Delay into the next round

[Kelebrar]

Ubertron_X wrote:

Kelebrar wrote:

Exactly. And Step 2 happens when you re-enter initiative order, and so you complete the rest of your turn.

However even if you are correct this sentence is very much killing this suggested course of action: "Essentially, you can’t Delay to avoid negative consequences that would happen on your turn or to extend beneficial effects that would end on your turn."

So if you delay within a round the negative effects would be applied once in this round, and once in the next round, when you start your next turn.

If however you delay from this round into the next round (and before you forfeit your actions), the GM is advised to apply the negative effects once in the first round and once again in the next round, no matter how often you act or how your turns are split, simply by the "no shenanigans" rule section.

I agree with you that if I let the players "Delay" into the next round, I will apply the negative effects even when they act (if they act in the next round). I will not re-trigger them if they re-enter initiative order in the same round. In this way you preserve the correct duration of the effect.

Simply I think that not let "Delay" into the next round is a more simple and elegant solution to obtain this.

[Megistone]

I'd rather add an entry in the initiative table (like: "Tom's Frightened condition ticks down" at initiative count 12, while Tom has delayed to count 3 or maybe into the next 'round', acting at count 19) than put a nonsensical limit to the players' actions.

[Elro the Onk]

Megistone wrote:

I'd rather add an entry in the initiative table (like: "Tom's Frightened condition ticks down" at initiative count 12, while Tom has delayed to count 3 or maybe into the next 'round', acting at count 19) than put a nonsensical limit to the players' actions.

That's exactly how I play it too. Bookkeeping sounds bad, but isn't actually in my experience as the circumstance is pretty rare - folk in practice don't often delay when they're under negative effects as the opportunity cost is more likely not to be worth the tactical benefit. System working as intended.

[Kelebrar]

Megistone wrote:

I'd rather add an entry in the initiative table (like: "Tom's Frightened condition ticks down" at initiative count 12, while Tom has delayed to count 3 or maybe into the next 'round', acting at count 19) than put a nonsensical limit to the players' actions.

It is not a nonsensical limit to the players' actions. It simply is a different abstraction of the round structure. And many games implement a similar abstraction.

You can prefer one or the other, but why call it nonsensical?

[Franz Lunzer]

Kelebrar wrote:

...

Example:

Just as example, assume that you have a negative effect on you with duration of 30 seconds (5 rounds). There are 8 partecipant in combat. You are last in initiative order.
Round 1: you "Delay". You don't do any other action or activity in this round, you just trigger the effects. (4 rounds of negative effect remain)
Round 2: you re-enter initiative as 7th and complete your turn. You don't retrigger the negative effects.
Round 3: you "Delay". You don't do any other action or activity in this round, you just trigger the effects. (3 rounds of negative effect remain)
Round 4: you re-enter initiative as 6th and complete your turn. You don't retrigger the negative effects.
Round 5: you "Delay". You don't do any other action or activity in this round, you just trigger the effects. (2 rounds of negative effect remain)
Round 6: you re-enter initiative as 5th and complete your turn. You don't retrigger the negative effects.
Round 7: you "Delay". You don't do any other action or activity in this round, you just trigger the effects. (1 rounds of negative effect remain)
Round 8: you re-enter initiative as 4th and complete your turn. You don't retrigger the negative effects.
Round 9: the negative effect triggers and ends.

The negative effect should have a duration about 30 seconds and end at round 5, its duration was of about 54 seconds instead and ended at round 9. This is not as the durations are intended, I think.

This example is the way I will run it on my tables. Yes, you nearly doubled the duration of an effect. But at what cost?

Half the time you just stood there doing nothing.

For me, that's okay, is working with my reading of RAW, and doesn't upset balance. Yes, it extends the duration of effects, but I can let that slide, the trade-off seems okay for me.

[Ubertron_X]

While we are at this, is there a rule or recommendation how to return to the initiative track when two or more parties are delaying?

For example if we have the following initiative track:

1) Cleric
2) Monster
3) Fighter

The cleric does not want to go first because he wants to see how things play out and may want to drop a defensive spell or heal later this round. So the cleric delays.

The monster does not want to act either because it has a couple of close range, multi-action attacks and hopes that the fighter will stride to close the distance. So the monster delays.

