edge case with the delay action: order when TWO combatants come out of delay?

[outshyn]

I have an initiative order like this:

Player A
Enemy 1
Enemy 2
Player B

Player A is at the top of initiative, and goes into delay. Enemy 1 attacks. Enemy 2 goes into delay. Player B's turn begins. Player B fires a quickened Magic Missile at enemy 2, causing enemy 2 to come out of delay. OK, I move enemy 2, so initiative looks like this:

Player A
Enemy 1
Player B
Enemy 2

HOWEVER, enemy 2 can't do anything yet, because player B is still taking his turn. He's only done a swift action spell so far. So now player B continues, does a move action, and then does an attack action. At this point, player A announces, "I come out of delay, I'd like to act." I put him after enemy 2, who previously came out of delay. Initiative now looks like this:

Enemy 1
Player B
Enemy 2
Player A

Enemy 2 and player A are stacked up, both coming out of delay. Player B wraps up his turn with a free action shout to his allies, and I begin to run enemy 2. Player A asks what I'm doing. I say that enemy 2 came out of delay first, so I'm running it. He says "No, my initiative is higher, I go first."

I'm almost certain there are no rules or even FAQs to handle this edge case of 2 delays stacking up, but I'd love it if the forum members could give me their best shot. Is there any info that might help us make an educated guess about the correct ordering?

[LordKailas]

So, to start with the delay action rules are as follows:

Combat: Delay wrote:

By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point.

You never get back the time you spend waiting to see what’s going to happen. You also can’t interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).

Initiative Consequences of Delaying
Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the delayed action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you don’t get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again).

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.

The first thing to note is that a delayed action unlike a readied action can not interrupt another character's action. Once a character declares what they're doing on their turn the most you can do is go immediately after that character.

So, lets look at your example.

outshyn wrote:

Player B fires a quickened Magic Missile at enemy 2, causing enemy 2 to come out of delay.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What is enemy 2 doing? just moving? even so they can't take said move action until player B has finished taking their actions for the round. Once they have, if enemy 2 wishes to end their delay to do something (like move) they can do so.

What I'm seeing is, Player A and Enemy 2 are ending their delay actions in response to Player B. Since the delay action can't interrupt anything I would say once a creature declares that they are ending their delay they get added to the end of the queue for that initiative count. So, it would be Player B, Enemy 2, Player A. Keep in mind that if Player A declared at the start of their turn that they wanted to delay and go immediately after Player B they would have their initiative changed to 10 and would go before Enemy 2 if enemy 2 decided to stop delaying after getting hit with a magic missile by player B.

In fairness, once this round is resolved with 75% of the characters going on init count 10. You should probably reduce the init count of enemy 2 and player B to be 9 and 8 respectively so that if Enemy 1 wished to delay to go immediately after one of them it could.

[RAWmonger]

Here’s how I see it. Let’s say player B has 11 initiative. It is *already* at the 11 initiative count, so enemy 2 or player A can’t join at 11 initiative. Enemy 2 decides “I want to go directly after Player B” and sets his initiative count to 10. Player A says “I want to go directly after Player B,” and sets his initiative count to 10. Both characters have an initiative count of 10, so the player with the higher modifier goes first.

Edit: like LordKailas said, delaying does not interrupt, like a readied action does. You simply choose a new initiative count. If two initiative counts are the same (such as this situation) you use the rules for initiative:

“If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll to determine which one of them goes before the other.“

[LordKailas]

I agree with RAWmonger. If two characters delay to the same initiative count then by the rules they should roll off to see which one gets to act first on said initiative count. Your previous roll nor timing of the declaration has any bearing on who goes first. I sometimes forget that the tiebreaker we use in my games is a houserule. Specifically that ties go to the character with the highest dexterity mod. In cases where that still doesn't break the tie then a roll off happens.

[outshyn]

Thank you guys so much. So, both of us were wrong. I wanted to put the delays in order of who declared them, and the player wanted delays in order of who got the highest in the initiative order. Instead, it looks like ties are resolved the same way they are when you initially set up the initiative; that is, look at the initiative bonus and sort them based on that (falling back to a roll off if needed).

Thanks again!

[Captain Zoom]

Follow on question (or perhaps just an observation), what if two characters delay to initiative count 11 AND there is a third non-delaying character with Initiative 11. I read over the rules and it appears that you would need to resolve the order for all three... the two who delayed do not necessarily go before the character with Initiative 11 even if they said they are delaying until after a hypothetical fourth character (with Initiative 10) acts, since all three are deemed to act on Initiative 11.

Since all three are acting on 11, the rule cited by RAWmonger kicks in to determine who acts before who on 11.

[deuxhero]

Handle it like any other initiative tie?

Frankly, ready permanently changing your initiative should have been left in the dust in the 3.5 to PF transition. The risk you'll get no action in a turn is plenty of cost, no need to make it also lower your initiative the rest of combat.

[blahpers]

deuxhero wrote:

Frankly, ready permanently changing your initiative should have been left in the dust in the 3.5 to PF transition. The risk you'll get no action in a turn is plenty of cost, no need to make it also lower your initiative the rest of combat.

Disagree. There's too much room for shenanigans by getting two "turns" in a row via strategic readying.

[Jeff Morse]

I use index cards. If delay, I give them there card. First to hand it to me is next up. Easy peasy

[bbangerter]

Captain Zoom wrote:

Follow on question (or perhaps just an observation), what if two characters delay to initiative count 11 AND there is a third non-delaying character with Initiative 11. I read over the rules and it appears that you would need to resolve the order for all three... the two who delayed do not necessarily go before the character with Initiative 11 even if they said they are delaying until after a hypothetical fourth character (with Initiative 10) acts, since all three are deemed to act on Initiative 11.

Since all three are acting on 11, the rule cited by RAWmonger kicks in to determine who acts before who on 11.

When a character who has delayed wants to re-enter the initiative they need to choose to do so before or after another character has finished their turn.

So if A at init 20 delays.
And B at init 19 delays.
And C at init 11 does not.

Players A and B need to decide before C starts his turn if they want to re-enter init. If they choose to do so, they go before C. If they want to go immediately before C set their init at 12 or higher (or even 11, but in order before C).
If they want to go after C set their init at 11 (but after C) or at 10 or lower.

In other words, even if they set their init at 11, you don't re-evaluate them with someone who was already at 11. You evaluate them based on whether they want to go before or after the guy who isn't delaying.

[Cevah]

My group dumps the count once the order is determined. We use sequence in the order from that point on. If I want to go after another layer or monster, I move my initiative token to just after the named token and before the next token. No need to resolve ties in this method.

Otherwise, we have to keep all counts with the tokens and change them when a Delay or Ready happens.

Of note, you could RAW set your count to the same as the current count while the current person it taking their turn, and thus go after the current person this round and maybe before in the next round.

I tend to use Delay for ensuring the proper mix if PCs and Monsters are due to come up in an order I want because I am doing something to help out my side that depends on the monsters not being able to counter it. Otherwise, I almost exclusively use Ready instead. I get to move then Ready and action that triggers later. If it does not trigger, I don't loose initiative. And since we allow "Ready for when player X finishes his turn" or "Ready for just before Monster X acts", this gets to be quite viable.

/cevah