Surviving low-level old school D&D

[Mallus]

If you didn't buy guard dogs in character gen, don't be surprised when the GM points out the local village has no guard dogs for sale, that your PC has no experience in use of guard dogs, and that training them would take weeks or months anyway.

Wait, you know how to use a combat dog if you purchase it w/your starting gold, but forget how to use one later? It's Vancian dog-ownership... awesome!

 

[Mallus]

Or, more likely, after the second or third request for more unemployed lackeys the townsfolk are going to ask what happened to the first lot, and then run you out of town on a rail.

This is reasonable... yet I rarely see this point raised by the henchmen-advocates.

 

[Lanefan]

This is reasonable... yet I rarely see this point raised by the henchmen-advocates.

Yet I *am* a hench-advocate! Doesn't stop me feeling sorry for the poor sods...

Lanefan

 

[S'mon]

I am kind of amused by the constant mention of war dogs. I cannot imagine a dog that is trained well enough that it will follow a stranger into a dark alien smelling hole, attack with fiendish intelligence Undeads and Monsters and sacrifice itself for the life of the party. If I GM you would need to raise the dog yourself and pass some checks on dog training if you ever wanted to expect such behavior.

Moreover, dogs and wolves are stated up as way too powerful in all editions of D&D. If I was to pit even a Mastiff against a trained fighter in heavy armor with a decent weapon, I would expect to fighter to win 19 times out of 20.

I guess this goes to show that one groups smart strategy is another groups silly attempt at rules abuse.

1. Yes, guard dogs in D&D are more powerful IRL (or 0th & 1st level humans are weaker) - compared to 3e's commoner-chewing housecat the difference is small, though. And movie-Conan's father was eaten by war dogs, remember!

2. Real life fighting dogs really will indeed attack without fear. Dunno about undead though; I use them mostly on goblins & such tasty morsels.

3. Training - indeed, that was my whole point. The valuable dogs are the ones you start play with, the ones you (pre-game) had raised from cubs and spent months training to be your loyal companions. Only the softest of old school GMs would let you go into a shop once play had begun and let you buy them off-the-rack fully trained and loyal.

 

[Mallus]

Yet I *am* a hench-advocate!

Then you, sir, are a notch above the rest!

(You know, I kinda miss henchmen. Right now I'm fondly recalling a 1e adventure where our 3-man party hired a dozen alcoholic bums to pose as caravan guards along w/us -- because the caravan driver wouldn't hire a measly 3 person squad. We bought them all 'uniforms', well, clean robes, armed them with sticks 'They're called jo-sticks, sir, you see the lot of them are monks', are proceeded to lead them into the inevitable ambush, where they died by nearly to the man. Ah, the good old days.)

 

[S'mon]

Wait, you know how to use a combat dog if you purchase it w/your starting gold, but forget how to use one later? It's Vancian dog-ownership... awesome!

No... You could buy replacements if available, possibly a lengthy trip, but then you'd still have to train them to obey your commands. There are no animal handling rules - in the Labyrinth Lord game I played, the GM was ok with my 2 dogs (50gp from starting money) but if I'd tried to raise an army of hundreds of hounds I expect he'd have given me short thrift.

 

[S'mon]

I guess this goes to show that one groups smart strategy is another groups silly attempt at rules abuse.

Well, don't make players play straight-3d6 OD&D Fighters with 2 hit points, then.

My current Labyrinth Lord game, PCs all start with 5,001 XP (ca 3rd level) and max hp, and a good swashbuckling time is had by all. They're realistically able to kill a guard dog, too!

 

[GenghisDon]

Or be killed by guard dogs...

 

[rogueattorney]

This is reasonable... yet I rarely see this point raised by the henchmen-advocates.

From earlier in the thread I said:

I've found strength in numbers to be one of the keys of survival. Getting some henchmen/hirelings/goons/Charmed bugbears to tag along always helps. Note, I don't mean redshirts. Getting your cronies killed is a good way to stop being able to find cronies. I'd rather have a 4th level henchman who's been with me for years than have to hire a newbie every time out anyway.

While I'm not sure of other editions, both 1e and B/X have mechanisms to have henchman loyalty drop when treated badly and availability dry up when too many die off.

 

[Korgoth]

I am kind of amused by the constant mention of war dogs. I cannot imagine a dog that is trained well enough that it will follow a stranger into a dark alien smelling hole, attack with fiendish intelligence Undeads and Monsters and sacrifice itself for the life of the party. If I GM you would need to raise the dog yourself and pass some checks on dog training if you ever wanted to expect such behavior.

Moreover, dogs and wolves are stated up as way too powerful in all editions of D&D. If I was to pit even a Mastiff against a trained fighter in heavy armor with a decent weapon, I would expect to fighter to win 19 times out of 20.

I guess this goes to show that one groups smart strategy is another groups silly attempt at rules abuse.

Right... it's totally realistic to be a wizard or an elf who can shoot magical bolts at people, but not realistic to have a badazz dog.

It's fantasy. Badazz dogs are part of it, along with elfs and wizards.