RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I remember reading this somewhere but I have no idea if it's a real D&D thing or a house rule or what, but here's my question:
Can you declare that you are taking no action whatsoever in the round in order to automatically go at the top of initiative in the next round? Basically delaying your action in this round until the start of the next one, effectively? If so, what page number/book/etc. can I find the wording of this rule at? Thanks!
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I've always played with such a rule, yet I can't find it in the SRD. Take a look here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm
Maybe it was a 3.0 rule.
Yeah, we've always used this rule too... but I can't remember where I saw it. I'm beginning to wonder if we just swiped it from White Wolf's system.
It was a 3.0 rule, back before the designers realized initiative was circular. I guarantee you can find it in a 3.0 PH. Now you can just delay to the point in the order that you want to jump in. Before you could only delay to 0 minus your initiative bonus. Then you had to spend a full round action to "refocus", which put you at 20 plus your initiative modifier.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Yeah, we've always used this rule too... but I can't remember where I saw it. I'm beginning to wonder if we just swiped it from White Wolf's system.
It's possible, but I doubt it. I didn't know such a rule existed under White Wolf and we've been playing with the refocus thing ever since we started playing 3.0.
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I remember reading this somewhere but I have no idea if it's a real D&D thing or a house rule or what, but here's my question:
Can you declare that you are taking no action whatsoever in the round in order to automatically go at the top of initiative in the next round? Basically delaying your action in this round until the start of the next one, effectively? If so, what page number/book/etc. can I find the wording of this rule at? Thanks!
Basically, yes. (We'll ignore that your character doesn't know from "rounds".)
The action you want is "Delay":
If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
It's not clear when during that round your initiative number would be set, though it could clearly be at a number higher than any other combatant. The only advantage that I can see to this is that you would probably be going before anyone joining the fight in later rounds. That's a bit meta-gamey, though.
I remember reading this somewhere but I have no idea if it's a real D&D thing or a house rule or what, but here's my question:
Can you declare that you are taking no action whatsoever in the round in order to automatically go at the top of initiative in the next round? Basically delaying your action in this round until the start of the next one, effectively? If so, what page number/book/etc. can I find the wording of this rule at? Thanks!
This was a combat option called Refocus. It was a v.3.0 mechanic. It is no longer part of the game in v.3.5. You can Ready or Delay in the current game system. However, none of them have a built in "go at the start of the round" element. If you delay, you simply announce when you are going in the round, however, it cannot interrupt someone else's action. You would need to ready an action to do that. Either one of these can accomplish the same thing, which is why Refocus was probably dropped.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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This was a combat option called Refocus. It was a v.3.0 mechanic. It is no longer part of the game in v.3.5. You can Ready or Delay in the current game system. However, none of them have a built in "go at the start of the round" element. If you delay, you simply announce when you are going in the round, however, it cannot interrupt someone else's action. You would need to ready an action to do that. Either one of these can accomplish the same thing, which is why Refocus was probably dropped.
Okay, thanks for the input. I was hoping I wasn't crazy.
Just for the fun of it, I checked the 2e rules on this issue. I can't find a thing that addresses this, except for a small note that indicates that "waiting" can be a useful tactic in pre-combat situations which might allow the party to assess the beligerance level of potential opposition before combat begins. It provides a 1 point initiative penlty to the entire party, and can be used on multiple consecutive segments.
Thus, if a party rolls an initiative of 4 while the opposition rolls an 8, the party can "wait" at 4, 5, 6, and 7, to see if the other guys will attack on 8. But the disadvantage is in losing whatever initiative advantage they may have had and always going "simo" with the other group from then on (provided of course that indivudal initiative rolls are not made on every consecutive round).
As for the mechanics of "waiting", "holding", "delaying", "refocusing" or whatever this tactic might now be labled, it apparently doesn't really exist in the 2e rules; another one of those pesky, broad-use house rules that everybody has used for years and knows is part of the game, but isn't actually printed. The 3e application was probably an attempt to codify this "rule" which didn't work quite right and was subsequently deleted or modified almost beyond my recognition.
