Okay, so I've known about the problems with Amazing Initiative, and of Jason's suggested "patches" for the ability I picked 1st option(2 mythic points for the 2nd turn). I really liked this alternative, since it meant that the majority of my players were hesitant to do so in a prolonged session.
However an interesting problem arose this last game. What happens when a PC delays an Amazing Initiative turn into the next round?
The scenario:
Our Good Aligned Battle Oracle was engaged with one of the many mythic anti-paladins the party was facing. At the end of his turn, he expended 2 mythic power "points" to act again. The Mythic Anti-Paldins however used a conductive weapons and 2 uses of his corrupting touch to do some extra damage and paralyze him for 1 round. Seeing how paralyze lets you still take Mental actions; he decided to hold(read, delay) his mythic action till he was able to move again.
Needless to say, since the Anti-Paladins ability lasted 1 real round, which meant it wouldn't be up again till the Anti-Paladin's turn count. So the delayed action rolled into his other turn... and he was still paralyzed then so he wanted to delay his action till he was unparalyzed and take 2 actions at once.
Between delaying your action into your other action, and delaying again, I just wasn't sure if that was Kosher with the rules so I refunded his mythic 'points" and told him to just delay his normal turn and that I'd be asking it here now.
So what do you do when a player delays his extra action... into his normal actions? Do they just get to take both at once?
Cause its not the book keeping that's bugging me; I have the cool little pathfinder dry erase board so it's not a mess for book keeping (I just slide a little magnetic strip over to indicate dealyed and write it's original initiative down on the strip). However its just that... it doesn't seem like you're meant to take 2 whole rounds of actions at once. Often it'll happen anways; especially against non-mythic foes whom you inevitably will take 2 consecutive turns against. It just seems cheesy though to stack your turns up like that though, and normally cheesy doesn't bother me, but this does for some reason.
I don't use a board, I use initiative cards. But what I've been doing is to create two cards for each character, one at N (their initiative) and one at N-20 (their optional second turn).
If they delay or ready, both cards potentially move. For example, if they're at 33 and 13, and they delay and come back in at 17, then their second initiative would be at -3.
I definitely do not think it's intended that they can delay and take two turns right in a row, and I wouldn't run it that way. After all, when you delay or ready (and then actually move your initiative), after that point it's in all ways the same as if you'd actually rolled that value to start with.
I'll admit that such a feat is possible, but I really don't like it, since it's a metagamey feat that skews the action economy. As written, where your first turn is at X and your second turn is at X-20, all sorts of things can happen in between the two turns.
On the other hand, if you can game the system so you're taking two full turns back-to-back, that feels more like 4e action points than anything that ought to be happening.
Like I don't mind players getting 2 turns in a row through their mythic powers; but it doesn't seem RAI to do it through delaying actions.
A fight between 2 creatures will happens like so:
-Mythic Bob takes his action at 51 Initiative, expends two mythic power to take another round this turn.
-The Non-mythic Dragon takes it's turn at 33 Initiative.
-Mythic Bob goes again at 31 Initiative and takes his action.
-Round 1 ends.
-Mythic Bob Goes again at his original initiative of 51 this round. Thus he sorta took 2 turns in a row.
It wouldn't change if the dragon rolled lower than his non-mythic initiative since it would just change when the turns stack.
However to suspend a 2nd intiative till a PC's next initiative seems entirely Meta-gamy. It infers that a PC knows when they're normally acting in initiative, and that just doesn't seem right to me.
It's like a Barbarian letting a weak Wizard CdG him cause he knows the wizard will do no damage and he has a stupidly high fort and hp and can take it. It just doesn't make sense.