The fighter strides, strikes and raises his shield. His turn ends.

Now both parties have the opportunity to decide if they want to come back and act, but who announces and/or acts when, especially in case of conflict, i.e. both want to be the first or last to act after the fighter has completed his turn?

If the cleric acts first he could e.g. drop a high level Darkness on the fighter, making monster retaliation difficult. If the monster acts first it may attack without impediments.

[Franz Lunzer]

I'd go with the general rule regarding Ini ties:

Quote:

If your result is tied with a foe’s result, the adversary goes first. If your result is tied with another PC’s, you can decide between yourselves who goes first when you reach that place in the initiative order.

[Kelebrar]

Ubertron_X wrote:

While we are at this, is there a rule or recommendation how to return to the initiative track when two or more parties are delaying?

For example if we have the following initiative track:

1) Cleric
2) Monster
3) Fighter

The cleric does not want to go first because he wants to see how things play out and may want to drop a defensive spell or heal later this round. So the cleric delays.

The monster does not want to act either because it has a couple of close range, multi-action attacks and hopes that the fighter will stride to close the distance. So the monster delays.

The fighter strides, strikes and raises his shield. His turn ends.

Now both parties have the opportunity to decide if they want to come back and act, but who announces and/or acts when, especially in case of conflict, i.e. both want to be the first or last to act after the fighter has completed his turn?

If the cleric acts first he could e.g. drop a high level Darkness on the fighter, making monster retaliation difficult. If the monster acts first it may attack without impediments.

I will probably let the combatants choose if re-enter initiative in original initiative order: first ask to the Cleric if he want to re-enter. If so, the Monster can't re-enter yet (thematically the Cleric has still the advantage of the higher initiative result, and reacts faster that the monster). If the Cleric don't re-enter, the Monster can decide if re-enter.

[Ascalaphus]

Ubertron_X wrote:

While we are at this, is there a rule or recommendation how to return to the initiative track when two or more parties are delaying?

I would go with FIFO; first out of initiative, first back in. The one who's been waiting longest has the best claim.

[Megistone]

Kelebrar wrote:

Megistone wrote:

I'd rather add an entry in the initiative table (like: "Tom's Frightened condition ticks down" at initiative count 12, while Tom has delayed to count 3 or maybe into the next 'round', acting at count 19) than put a nonsensical limit to the players' actions.

It is not a nonsensical limit to the players' actions. It simply is a different abstraction of the round structure. And many games implement a similar abstraction.

You can prefer one or the other, but why call it nonsensical?

There is no in-game explanation for that, that's why I call it nonsensical. The 'end of a round' as the moment where the initiative count resest is a concept that is completely out-of-game.

You have A, B and C acting in this order.
A could delay to act after B and before C, B could do the same and act after C and before A, but C absolutely can't: it either acts now, or they miss a whole round. Why can't it just wait for a little bit, and must do it in 6 seconds increments only, while the others can instead?

[Kelebrar]

Megistone wrote:

Kelebrar wrote:

Megistone wrote:

I'd rather add an entry in the initiative table (like: "Tom's Frightened condition ticks down" at initiative count 12, while Tom has delayed to count 3 or maybe into the next 'round', acting at count 19) than put a nonsensical limit to the players' actions.

It is not a nonsensical limit to the players' actions. It simply is a different abstraction of the round structure. And many games implement a similar abstraction.

You can prefer one or the other, but why call it nonsensical?

There is no in-game explanation for that, that's why I call it nonsensical. The 'end of a round' as the moment where the initiative count resest is a concept that is completely out-of-game.

You have A, B and C acting in this order.
A could delay to act after B and before C, B could do the same and act after C and before A, but C absolutely can't: it either acts now, or they miss a whole round. Why can't it just wait for a little bit, and must do it in 6 seconds increments only, while the others can instead?

C can't delay because is last in initiative order. This is a disadvantage to be low in initiative order. If A "Delay" after C, then C can "Delay" in subsequent rounds.

