What's tactics got to do, got to do with it.

[billd91]

Not necessarily. What if all those dogs and spear-carrying rabble make noise and alert Nosnra the hill giant chief? What if their morale breaks? What if the dogs won't go near monsters because the scent freaks them out? It's good tactics only because the rules, or the GM, make it so.

A lot of that's already covered as long as the DM plays the dogs like, well, dogs (or other spear carriers). It's only an exploit if they aren't used with some eye to appropriate role-playing and/or they are given rules exceptions (such as preventing them from being heard by Nosnra).
That said, in some situations, a pack of attack dogs can be pretty useful and be a good tactic to deploy.

 

[billd91]

It's not just the situation. The rules and DM decision making play a huge part in determining whether something is good tactics. For example, what if houserules are being used that make wandering monster checks much more frequent for the typical 'small army' party of old school play? Equally the DM may just decide to make a lot more checks for such a party. These rules or rulings make small parties far more successful in all dungeon expeditions where there are wandering monsters ie the vast majority. That's not the situation that's making small parties a good tactic, it's the houserule.

This really isn't any different from letting the rules of the game, as they are written and as they define how the character's actions interact with the game reality, determine what is or is not a good tactic. Or are you trying to say that everything is essentially an exploit and not a good tactic?

 

[Doug McCrae]

That said, in some situations, a pack of attack dogs can be pretty useful and be a good tactic to deploy.

Sure, when the PCs are hunting boar in the forest. Not when they're on a commando raid.

But by the rules, a pack of dogs are useful on a commando raid. It's only knowledge of those rules that makes use of dogs a good tactic.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This really isn't any different from letting the rules of the game, as they are written and as they define how the character's actions interact with the game reality, determine what is or is not a good tactic. Or are you trying to say that everything is essentially an exploit and not a good tactic?

I'm talking about where there's a conflict between the rules and what would reasonably be expected to happen. One would not reasonably expect a pack of dogs to be useful on a commando raid, but the rules say they are.

So it seems to me that what is being praised as good tactics is merely knowledge of the rules.

 

[billd91]

I'm talking about where there's a conflict between the rules and what would reasonably be expected to happen. One would not reasonably expect a pack of dogs to be useful on a commando raid, but the rules say they are.

They do? Where?

 

[Doug McCrae]

They do? Where?

I don't have a 1e MM to hand but according to OSRIC the stats of a war dog are:

2+2 hit dice, 120 ft move, armor class 6, attacks 1, damage 2d4

That's about as good as a 1st level fighter.

 

[billd91]

I don't have a 1e MM to hand but according to OSRIC the stats of a war dog are:

2+2 hit dice, 120 ft move, armor class 6, attacks 1, damage 2d4

That's about as good as a 1st level fighter.

There's not much there that says "commando raid" to me unless you're saying that being a basic dumb brute is good enough. There's nothing about being especially well-trained, stealthy, or equipped for assaulting an area using odd and risky forms of transportation...

But acting like a basic brute-squad member and tearing through a village of halfling commoners at the behest of an evil overloard? You betcha.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There's not much there that says "commando raid" to me unless you're saying that being a basic dumb brute is good enough. There's nothing about being especially well-trained, stealthy, or equipped for assaulting an area using odd and risky forms of transportation...

I see the typical old school D&D adventure as being very similar to a commando raid. Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is a commando raid, so is Keep on the Borderlands.

There is no mechanical drawback in old school D&D for having a large party. In fact using hordes of spear-chuckers etc is often encouraged. In part this is because the older editions lack appropriate listening rules. The rules don't say that monsters will hear this small army's approach. The assumption behind dungeons seems to be that the whole thing does not devolve into a single massive battle against all the inhabitants at once (in a sense it wouldn't really be a dungeon if it did), rather it's a series of limited skirmishes.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So it seems to me that what is being praised as good tactics is merely knowledge of the rules.

Since game rules determine what happens in the game world are there any good tactics at all that are not dependent of rules knowledge?

 

[FireLance]

Since game rules determine what happens in the game world are there any good tactics at all that are not dependent of rules knowledge?

Before I tackle this question, I think I need to go back to the earlier question about the distinction between a tactic and an exploit. For mundane matters, the distinction seems fairly simple, at least in theory: if something is about as effective in the game world as it is in the real world, it is a tactic. If it is more effective in the game world than it should be in the real world, it's an exploit.

Where this gets messed up in practice is that the real world often does not intrude directly onto anybody's game table. Instead, the real world is filtered through the perceptions of the various people involved in the game. The game designers will have one perception of how the world should work, and this is expressed as the core rules of the game. The DM will have another perception of how the world should work, and this is expressed through his house rules and other rulings. When a DM discovers rules (core rules or house rules) that turn out to be more effective than he thinks they should be, he tags them as exploits.

Magic muddies the water further when it comes to fantasy games. Since there is seldom a real-world analogue for how magic works, designers and DMs can have vastly different ideas of how magic should work. Hence, there is even more scope for a rule that the designer thinks is fine to be considered an exploit by the DM, or for a DM's own house rule to have unintended consequences which he later feels to be an exploit.

So, to answer the current question, there are some actions that will generally be considered good ideas, because most people have fairly similar perceptions of the world where they are concerned and would recognize them as good ideas. The actual degree of effectiveness within the game, however, will depend on the rules.