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The action you want is "Delay":If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.It's not clear when during that round your initiative number would be set, though it could clearly be at a number higher than any other combatant. The only advantage that I can see to this is that you would probably be going before anyone joining the fight in later rounds. That's a bit meta-gamey, though.
The way I have always done this is when a player declares a Delay action, he can delay as long as he likes. He can act whenever he wants, one or more "initiative counts" or even rounds later, whenever he chooses, with the caveat that he cannot interrupt another's actions; the delaying character can effectively insert themselves at any point in the initiative, but only between counts.
To give an example, a fighter and mage encounter a group of orcs, the fighter and mage roll inits, getting a 17 (for the fighter) and a 15 (for the mage). The DM rolls a 16 for the orcs but does not tell the players this at first. The fighter wants to charge the orcs and demonstrate his new Great Cleave feat but the wizard wants to show off his fireball. After a moment, the fighter says he will delay, hoping that the wizard gets his spell off first. However, the orcs go first and charge the pair of luckless PC's on initiative 16. The fighter cannot act, because he cannot interrupt the orc's actions (that is the pervue of ther Ready Action alone, if he thought they would charge, he should have readied an action to strike the first orc in melee range.). The orcs charge on 16 and the group finds themselves nearly surrounded. Immediately after the orcs go, before I mentally drop the initiative count to 15, I ask the fighter is he wishes to act. He probably will, and I move his iniative to 16-. The "minus sign" indicates he goes before 15 and after the orcs which are on 16. I use the "minus sign" to insert the fighter before anyone on initiative 15. He then goes at 16- from then on, until he does another initiative-related action to change his place in the order. Had the fighter used a Ready Action instead of a Delay, I would have moved the fighter to iniative 16+, indicating that he anticipated the orc's charge, received it when it occured and will act slightly ahead of the orcs from now on. The "plus sign" indicates that the fighter acts after everyone who may be on or move to iniative 17 at some point in the future, but before the orcs.
Using this approach, both the Ready and Delay actions are useful in combat. The Ready Action allows a "prepared" character to interrupt opponents and ensure he acts ahead of them, but it comes at the cost of a standard action and allows only a standard action later. The Delay Action allows a character to take his normal standard/move actions in a given round, but comes at the price of being an observer should something unfortunate happen before he decides to act.
Just for the fun of it, I checked the 2e rules on this issue. I can't find a thing that addresses this, except for a small note that indicates that "waiting" can be a useful tactic in pre-combat situations which might allow the party to assess the beligerance level of potential opposition before combat begins. It provides a 1 point initiative penlty to the entire party, and can be used on multiple consecutive segments.
Are you sure that's the Second Edition ruleset? 'cos IIRC the concept of segments was removed when we switched from 1st Edition to 2nd.
I remember reading this somewhere but I have no idea if it's a real D&D thing or a house rule or what, but here's my question:
Can you declare that you are taking no action whatsoever in the round in order to automatically go at the top of initiative in the next round? Basically delaying your action in this round until the start of the next one, effectively? If so, what page number/book/etc. can I find the wording of this rule at? Thanks!
I've never seen this rule in print, but I use it myself sometimes. It makes sense if you think about it, so if it's not a rule, it should be.
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I am not sure why "going first in the next round" would be important or even an issue in a rotating initiative order. Other than the first round, (omitting the surprise round from this discussion) as long as you get to act before everyone acts a second time, nothing is lost. Using my explanation of the Delay Action (posted above), a person wanting to do this just uses Delay until all other characters have acted, then he goes next. This places him at the bottom of the current round which is the same as the top of the next round. That is, being at the bottom of round 1 is the same as being at the top of round 2 in a circular initiative queue.
Example:
(original init rolls)
Beholder init 15
Fighter init 12
mage init 10
Fighter doesn't like his place in combat, fighter delays to init 10- (or 9, whatever suits you best) and thus he acts before the beholder does a second time. He could even Delay to init 16, placing him physically at the top of the next round, acting again ahead of the beholder. Either way (on init 9 or init 16) he acts ahead of the beholder.