Whit this abstraction, a round is just a self-contained amount of time (6 seconds in this case) in which you partition the continuous flux of action, and the iniziative just determine in which order the actions happen in this 6 seconds. If you have high initiative, you have the possibility to wait for the right moment to strike, if you have low initiative, you have lesser control on when you act (but you can't use this advantage repeatedly, because using it you will lower your initiative, giving eventually this advantage back to your foe). You resolve this 6 seconds completely, before proceed to the next 6 seconds.

Many excellent RPGs use a similar concept.

[Megistone]

That sort of barrier that separates one round from another is still something that's entirely out of game; one could try to find an in-game reason to justify it, but that would always feel forced.
And why do that when you have another interpretation of the rules that doesn't require such artifices, and actually makes sense in-game too?
Well, every group ultimately playes the way they like.

By the way, can you give me an example of an RPG that separates rounds in a similar way, but also gives players an option to choose - to an extent - the moment when they act?

[thenobledrake]

Megistone wrote:

By the way, can you give me an example of an RPG that separates rounds in a similar way, but also gives players an option to choose - to an extent - the moment when they act?

Any RPG that rolls initiative on a per-round basis would be a likely example.

Such as AD&D 2nd edition, or most versions of Shadowrun.

[Megistone]

I went and read how Shadowrun handles it. I didn't understand everything, but it seems interesting.
With such rules, having strictly separated rounds is of course a necessity, and it doesn't feel as bad as it does with a different system that only rolls initiative at the beginning of combat, like PF.

[glandis]

"If you Delay an entire round without returning to the initiative order, the actions from the Delayed turn are lost, your initiative doesn’t change, and your next turn occurs at your original position in the initiative order." This part (nothing new - others also quoted it) is why I assume 2e won't let you delay past the end of the round (as defined in the also already-quoted "A round [...] ends when the one with the lowest initiative ends their turn." The "your next turn occurs at your ORIGINAL position" seems unneeded if already Delaying all the way to your original position was possible. You'd already BE there, why would the rule need to tell you when your next turn occurs?

I'm more used to the other way of looking at it, and I'm not sure if I like losing the ability to Delay into a higher initiative (between 2nd best and whatever my old one was), or the game-mechanic intrusiveness of "end of the round" defined this way, but ... the part I quoted above really seems to make most sense with a "can't Delay past the bottom-most initiative after you" assumption. And it IS simpler in many ways.

Since I'm trying to play 2e as "it's DIFFERENT - play it DIFFERENT, not the same as you've been doing in 3.5/1e for forever", I'll be recommending no Delay past the last initiative to our GM (not that it comes up all that often).

[Franz Lunzer]

glandis wrote:

Quote:

If you Delay an entire round without returning to the initiative order, the actions from the Delayed turn are lost, your initiative doesn’t change, and your next turn occurs at your original position in the initiative order.

This part [...] is why I assume 2e won't let you delay past the end of the round [...].

The "your next turn occurs at your ORIGINAL position" seems unneeded if already Delaying all the way to your original position was possible. You'd already BE there, why would the rule need to tell you when your next turn occurs?

edited for better readability

This is telling you, that you can't skip past your original Initiative position in the next round, thus avoiding any negative effects forever, or prolonging any positive effects indefinetly.
It is there to prevent people from Delaying and never re-entering the Initiative.

[glandis]

Franz Lunzer wrote:

This is telling you, that you can't skip past your original Initiative position in the next round, thus avoiding any negative effects forever

Maybe. Except that the Delay rules already handle triggering effects as soon as you Delay. But if so, it ought to say "If you Delay YOUR entire round" rather than "an entire round." Of course, if you can't Delay past the last-to-act, it ought to say something like "If you Delay to the last position this round". Or just add "note that you can't Delay past the last position in this round - you must re-enter initiative then or before, otherwise you return to your original position next round."

Feels to me like "a round" is clearly specified as "ends when the one with the lowest initiative ends their turn", and that's gotta matter. But I wouldn't be shocked to learn that instead, IT is the bit that's imprecise, and should have a note like "this doesn't prevent Delaying past then, acting at the end of any other creature’s turn all the way up to your original initiative - and NOT beyond."

(BTW, there's something familiar about this issue/discussion. Seems like long ago someone identified that using "round" (or "turn", for that matter) both as a by-individual duration measure and as a noun describing one cycle of actions for a foe-ally group was a mistake. But so far, no good alternatives seem to have shown up.)

