I disagree. As the old axiom goes, "Quantity has a quality all its own." The Soviet Red Army in Western Europe outnumbered NATO forces 3 or 4 to 1 normally, and could be expected to achieve 6 to 1 or greater at the point of effort. Mass is also a principle of war, where you concentrate overwhelming offensive power at the place and time of the attack. Overwhelming your enemy with greater numbers allows you to concentrate superior firepower on multiple targets at once, while forcing your enemy to either weaken their attack by spreading their firepower on multiple targets, or only attacking one target at a time.
D&D 5E DM combat tactics
I disagree. As the old axiom goes, "Quantity has a quality all its own." The Soviet Red Army in Western Europe outnumbered NATO forces 3 or 4 to 1 normally, and could be expected to achieve 6 to 1 or greater at the point of effort. Mass is also a principle of war, where you concentrate overwhelming offensive power at the place and time of the attack. Overwhelming your enemy with greater numbers allows you to concentrate superior firepower on multiple targets at once, while forcing your enemy to either weaken their attack by spreading their firepower on multiple targets, or only attacking one target at a time.
Erechel
Explorer
There you aren't really taking about tactics, but of strategy. Tactics are the specific formations and disposition, specific actions taken place in a combat. "Big numbers" may be anything, from swarms of rats biting to golems to Tucker's Kobolds. If you say "outnumbering", you need to say how they fight, not only how many.
Which shows what you know of military terminology. Tactics are "an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end." That says nothing about the level or numbers involved. And for your edification, the Soviet Red Army considered divisional units and below to be "tactical" units, used to achieve tactical objectives.
A commander employs his forces in tactical maneuvers to achieve a goal. A gnoll leader may well commit his warriors in a frontal assault, knowing only that this usually works against weaker or less numerous opponents. It is no less a valid tactic for its simplicity. It is no less a tactic for its reliance on sheer overwhelming force to achieve the goal. Whatever a commander does to achieve a goal is a tactic, from a frontal assault, to a feigned withdrawal, to using archers to support a pike formation. Find out what your goal is, and then you can determine the tactics necessary to achieve your goal. Further, a tactic may not even necessarily touch the enemy. Ensuring your artillery is continuously supplied with ammunition during an attack is a tactic, as it helps you achieve your goal.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Sounds like a book definition vs real life definition.
Even in the military there is a nuance between tactics and strategies.
Greenstone.Walker
Adventurer
In the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure, Glasstaff cast darkness and then instructed his spiders (blindsight) to attack.
In addition, the spiders used their web spit to block the door closed, splitting the party (one player decided their character just didn't enter the room).
Later on in the same adventure, the burning skull cast stinking cloud and sent in its summoned skeletons (while other skeletons peppered the party with arrows).
From a recent adventure, a foe cast heat metal on a fighter's magical weapon, while the fighter was flying over boiling blood. Luckily the fighter made the save otherwise the weapon would have been lost.
As an aside, heat metal is just nasty. If you are wearing metal armour then you are taking damage and suffering disadvantage, every round, until you are dead or the caster loses concentration. A foe should be casting this and just running away.
In addition, the spiders used their web spit to block the door closed, splitting the party (one player decided their character just didn't enter the room).
Later on in the same adventure, the burning skull cast stinking cloud and sent in its summoned skeletons (while other skeletons peppered the party with arrows).
From a recent adventure, a foe cast heat metal on a fighter's magical weapon, while the fighter was flying over boiling blood. Luckily the fighter made the save otherwise the weapon would have been lost.
As an aside, heat metal is just nasty. If you are wearing metal armour then you are taking damage and suffering disadvantage, every round, until you are dead or the caster loses concentration. A foe should be casting this and just running away.
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No, there is a huge gap between tactics and strategies. For example, the US has a National Military Strategy. It states 3 objectives:
Deter, deny, and defeat state adversaries.
Disrupt, degrade, and defeat violent extremist organizations.
Strengthen our global network of allies and partners.
As you can see, this is the "what". What am I trying to accomplish. Strategy defines your goals (at a high level). Tactics are what you do to achieve your goals.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
And nearly all of those strategies you just listed could be called a tactic and it would meet the book definition. Though it wouldn't be the proper thing to do as that's the nuance.
Nope. Not at all. A strategy defines the goal you're after, in terms of the larger context you're trying to achieve. For example, "disrupt, degrade, and defeat violent extremist organizations" defines what I want done in order to keep my country safe from attack by such forces. It doesn't say how I'm going to do it (the tactics). For example, disruption can be direct military force. It can be a concentrated electronic warfare attack to deny them communications. It can be political pressure on the host country. It can be economic pressure (as done against ISIL in identifying who was buying their oil and pressuring them not to buy).
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Protecting America and Americans is the Militaries goal. They do that by the following tactics. Deter, deny and defeat state adversaries. Disrupt, degrade and defeat violent extremist organizations. By Strengthening our global network of allies and partners.
Sounds like those are tactics to me... You see the same answer to the question of "what you do" can also be the same answer to the question of "how you do something else".
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