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| #1thestalkingwolfAug 18, 2015 11:02:17 | I started this thread because discussing this issue over twitter just isn’t possible.
Reading through the article http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/rules-answers-august-2015 the reasoning for removing the delay action concerns me. I acknowledge that the article does not provide any examples but Jeremy Crawford lists three reasons to decision.
From my perspective seasoned players know their character inside and out. Further more players of long standing groups know their party very well. They develop a flow which 90% of the combats they engage in result in the same series of actions. These actions are well thought out and require very little delay. This happens during typical combat.
During combat that requires out of the box thinking then the players may all require extra time to decide what non-standard action they will take. This will occur regardless if they delay their action or not.
New players may delay out of fear of holding back the group, but if you are playing with new players you will have delays everywhere as you are learning. The same can be said if players do not play very often and need to be reacquainted with their characters.
I do not see the impact that delaying your action has on the pace of combat. Perhaps some examples would help clarify this crucial rule change.
For example in our group even if our fighters have initiative before our casters they always hold to kill anything that survives the AoE barrage our casters unleash. Alternatively if our casters have limited resources they may hold off using a spell unless the fighters absolutely need the support.
Perhaps there are alternative mechanisms in place to facilitate this type of tactical combat?
First part of the second point seems contradictory. Being able to give up initiative adds value to the initiative. It provides the party the ability to work as a team and combine their actions into a fluid combat. It should also imply that the devaluation of initiative as implied by the second point would only occur when a player delays their action... initiative would still have the same value the rest of the time.
The second part of the second point seems to be an organization issue rather then a rule issue. I would certainly hope that rules are not being crafted by the organization skills of DMs. Perhaps an alternative to this reasoning would be connecting with Roll20 and providing a series of DM organization tutorials.
We play a house rule that a spell durations end at the start of the next turn not your action. Which is beside the point. You are making the spells... make a ruling on the spell duration that fixes this issue rather then removing a tool from the flow of combat.
As the third point is the only issue raised that *could* have impact in delaying an action it would seem that if you weight the benefits of delaying action it would seem that a ruling on spell durations is the easier decision and more beneficial to the players.
Consider this situation:
Our DM has the tendency to make us think very carefully when to attack. When behind enemy lines looking to meet up with an ally our dm will often start all encounters with an initiative roll. If we win the initiative and some or all of our party goes first we have no way to know if the people we encountered are even hostile. From here there are four paths;
Without the option to delay the action of not attacking could be outright fatal as the enemy could possibly have two attacks before the party even gets a response.
Discussing the added value of initiative this adds too it. No longer is initiative just a precursor to combat but a tool which can be used at the right moment to add tension and suspense to a situation.
I would hope that the rules allow for more play styles. Excluding groups of people because the rule pace doesn't feel right just seems wrong. |
| #2Cyber-DaveAug 18, 2015 11:17:19 | 1) Does the "ready" action really not suit your needs? What sort of actions do you need to be able to perform to facilitate your playstyle that cannot be performed via the ready action?
2) If the "Delay" action is so important to you and your group, why don't you just house-rule it back into the game? Rule 0. You can make any modifications to the game that your group needs to in order to make the game for fun for your group. |
| #3AaronOfBarbariaAug 18, 2015 11:54:25 |
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| #4BoltHammerAug 18, 2015 12:01:41 | I think the majority of Delay Action backlash/concerns come from people not knowing or understanding the Ready Action.
@ thestalkingwolf You and your group should check out the Ready Action (pg. 193 in PHB or pg. 72 in Basic PDF). Ready action should cover everything that Delay did for you, but is better implemented in my opinion. |
| #5Cyber-DaveAug 18, 2015 12:07:28 |
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| (Reply to #4)LordTwig |
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| #7pukunuiAug 18, 2015 16:08:34 |
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| #8NoonAug 18, 2015 16:50:46 |
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| #9ORC_CricketAug 18, 2015 16:53:34 | We’ve removed content from this thread because of a violation of the Code of Conduct.
You can review the Code here: http://company.wizards.com/conduct
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| #10BoltHammerAug 18, 2015 16:59:19 | Delay and Ready comes down to playstyle preference in the end, in my opinion at least. For core D&D, Delay has no real place as it can cause messy side-effects. These side effects can be fixed per group preference--but will require some work. For example, Delay will allow the previous mentioned let the Wizard who was shafted with a low rank in the Initiative Order to sling his Fireball and then trigger charging melee bashers. But there are other things like the Thief's ability to go twice in the Initiative Order. This will need to be house ruled as with the before mentioned spell durations.