For me, looking at the play effects ... what happens if you can't Delay this round to a higher initiative in the next? The only practical annoyance I see is that it means you can't reposition yourself to right after (or before, by going after the previous creature) someone (an ally especially) who has a higher initiative. But with an ally, THEY could Delay to right before or after you. With a foe ... I guess I'm fine with the initiative order just being inconvenient for the character on occasion. We (well, I for certain) don't play expecting such things to always line-up as, or be manipulable to, our tactical ideal.

[Franz Lunzer]

glandis wrote:

Maybe. Except that the Delay rules already handle triggering effects as soon as you Delay.

Once, yes.

Delay wrote:

You wait for the right moment to act. The rest of your turn doesn’t happen yet. Instead, you’re removed from the initiative order. You can return to the initiative order as a free action triggered by the end of any other creature’s turn. This permanently changes your initiative to the new position. You can’t use reactions until you return to the initiative order. If you Delay an entire round without returning to the initiative order, the actions from the Delayed turn are lost, your initiative doesn’t change, and your next turn occurs at your original position in the initiative order.

When you Delay, any persistent damage or other negative effects that normally occur at the start or end of your turn occur immediately when you use the Delay action. Any beneficial effects that would end at any point during your turn also end. The GM might determine that other effects end when you Delay as well. Essentially, you can’t Delay to avoid negative consequences that would happen on your turn or to extend beneficial effects that would end on your turn.

Without that struck out sentence, the Delay rules don't tell you that you have to return to Initiative. You suffer the effects once when you declare you Delay. You are taken out of initiative. You can reenter after any other creature's turn, but you wouldn't have to.

glandis wrote:

But if so, it ought to say "If you Delay YOUR entire round" rather than "an entire round." Of course, if you can't Delay past the last-to-act, it ought to say something like "If you Delay to the last position this round". Or just add "note that you can't Delay past the last position in this round - you must re-enter initiative then or before, otherwise you return to your original position next round."...

*shrugs* language isn't precise.

Yes, there is that definition of "A round", but it isn't really used for anything, IIRC.
There is also the definition for durations of effects measured in rounds, and that is used very widely (spells, afflictions, and such), and that would work here nicely as well.

[glandis]

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Once, yes.

And

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Without that struck out sentence, the Delay rules don't tell you that you have to return to Initiative. You suffer the effects once when you declare you Delay. You are taken out of initiative. You can reenter after any other creature's turn, but you wouldn't have to.

We're getting a bit circular here, but - maybe the Delay rules tell you you CAN'T Delay into the next turn, and they ALSO tell you you DO have to resume your previous initiative next turn. Meaning if you choose to Delay again, that "Once" kicks in again. An elegant prevention of allowing Delay to avoid/persist undesirable/desired effects. That's among the reasons I think the crossed-out sentence does mean "no Delay past last-to-act" - it works quite cleanly and well. Sliding to higher-initiative in the next turn just gets ugly, as others have pointed out above, and isn't (for me) of important utility anyway.

But like I said, we're getting circular, so unless someone has a really different angle on this, there's probably not much more to say.

[bugleyman]

Just necro'ing this thread years down the line to say that our group ran into this exact issue today. I personally never found the rules ambiguous, but to my surprise several of my (smart and earnest) players felt otherwise!

Is anyone aware of an official clarification ever being issued? Or even just a comment from a designer?

[NorrKnekten]

There isn't really anything to clarify, If you delay for a round, then your initiative does not change and your turn starts as normal.

A round in terms of duration means until the users next turn, or when initiative returns to the same value

Quote:

If you Delay an entire round without returning to the initiative order, the actions from the Delayed turn are lost, your initiative doesn't change, and your next turn occurs at your original position in the initiative order.

[Unicore]

Yes you can delay into the next round. If you couldn’t then a bunch of weird stuff happens that punishes the whole team and makes no sense from a realism perspective. “The start of the round” only really exists at the beginning of an encounter and possibly as a narrative beat for the GM. Otherwise everything in the game measured in rounds is from your turn. That is why the rules don’t need to be any more explicit than they are. A round cannot go by and not include all the potential initiative markets above yours in the next overall encounter round.

