon names but their meat has French ones) but due to logistics. When it did occur it occurred amount knights and squires (or other elite warrior sub societies, huscarls for instance)
you have to remember that English long bowman weren't taken away and and trained at archers boot camp, and then maintained as a standing army. They lived and trained at home while being what ever they were normally and then we're called up at time of war.
There were some standing troops, but again due to logistics it was rare. In an economy based in rural work, a solider is not only a man your paying for, but a man who's not producing.