Did any of the people who have been 'splaining to me how useless dogs would be in combat read the initial post in this thread? If so, what about the dog's ability to sense danger and give an alarm strikes you as useless?

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I haven't read it myself, but there's the book "Dogs of the Conquest", about the dogs the Spanish conquistadores used in the Americas.

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Quote from: Dave R;978335Hopefully when you quote someone later you won't quote the entire lengthy post that's directly above your own reply, which has no upside whatsoever, and only serves to make your own post tedious to scroll past.

Hopefully the OP and others: obviously not the thick-skulled, mono-brows such as yourself, mind you; understood that I broke it up so people could and would read it as well as give the OP an idea of how it might look. And lo, OP appreciated it.

AD&D 1e & 2e is AWASH in animal companion discussion and discrete (cannibalizable) sub-systems. As are Dragon magazine and splats like Wilderness Survival, Ranger Handbook, etc. One of the better tools was Animal Training Time to learn tricks, and how many Tricks per Int point an animal can retain.

5e D&D has a useful simplification for animal senses, using their own Skills, and Features that grant X senses Advantage.

Overall, those tools covered animals so well I just port the ideas to games absent of them. Never had a problem with this subject as it was so well covered.

Hope this helps!

I would allow a dog as a follower you don't have to pay, but doesn't really follow instructions. It would probably be best to work out a very strict priority tree for the dog, and make sure to give it at least one bad trait, and then allow a trainer to slowly train very specific tricks. The issue will be that some players think dogs are sentient, wandering heroes who can fly balloons, deliver babies and understand the essential nature of humanity. They want The Littlest Hobo as their dog companion, and get very annoyed when the DM doesn't allow that.

Quote from: Opaopajr;978618AD&D 1e & 2e is AWASH in animal companion discussion and discrete (cannibalizable) sub-systems. As are Dragon magazine and splats like Wilderness Survival, Ranger Handbook, etc. One of the better tools was Animal Training Time to learn tricks, and how many Tricks per Int point an animal can retain.

5e D&D has a useful simplification for animal senses, using their own Skills, and Features that grant X senses Advantage.

Overall, those tools covered animals so well I just port the ideas to games absent of them. Never had a problem with this subject as it was so well covered.

Hope this helps!

I read all of that materiel except 5E and possibly some of the "Dragon" artiicles. If I thought they covered dogs very well, I would not have bothered. So, no, it didn't help.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978703I read all of that materiel except 5E and possibly some of the "Dragon" artiicles. If I thought they covered dogs very well, I would not have bothered. So, no, it didn't help.

We don't know what you have read. Nor do we know your exact purpose for this thread (there wasn't exactly a question asked). Opaopajr was awfully nice for trying to be helpful, wasn't he? Too bad it doesn't meet your needs. If you have any questions, requests for critiques, or for our own experiences, please let us know.

Otherwise, what does everyone want to do, just talk about dogs?

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;978678The issue will be that some players think dogs are sentient, wandering heroes who can fly balloons, deliver babies and understand the essential nature of humanity.

Brehms Tierleben (the German standard reference for animals, 1887), about the poodle:
"Der Pudel hat ein außerordentlich scharfes Wahrnehmungsvermögen. Nichts entgeht ihm, und darum heißt er gescheit. [...] Er kann wirklich trommeln, Pistolen losschießen, an Leitern hinaufklettern, frei mit einer Schar Hunde eine Anhöhe, die von anderen Hunden vertheidigt wird, erstürmen und mit Kameraden eine Komödie spielen lernen."

"The poodle has exceptionally sharp senses. Nothing escapes him, therefore we call him smart. [...] He really can drum, fire pistols, climb ladders, freely with a pack of dogs storm a hill that is defended by other dogs, and learn to perform a comedy with his comrades."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;978719We don't know what you have read. Nor do we know your exact purpose for this thread (there wasn't exactly a question asked). Opaopajr was awfully nice for trying to be helpful, wasn't he? Too bad it doesn't meet your needs. If you have any questions, requests for critiques, or for our own experiences, please let us know.

Otherwise, what does everyone want to do, just talk about dogs?

Yes, I wanted to talk about dogs in an RPG, particularly fantasy, environment.  I didn't think that the subject had been adequately and accurately covered already and I still don't. I thought I would get answers, critiques, accounts of reader's own experiences without specifically asking for them and I have. Several people have responded by talking about dogs and I find that helpful, even when we disagree. Another person demonstrated why the formatting I had used hadn't worked and I found that very helpful. I read the couple of "all that has been covered before" posts as "shut up because I can't just not follow the thread; I have to tell you to shut up." Maybe I'm an old grouch.


By the way, were you a duck in a RuneQuest campaign?