[bugleyman]

Thanks, but as I thought I had clearly indicated in my previous post, I'm not looking for interpretations. I am looking for is an official clarification.

Nor does telling me that clarification is unnecessary in any way settle the debate (which I am NOT trying to rekindle). So while I appreciate that responses attempting to explain the rules may be well-intentioned (if a bit patronizing, especially since I *personally* agree that the RAW are clear), they aren't helpful. In my opinion the existence of this thread really leaves little doubt that a clarification is in order.

So with that out of the way, I'll try again: is anyone aware of any official ruling ever having been issued?

[HammerJack]

No.

But because it isn't unclear, I wouldn't expect it to ever come up in a FAQ or something, either. Officual rulings aren't even common for things that DO need a clarification. That's the relevance of pointing out that it was never unclear. It makes it less likely that you'll ever get what you're looking for.

[bugleyman]

HammerJack wrote:

No.

But because it isn't unclear, I wouldn't expect it to ever come up in a FAQ or something, either. Officual rulings aren't even common for things that DO need a clarification.

*sigh*

Yes, I get that many don't find the rules unclear. As it happens, I don't personally find them unclear, either. But several of my players do, and the existence of this thread (and others like it) is a pretty good sign that my players aren't alone.

[HammerJack]

I'm not saying you're wrong to ask. I'm following the answer.

Part 1 (what you asked): No, there is no clarification or official ruling.

Followup: One is unlikely, I would not count on ever getting one.

[bugleyman]

HammerJack wrote:

I'm not saying you're wrong to ask. I'm following the answer.

Part 1 (what you asked): No, there is no clarification or official ruling.

Followup: One is unlikely, I would not count on ever getting one.

It seems to me that that information could have been conveyed without also asserting that the RAW is clear (thus implying the question needn't have been asked). Sorry if that wasn't what was intended in this case, but it is an all too common response in this forum.

[NorrKnekten]

If it's not on the FAQ then chances are that no clarification has been given, Which they typically only do if the rules are either confusing or to spread out but does not need changing.

A few examples of confusing rules that werent changed, only clarified.
Any weapon you hold in two hands is a two-handed weapon when used for abilities, even if they dont require two hands.
The fatal trait not disabling a Ruffians Sneak Attack when critting.
Champion weapon ally does not take up or count as a rune.
Wizard's spells per day table does not include the curricilum.

Sadly the devs and designers have kinda stopped giving individual input like they used to in the early days, Which doesn't help since its almost a full year since the last errata pass.

[SuperParkourio]

The weird thing about Delay is that it relies on a 1 round duration to see how much you can Delay, except "1 round" ticks down at the start of your turn, and you've already been removed from the initiative order!

Regardless, if you go second to last and you Delay, then the last person goes, then you obviously have not Delayed an *entire* round yet. The word entire really makes it clear what they meant.

[Unicore]

I do understand how a player could confuse themselves looking at the rules definition of a round, which is talking about bout a round of combat, and the only place where talking about rounds as something that goes from the start of your turn until your next turn is in the duration of effects rules section. However, it is just not possible to delay an entire round unless you can understand that round to be the time between when your turn starts (which happens at your original place in the initiative) and the next time your turn would have started if you had not delayed.

So as far as looking for an “official explanation” the place you could probably get a developer to say the above is in a AMA that happens at various conventions.

[NorrKnekten]

SuperParkourio wrote:

The weird thing about Delay is that it relies on a 1 round duration to see how much you can Delay, except "1 round" ticks down at the start of your turn, and you've already been removed from the initiative order!

A round also has another definition defined in two other places not related to durations.

Simply being the time it takes for everyone in the encounter to act.

Either way the intention is clear. If you delay and let everyone else act without jumping in then you have forfeited your chance to act that round.

[Ravingdork]

The notion that the last person in initiative cannot delay their actions just because they rolled low on initiative is ludicrous.

It doesn't make narrative sense. It doesnt really make game logic sense. There is no benefit whatsoever to enforcing it, so it doesn't make practical sense either.

[bugleyman]

Ravingdork wrote:

The notion that the last person in initiative cannot delay their actions just because they rolled low on initiative is ludicrous.

