Fria Ligans forum

I looked in the rules but didn't find it, so let me ask:
Does T2K4 have rules for military service dogs?
I realize that they're much more prevalent since 9/11 and the GWOT, but they were a distinct asset and subculture in the US military even back when I served. Though it bears saying that the dogs were more for drug enforcement then rather than EOD as is the case now.

[link to Pixie and Brutus webcomic]
https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/p ... sode_no=80

Heh … love that webcomic. And that’s one of my favourite episodes.

There certainly ought to be rules for service dogs. During the Cold War, we had them in great numbers here in Sweden, fulfilling various tasks — not least guard and sentry dogs, but also trained to search for mines, track people, and whatnot. It was kind of a big thing, at the time.


Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don’t discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
…

Because I'm a veteran, I usually come up with oddball support characters in T2K and let everyone else play the Rangers and Special Forces types.
One of my favorite concepts is a veterinary assistant /nurse who gets drafted. He's not much of a doctor, but he's all the doctor you got!

When I served in the US Army, there was a major push on to eliminate drug use and alcoholism in the barracks, along with all sorts of other crime. This was in the early '80s when the Army started getting a handle on itself after the Hollow Army of the 70s. After Vietnam and the shift to an all-volunteer force, the Army was just a shell of itself. There was a lot of coke and hashish on bases, a lot of our NCOs were 'Nam veterans and professional drunks... they were alright 26 days out of the month, but the two days after payday they were nowhere to be seen, drinking their pay. I joined just as this was being dealt with. So I saw a lot of the MP drug dogs.
But other all services used security dogs and there were quite a few bomb dogs... though not nearly as many as nowadays.

And there are the Canuks with their specially trained moose and polar bears to work alongside people.....
Or the Aussie with their weirdly trained attack Roo's also.
Some of the north countries with attack reindeer....
Ok, just tossing weird and some very silly ideas out there along with cow-based cavalry...

Moo-yah!

The Finns have used dire wolves as military service dogs since 1917.

True story.

Apart from military use, you could expect to see dogs used for guard duty by civilians, for herding work (though whether anything remains to be herded is a question), & in their oldest application, as hunters. Even a barely-trained dog can reliably sound an alert when strangers approach. There's a reason we've kept them for ~15,000 years.

Dogs have stats available in the Referee's manual.

Dogs have stats available in the Referee's manual.

Certainly. But trained dogs are sort of a different thing — dogs with skills, as it were. Dogs as more or less full-fledged NPCs, not merely as encounter creatures.

Or at least, rules for how to handle trained dogs and their abilities in the game.

Dogs have stats available in the Referee's manual.

Certainly. But trained dogs are sort of a different thing — dogs with skills, as it were. Dogs as more or less full-fledged NPCs, not merely as encounter creatures.

Or at least, rules for how to handle trained dogs and their abilities in the game.

That's what I'm looking for. A trained animal that's bonded with its handler /rider is an NPC, not an encounter stat block.
And a narcotics dog is a long way from bomb dog or a security dog, so the dogs aren't going to have a lot of skill specializations.