Am I making this too simple and just overlooking something?
This was a combat option called Refocus. It was a v.3.0 mechanic. It is no longer part of the game in v.3.5. You can Ready or Delay in the current game system. However, none of them have a built in "go at the start of the round" element. If you delay, you simply announce when you are going in the round, however, it cannot interrupt someone else's action. You would need to ready an action to do that. Either one of these can accomplish the same thing, which is why Refocus was probably dropped.
Thanks for highlighting this. I was pretty sure that this was the case. I actually made a point of reiterating exactly this at the start of our newest campaign, so that there would be no confusion about how readying or delaying actions were handled.
However, can anyone suggest a means to keep a specific running count of who goes before whom when multiple targets have readied to act on one character's initiative? As it changes the readying character's initiative to the initiative of the target, how does one differentiate between characters in following rounds as to who goes first? (My instinct is to go with whichever readying character has the highest initiative count.)
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However, can anyone suggest a means to keep a specific running count of who goes before whom when multiple targets have readied to act on one character's initiative? As it changes the readying character's initiative to the initiative of the target, how does one differentiate between characters in following rounds as to who goes first? (My instinct is to go with whichever readying character has the highest initiative count.)
When multiple characters are readied on the same triggering action and that action occurs, I resolve all actions in order of dex (highest dex goes first). I then note each charater's new initiative with the + or even ++, or +++ symbols to indicate who acts first (eg triggering guy had init 15, 2 players had readied actions , so these players act on 15++ and 15+). Use of the + after an init allows infinite "room" in initiative order, is easy to read and works well in large initiative trees where every number in a given range is covered (for explanation of my use of + and - in inits, see my posts above).
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If multiple characters Ready to go on the same trigger event, I treat this the same way as if multiple characters roll the same starting initiative: Init bonus breaks ties, then die roll.
The only times the actual Init numbers matter are at the start of the combat and when someone new joins in the middle of the fight. Since the latter is a bit rare, I usually don't bother to track the actual number of someone whose position in the order has moved. Instead, I just track the current order with magnets or cards for each character or group and insert a Delaying or Readied character in the appropriate place in that order.
If I do have to track the numbers, that's a bit more painful, but it's easy enough to roll those initiatives at the start of the fight but only tell the players where their initiatives fall when they actually show up.
Am I making this too simple and just overlooking something?
Nope, that's pretty much exactly how it works. The concept of Refocusing is simply delaying until the bottom/top of the initiative, and all that it accomplishes is that everybody gets to do something before you do. Woo hoo.
When multiple characters are readied on the same triggering action and that action occurs, I resolve all actions in order of dex (highest dex goes first).
I would suggest, ever so lightly, that you consider doing it first by highest Initiative modifier, to reward the player who chose Improved Initiative as a feat. That's what I do, anyway. If the players have the same Initiative modifier, then it would go to Dex. If that's also the same, then I have the players in question roll off to see who goes, ever so very slightly, first.
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I would suggest, ever so lightly, that you consider doing it first by highest Initiative modifier, to reward the player who chose Improved Initiative as a feat. That's what I do, anyway. If the players have the same Initiative modifier, then it would go to Dex. If that's also the same, then I have the players in question roll off to see who goes, ever so very slightly, first.
Doh yes of course. That is actually what I do in practice. Somehow I wrote "based on Dex" in my post above.
Are you sure that's the Second Edition ruleset? 'cos IIRC the concept of segments was removed when we switched from 1st Edition to 2nd.
True, the “segment” as it was used in 1e doesn’t exist any more. A full melee round is now one minute, not 6 seconds. Perhaps I used the wrong term, but it all comes out the same in the end. Since I learned D&D under the original soft-back books (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, etc.) I still tend to cross-define terms occasionally. Doesn’t hurt anything, just gets me upbraided on occasion for using outmoded terminology.
A full melee round is now one minute, not 6 seconds.
Uh, backwards... heh.