It doesn't make narrative sense. It doesnt really make game logic sense. There is no benefit whatsoever to enforcing it, so it doesn't make practical sense either.

Yes, I get that many don't find the rules unclear. As it happens, I don't personally find them unclear, either. But several of my players do, and the existence of this thread (and others like it) is a pretty good sign that my players aren't alone, and as such, official clarification doesn't seem like a unreasonable request.

It feels weird that I have to keep repeating this, but here we are...

[Unicore]

Bugley man, is this the GM? Is it players who think they just can’t use delaying actions if they roll badly for initiative?

If it is the GM, then the issue is bigger than delay because casting spells late in the initiative order is going to have issue if rounds are measured in combat rounds and not the time between players turns.

But if the players (whether GM or not) understand that, then they do understand how delaying works too, there is just some reason they think it works differently?

You don’t generally see “official FAQ” for things like how to make an attack roll or how to determine AC, because those things are clearly stated in the rules. Players who ask questions about them on forums have other players answer those questions and developers don’t chime in because the rules on it are clear.

You do see newer players occasionally ask these questions in live stream or live AMA type events and sometimes developers will explain it there, but that is not any more official FAQ than the response you get from players here. Typically, FAQ happens when a large section of players are interpreting rules differently from each other and there is nothing close to a consensus.

This thread is very old and has had the occasional player reask the question, but the consensus on the issue has never come close to shifting.

[bugleyman]

Unicore wrote:

Bugley man, is this the GM? Is it players who think they just can’t use delaying actions if they roll badly for initiative?

If it is the GM, then the issue is bigger than delay because casting spells late in the initiative order is going to have issue if rounds are measured in combat rounds and not the time between players turns.

But if the players (whether GM or not) understand that, then they do understand how delaying works too, there is just some reason they think it works differently?

You don’t generally see “official FAQ” for things like how to make an attack roll or how to determine AC, because those things are clearly stated in the rules. Players who ask questions about them on forums have other players answer those questions and developers don’t chime in because the rules on it are clear.

You do see newer players occasionally ask these questions in live stream or live AMA type events and sometimes developers will explain it there, but that is not any more official FAQ than the response you get from players here. Typically, FAQ happens when a large section of players are interpreting rules differently from each other and there is nothing close to a consensus.

This thread is very old and has had the occasional player reask the question, but the consensus on the issue has never come close to shifting.

I am the GM. And while the rules seem quite clear to me, my players brought this up, and I wanted to do my due diligence before just shutting them down. A search returned this thread, as well as multiple Reddit threads -- meaning this has come up before -- but no official answer. I guess I just genuinely expected this to be a quick check in the FAQ to clear it up, but I guess this question isn't asked frequently enough to warrant inclusion (which seems odd, given that issuing a ruling on a message board is effectively free, and Paizo has deliberately designed an extremely codified system in PF2...but I digress).

In any case, thank you for actually trying to be helpful; it is appreciated. As a very long time member of these boards, the number of unsolicited drive-by responses that amounted to "rules are clear, u r dumb" has been profoundly disappointing.

[Tridus]

bugleyman wrote:

I am the GM. And while the rules seem quite clear to me, my players brought this up, and I wanted to do my due diligence before just shutting them down. A search returned this thread, as well as multiple Reddit threads -- meaning this has come up before -- but no official answer. I guess I just genuinely expected this to be a quick check in the FAQ to clear it up, but I guess this question isn't asked frequently enough to warrant inclusion (which seems odd, given that issuing a ruling on a message board is effectively free, and Paizo has deliberately designed an extremely codified system in PF2...but I digress).

Unfortunately it's not about "this not being asked frequently enough". Paizo does not answer rules questions about PF2 outside of errata. Full stop. They haven't in years, ever since people like Mark Siefer left. We can't get anything answered these days.

Hell, we can't even get errata right now for absurdly basic questions like "how many spells are in an Oracle repertoire?" where the rulebook literally contradicts itself in the same block of text.

It's extremely frustrating.

[bugleyman]

Tridus wrote:

Unfortunately it's not about "this not being asked frequently enough". Paizo does not answer rules questions about PF2 outside of errata. Full stop. They haven't in years, ever since people like Mark Siefer left. We can't get anything answered these days.

