Tactic/Strategy - how to make it work?

[ImperatorK]

I know that D&D system isn't very Tactic-friendly. The way it works, you either are way above your opponent(s) and tactic isn't needed, or your opponent(s) is/are so overpowered that you will need luck with dice, not a smart tactic, to defeat him/them.
Lets assume that the game isn't "Rocket Tag" or "DM vs. players" (which means that there's no need to worry about who goes first and fights do last longer then 1 round). What would be your suggestions on making encounters more about tactic or strategy then raw power?

My idea? Make the enemies more-or-less equal in power to the PCs. If they try to duke it out face to face, they will have something like 50/50 chance on winning. In such a situation the little circumstantial bonuses that you normally never pay attention to (like fighting in a cramped space, being higher then your opponent, being acrobatic enough to keep your AC while balancing, ect.) start to really matter.

[sirpercival]

I'm in a game with exactly this sort of thing just happened.  Six optimized ECL 6 PCs versus a crapload of non-trivial opponents, including a sorceror that almost nuked the whole party with multiple wings of flurry.  We had to deal with terrain and cover and hidden opponents... The combat took something like 10 rounds, and 2 PCs died.

It was tough, and a lot of tactics were involved.

[SneeR]

I wouold actually like to plug RobbyPants' sneaky fighting feats. When an opponent is denied DEX to AC by either flatfootedness or feinting, the character can inflict debuffs on them with physical attacks.

Assuming we are in an environment where a rocket tag is vastly reduced and spending a round debuffing an opponent would be worth it, these grant melee characters a plethora of tactical usefulness.

[veekie]

In a rocket tag reduced environment, I think just expanding the range of possible maneuvers performed by non-casters would help a great deal with making tactics better.

If rocket tag is un-reduced however, one quick hack is to simply use very large masses of lower CR opponents, they take long enough to defeat that tactics plays a role.

[InnaBinder]

Having seen an example of that type of environment in play, movement rate and movement types become really important.  In a game where getting one-shotted isn't the norm, optimal round-by-round and in-round positioning is important over a longer haul than just checking to see if you've got concealment and/or higher ground and/or flanking for the initial attack.

[Tiltowait]

You need a ton of houserules and optimizing aimed at making everyone more resilient. Especially the party, but the enemies need to be resilient as well. Otherwise you don't have any choice but to throw out your super nuke before your opponent throws theirs.

At the absolute minimum you'd need maximum HP per HD for everyone, greatly increased availability of defensive items, spells, and abilities and everyone at the table having a high degree of system mastery. You also need some heavy offense so you can kill them before they get to take too many shots at you.

The last combat I remember was against a dragon and a bunch of other stuff. If we weren't making most of their attacks ineffective by one means or another we'd all have died. If we played poorly we'd all have died. If we had fought them on their terms the dragon alone would have killed at least half of us.

Since we houserule full attacks to be a standard action it wasn't a full caster fest either, other characters could get in on the action too.