For me I like when you roll Initiatve at the begining that sets the context of the battle that you work within. If the Wizard goes before the melee bashers then sure go at it. But if the Wizard was slow on the take, distracted or whatnot and goes later in the initiative order, the melee bashers then either switch to range volleys until after the Wizard drops a fireball then charges up on the next round 6 secs later. Or they look to the Wizard who is slower getting this team combo off and their momentary pause causes them to only rush up after the flames die down from the Wizard's spell.
What is "better" I think depends on the group style. For me, I like that Ready keeps things simple (no fiddly bits that need house rules really). And that Initiative Order is important and to work within (re-think tactics sometimes). With Delay, if I don't want to go last in the Initiative Order then I would just Delay to the 2nd spot. Some may find that as a tactical trade off they enjoy; good for them--in the end it is what you enjoy.
From thestalkingwolf's post, it didn't sound like to me that their group was aware of the Ready action.
TLDR Delay shouldn't really be core as it messes with other features of the game; but if a group like it over the implemented Ready action---then add it in as a house rule and in enjoy the game. |
| #11EthanSentalAug 18, 2015 17:45:51 | Aaron and others covered much better than I would be able so I'll do like Cyber Dave and +1 their sentiments.
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| #12strider13xAug 18, 2015 18:36:58 |
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| #13thestalkingwolfAug 18, 2015 18:43:31 | Before I start, yes I am aware of the ready action and the issues with ready action were illustrated here and not addressed. So I wont go over them again. Also I do apologize for not use the existing thread I did search but it did not come up.
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| #14NoonAug 18, 2015 19:08:46 | How am I changing a rule in 5e? There is no delay in 5e.
There's an extra administration time involved with delay - and to me, the pay off of that is...non existant. It is not interesting.
With a critical hit there is extra administration for rolling the extra dice, but there is a pay off for me even when it's someone else rolling a crit.
It's a bit of a fail discussion if one side wont admit any extra administration is involved in having delay. There is - that's an objective fact. |
| #15thestalkingwolfAug 18, 2015 19:48:18 |
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| #16AaronOfBarbariaAug 18, 2015 20:35:11 | Walking into an unknown situation is suspenseful - rolling initiative isn't, nor does it inherently create or happen during an unknown situation. Hence my prior comment. |
| #17sirkaikillah11Aug 18, 2015 20:40:35 | No matter how many times I have gone over the difference between ready an action and delay action, and how many times I tell my players that they cannot delay, they do not get it. We argue over this all the time.
Either they will get it ir we will continue aruing over it. |
| #18strider13xAug 19, 2015 2:42:46 | Again you miss the point. Delay wasn't 'removed' from the game. It doesn't exist! 5e is an entirely new game. Other games called D&D did not have bonus actions, the single reaction, one concentration, etc... You have to accept all the other changes and understand this isn't that other game you used to play. |
| #19iserithAug 19, 2015 6:03:16 | At my table, when your turn is up, you must act. Immediately. You don't ask questions. You don't start a brainstorming session about what you should do. You don't sit there and ponder before acting. Your turn is for acting, not for thinking about or discussing what you're going to do. When it's not your turn, you're thinking of what to do when it is your turn, hopefully coming up with a Plan A and a Plan B, in case Plan A isn't viable come your turn.
So our table agreement is that if you don't know what you're going to do - perhaps you were caught out when something changed before you turn and threw your plans into disarray - you delay until you do and you get pushed down the turn order. If you do know what you're going to do, but can't until something else happens, you ready.
The game works fine this way. Delay is not going to break anyone's game, so do it if you want. |
| #20MistwellAug 19, 2015 6:54:56 |
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| #21thestalkingwolfAug 19, 2015 7:16:36 | Yup this furthers my concerns about the rule set. Some players have a fixed vision of how the game should be played.
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| #22thestalkingwolfAug 19, 2015 7:15:58 |
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| #23iserithAug 19, 2015 7:18:03 |
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| #24MistwellAug 19, 2015 7:57:00 |
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| #25shintashiAug 19, 2015 8:02:09 | i remember complaining a while ago that initiative didn't mean anything anymore, because the way the game was set up, a person who goes last could actually end up with the greatest advantage.
People responded by talking about surprise and certain abilities where if you go first you have situational advantages.
I think its gamy and a cop out and makes the game more poor than it was before.
But D&D has rarely had good initiative rules. The best ones people complained about.
AD&D had terrible initiative rules: you rolled one die for the group, and the dm rolled. Somewhere in that mess, weapon initiatives were introduced. Then people house ruled dexterity initiative modifiers. Dexterity today is basically some dragon magazine article from 20-30 years ago. First initiative was a D6. Then initiative was a d10. Then initiative was a d20.
in each iteration, the meaning of initiative modifiers was reduced. Situational initiative gave way to random causality. In a portion of AD&D, tiny creatures had like no initiative penalty, and gargantuan creatures, which included dragons, had a +12 modifier. When added to the d10, and facing a speed factor 2 or 3 blade with an additional +2 or 3 speed modifier, it became night and day who goes first, and the impact was devastating...
so why would i complain that the modern initiative system doesn't really favor anyone who goes first or last?