Hell, we can't even get errata right now for absurdly basic questions like "how many spells are in an Oracle repertoire?" where the rulebook literally contradicts itself in the same block of text.

It's extremely frustrating.

Well...I guess I should consider myself lucky, then.

I'm sorry you can't get an answer. :-(

[Unicore]

The Oracle spell repertoire issue is not one that there is a general consensus on, and even the various VTTS have waffled back and forth about their interpretations.

I strongly suspect that it has come up in official event AMAs and that the developers are choosing not to provide direct answers because none of them want to contradict whatever the final errata case will be with it. Why that is taking so long is purely a mater of speculation at this point. Providing unofficial answers to rules questions seems to be something the whole company has tightened ranks around.

[Tridus]

Unicore wrote:

The Oracle spell repertoire issue is not one that there is a general consensus on, and even the various VTTS have waffled back and forth about their interpretations.

I strongly suspect that it has come up in official event AMAs and that the developers are choosing not to provide direct answers because none of them want to contradict whatever the final errata case will be with it. Why that is taking so long is purely a mater of speculation at this point. Providing unofficial answers to rules questions seems to be something the whole company has tightened ranks around.

Except they aren't providing official answers either. This is literally the most basic function of a spontaneous caster with numerous examples in the game. It should not take 14 months to fix this.

It's not "they're not providing unofficial answers." It's "they're not providing answers." People need to stop reaching to try and defend this and call it what it is.

It's the same thing with this initiative question. If someone actually wanted to answer this, it would require a conversation to determine intent and a mechanism to release that as an answer, like the FAQ they used to have.

Paizo has just backslid horrifiically on this aspect of product quality.

[Unicore]

It is not like the initiative question. An overwhelming consensus of players run delaying and initiative the same way. No additional ruling is necessary for delay to work consistently.

I agree with you that the number of spells in the Oracle repertoire is not as clear and that nothing short of errata is going to create consistency in how many spells does an Oracle know.

But that needs to be official errata to really fix the problem. There is not one developer that can make a post on social media or a message board that will fix the problem. No one developer has that power in Paizo. I don’t know what is delaying that process, but it needs to work its way through that process to get resolved. Players can choose to be sympathetic to the development team or not, that is about individual expectations and feelings and experiences and voicing frustration is fine and even helpful. Honest feedback back is good.

My personal opinion is that random developers giving unofficial feedback on line that might conflict with how the official errata eventually is released will consistently be worse for pathfinder 2e than them getting their official errata process working again.

[NorrKnekten]

I would say that there is a consencus in the oracle repertoire scenario especially after we did recieve errata that fixed part of the text and explicitly told us to follow the table. Theres still a direct contradiction but we have been told that the table is with 100% certainty correct. Ofcourse not everybody have accepted that either due to not understanding the direct contradiction of what the repertoire feature says or somehow thinking having 5 spells on certain ranks is to good.

Whereas before that it was more akin to the Runelord Bonded Weapon and how it interacted with staves (Does a thing which function as a staff actually need to be prepared or not), Which granted paizo were actually really fast to fix by modern standards.

But I agree that that is not like this scenario since the text is clear and does not need updating as it tells us exactly what happens. Very often these things get brought up several times due to how Pathfinder is a multinational phenomenon, or that newcommers might not always have wrapped their head around the terminology.
------------------------

As for why we don't get unofficial clarifications anymore like we did during the playtests, well Mark Seifter did explain it on his AMA reddit thread after having left Paizo, even in the places where he did answer unofficially he was reluctant to answer unless he had input from Logan or other designers.

Link to the Comment Itself

[SuperParkourio]

Ooh, the oracle thing *is* weird. Is there any example of a spontaneous caster whose default spell progression is smaller than their default spell *slot* progression?

[Tridus]

SuperParkourio wrote:

Ooh, the oracle thing *is* weird. Is there any example of a spontaneous caster whose default spell progression is smaller than their default spell *slot* progression?

Not that I know of. Not even Oracle until the first errata changed half the numbers in the text to match the table and not the other half.