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The gods...the gods may forgive much, to a truly penitent heart."
Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. "The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves." Lois McMaster Bujold _Paladin of Souls_

Before going into the second use of a dog on an adventure, I would like to mention one other thing. Modern dog breeds probably don't exist in most settings. However, dog types do exist. You and your GM can work out what types of dogs are available.

Detecting a menace while the group is traveling requires that the dog keep up with the group. If it is riding in a saddle-bag, it isn't going to be much use in that role. Fortunately, keeping up with a group of humans is not a daunting task for most dogs except for toy breeds, dogs with very short legs and dogs so massive that it impacts their mobility. Even normal movement on horseback will not leave an athletic dog behind.

In very open country, a dog is less likely to detect a problem than a man. I think many of us have had the experience of seeing a cat or another dog long before the dog that was walking with us did so. However, the dog becomes more likely to spot a problem if there is sufficient long grass, brush or other obstacles to render sight less useful.

In forests, especially new growth forests with lots of cover, a dog's ability to detect menaces is much better than a human's.

On a mostly empty street ii a town or city, we come back to the open-country situation. The dog will be better at detecting menaces in cover but a human will have the advantage when the menace is out in the open.

On a crowded street, a dog's chance of spotting a menace is much better than a human's. However, the problem of distractions, which is also a problem in a forest or on an empty street, is at its greatest in this situation. This problem can be reduced, but not eliminated, by training and training ought to cost the character something tangible in the campaign.

Well, all that stuff that you already read from AD&D covered that. So... Yay!

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978754I read the couple of "all that has been covered before" posts as "shut up because I can't just not follow the thread; I have to tell you to shut up." Maybe I'm an old grouch.

That's one way to read it. I read it as "there's plenty of material from 1e/2e/5e/Dragon you might be interested in, if you like."

QuoteBy the way, were you a duck in a RuneQuest campaign?

Nope, character from Larry Elmore's Snarfquest (dragon with amnesia).

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276So how good is a dog at detecting a menace?  I want to keep this system-independent as far as possible so I will just say that a dog that is awake is a bit more likely to detect a menace than a sentry when it is light out and nearly half-again as likely if it is dark. And that is presuming an alert sentry. A sleeping dog is half as likely to detect a menace in daylight as a sentry who is awake and almost as likely if it is dark.

It is difficult to keep this system-independent.

A guard dog is good at spottting intruders. A tracking dog is good at trackong by scent. A bulldoog is good at ripping a bull's htroat out or hanging onto its windpipe and choking it.

How good depends entirely on the system. A skill-based system would give dogs skills, the better the skill the better the dog is at doing something. A level based system would give a dog a certain level equivalent, but some would be higher-level dogs than others.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276There are other uses for a dog on an adventure and I will be talking about them later.

Glorantha has dogs used as helpers for hunters, guard dogs and so on.

As noted earlier, most breeds didn't exist 200 years ago. We've only just gotten busy at making ridiculous dog caricatures, so it's all a question of game effects and trade-offs.

How often do you want your pretend canine to detect pretend menaces in your pretend world?

10%?
25%?
50%?
75%?

Decide.
Assign drawbacks/consequences.
Inform players.
Play.
Adjust the above as necessary.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276The topic of the usefulness of a dog or dogs on an adventure is probably as old as gaming. I can remember a Dungeon Master getting all bent out of shape because my friend wanted her character to bring a dog along on early OD&D adventure.

Great topic!  In the last few campaigns I've run, there's always one player who wants a dog.  In my current ASE campaign, a player bought and brought a real war dog, and without question, it's more than pulled its weight in combat.  In a different campaign, that might present a problem, but since this party consists of three thieves, they really need his help.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276The primary advantage of having a dog along on an adventure lies in its senses, which can give warning when the characters suspect nothing.

I hadn't considered this.  Since my PCs are all thieves and we play with a perception stat for these sorts of things, I probably won't have the dog contribute on that front.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276The answer to this is training. Training dogs can be a skill in a skill-based system.

I use a skill system based on LotFP, and one of the skills I've added in Animal Handling.  It's an extremely useful and broad skill!  I've had the player roll it whenever he wants to do something even slightly complicated with the dog, like be stealthy.  It's always fun when he fails.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276If it is well-trained, a little floof dog that can ride in a saddle-bag can be about as good at this job as a mighty boar-hound and a lot easier to conceal and feed.

Again, that's a very sensible idea.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276So how good is a dog at detecting a menace?

Good question.  I'd probably focus on situations where their sense of smell can really be useful.  A lurking ambush of stinking orcs would be a perfect situation for it.  Since I have a perception stat (actually two perception skills; one passive and one active), I would probably just assign the dog an above-average perception for situations where scent isn't playing a role.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978276I trained and owned dogs that would have been very useful on the right sorts of adventures but the dogs I have now, Samantha Shi-Tzu and Sophie Iguana's Bane would not be useful, unless chasing iguanas away from your mangoes is a big part of your campaign.

I'm listening...