That's whats so stupid about this. The necessary change is literally the other half of a change they already did, to change "two" to "three" and "three" to "four". This is the easiest errata in the world since they literally already did it once and just didn't do it in both places it needed changing. And yet they can't even manage to get that done after over a year and counting. (They also still haven't fixed the iconic Oracle AFAIK which just doesn't follow any version of the text.)

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

[Unicore]

I did think of a way to explain the delaying situation and why the RAW is that you can delay past the end of an encounter round.

Beyond the fact it would not be possible to delay an entire round if your turn doesn’t start at the beginning of a encounter round, how would you even resolve a player who delays past the last other creature in the round?

They have to take their turn at 0? Even if they are waiting for something to happen before resolving their turn? Then their initiative is 0. How can other players even delay then to go after them if the plan was for them to do something after their other allies have gone?

Also, it would have been much simpler and more clear to just say “you can delay until the end of the encounter round and then either your turn is skipped or you have moved to the bottom of the turn order.” The whole bit about delaying an entire round would never need saying.

The players could even think of the raw as working like this:

“If you delay until the end of an encounter round, you skip your turn for that round and start with the highest initiative in the next round.” As that is functionally what happens when you delay past the n start of a new encounter round.

[SuperParkourio]

Tridus wrote:

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

Well, we just got the errata for the psychic's entropic wheel amp that didn't work, so maybe there's hope after all.

[Ravingdork]

SuperParkourio wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

Well, we just got the errata for the psychic's entropic wheel amp that didn't work, so maybe there's hope after all.

What!? Where?

[graystone]

Ravingdork wrote:

SuperParkourio wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

Well, we just got the errata for the psychic's entropic wheel amp that didn't work, so maybe there's hope after all.

What!? Where?

they added several 2026 spring errata to the FAQ.

[Tridus]

Unicore wrote:

I did think of a way to explain the delaying situation and why the RAW is that you can delay past the end of an encounter round.

Beyond the fact it would not be possible to delay an entire round if your turn doesn’t start at the beginning of a encounter round, how would you even resolve a player who delays past the last other creature in the round?

They have to take their turn at 0? Even if they are waiting for something to happen before resolving their turn? Then their initiative is 0. How can other players even delay then to go after them if the plan was for them to do something after their other allies have gone?

Also, it would have been much simpler and more clear to just say “you can delay until the end of the encounter round and then either your turn is skipped or you have moved to the bottom of the turn order.” The whole bit about delaying an entire round would never need saying.

The players could even think of the raw as working like this:

“If you delay until the end of an encounter round, you skip your turn for that round and start with the highest initiative in the next round.” As that is functionally what happens when you delay past the n start of a new encounter round.

The problem with this is that "you can delay as long as you want" is intuitive. You leave initiative. When you want to act, you enter initiative at that point. That's the rule. Done. If you for some reason delay for more than an entire round of turns, you didn't do anything and that's that.

But it works properly in all cases. If you're first in the order, or middle of the order, or last in the order. It's simple, consistent, and easy to run.

The idea that you can delay as long as you want unless there's a round end in there at which point you can't isn't that. It's more complicated to run and creates silly cases like if you're last in the order you're just not allowed to delay.

This is a case where a simpler rule that doesn't worry about rounds at all works better than a more complex rule that does.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

Well, we just got the errata for the psychic's entropic wheel amp that didn't work, so maybe there's hope after all.

Great news!

[bugleyman]

Tridus wrote:

This is a case where a simpler rule that doesn't worry about rounds at all works better than a more complex rule that does.

I agree! And if you read my posts carefully, you will see that I have the agreed the entire time. The problem is that my players don't, even after reading this thread.

Paizo could solve this problem in five minutes with a FAQ entry, giving me something official to point my players to. And so I asked if anyone was aware of that having occurred. Instead of an answer, I got a bunch of folks insisting that -- despite the existence of this thread -- there is no problem (with the added bonus of several being pretty condescending).

I do not understand how this sort of reception is supposed to help the game, or Paizo, but we should be trying to do better than "if it isn't a problem for me, then it isn't a problem."

[The Raven Black]

I once shared my understanding that the "entire round" started at your initiative order and ended in the same moment of the next round, so basically after all other participants had reached their initiative order. And that it was not round 1, round 2 ...

I got pretty bashed then so I am not eager to intervene on this topic again.