Well, here's something people who only played 3.0+ editions won't have a reference to understand. Let me translate to the best of my ability.
Imagine if all your attacks hit 99% of the time. So if you were a 3rd or 4th edition player, imagine you had about a +20 to hit, say, from the get go - maybe level 5+ (it is true virtually all D&D versions of characters are quite similar levels 1-4). But either way, when you get to about level 8-16, you are doing 125-175 damage per hit, 350 on a critical, and you confirm criticals automatically. your damage scales backwards like this all the way down to level 1, so that on any given attack roll, if you hit, you are killing any CR 1 or less encounter on the first blow, the second blow on a bad die roll.
Now re-evaluate the weight of initiative. This is how initiative worked in Cyberpunk, except it was worse. In Cyberpunk, initiative was everything. When comparing AD&D to 3e 4e or 5e, initiative was everything. It was everything because each of your characters could wipe out several enemies before they rolled the first damage die. Spells also had initiative, and it was generally based on the level. That meant the wizard could cast magic missile really fast, or they could start casting some longer spell (this was usually how we interrupted spell casters - attack them during their casting time). If you could kill the wizard before they got some doom spell off, grats, no doom spell, kinda like the Death Eyes from Final Fantasy that would start counting down numbers over your head. This also made power word spells very potent, because they had the lowest casting time.
Since attacking first often meant the ability to interrupt spells, and the ability to kill off large numbers before they acted, rather than merely injure them, and possibly the ability to secure some total kill against something like a dragon (such as everyone attacking it at the same time), people who built initiative heavy characters, like kensai, or scimitar of speed types, or haste types, they were really effective. not everyone wanted to wield the lance or two handed sword, because then it meant the giants and dragons and ogres might actually go before you.
Now in these later editions, instead of d10 + 1-12, possibly less, we have for most people, d20 +/- 1-5, with a few exceptionals going up to 10. While giants and dragons don't have stellar Dexterity, the total advantage is far less for fast characters on a d20. The difference between a speed weapon and a dragon, in AD&D was d10+0, vs. d10+12. literally 1-10 vs, 13-22. There was a 100% probability the dragon went last. Today, that might look more like 1d20+7, vs. 1d20+1. 8-27 vs. 2-22.
So who goes first is less predictable, by a large margin. But then when you go, it looks something like this: In AD&D, the party kills the dragon if they all go first. The party maims the dragon if even the thief or fighter goes first, especially if the thief already had backstab and sneak functions in place. If I'm an AD&D and i backstab with a d8 speed weapon +2 and a 16 strength, , I might eek out 11x5 or 55 damage on a 100 hit point dragon, then follow up with a second hit for 10 more from speed, putting my total at 65. If my fencing buddies and the guy with magic missile can pull off the remaining 35, we have it in the bag, and don't have to suffer 70-150+ breath weapon damage that wipes half the party.
But the style of later editions is different. First of all i've clarified that a 'real' initiative advantage is actually quite diffcult to gain. You would need a special feat and at least a 20-26 dexterity to come close to the older speed differences. Even with a 30 dex and alertness on a guy who gets to reroll bad rolls, you still won't be able to obtain the speed differences of AD&D. You could probably get 75% parity. But does the parity matter? Not really. When your 13th level rogue backstabs a dragon with a speed weapon, they get something like 33 damage on the first hit and about 11 on the second hit. 44 damage is pretty good in AD&D, but in 5e its a scratch. About 10% of the dragon, maybe less. If for some reason with a max of 75% parity on initiative all of your party went first, they might be able to match that 10% give or take 3%, so you are looking at 31-49% dead on your best round. Meaning there's roughly a 100% chance the dragon then takes their alloted actions. But the dragon's breath weapons aren't quite as bad, rather their collective lair actions and physical attacks are what smarts. (Tiamat is an exception in 5e, i got hit multiple times with breath weapons in the same round, it sucked). So typically, what happens is almost everyone gets mangled in the first round, while the dragon is going to take at least 2 rounds more to go, and since Flying creatures can continue flying at 1 hit point (they used to be unable to fly at 50% in AD&D, and required a save vs. death from massive damage if you did more than 50 hit points in one attack, like our thief example above).
So here's the real difference: speedy weapons didn't really do anything for us in 5e. Not compared with AD&D. You might as well use the biggest meanest weapon unless you really want a second weapon or shield. Speed factors allowed us to look at the strategy from different angles. Now the strategies are different, and frankly, way less meaningful. Actually, most strategies that work in 5e are similar to what 0 level pygmies could use to take out anything. But those strategies also worked in AD&D, as last resorts.
Initiative is also very different in terms of the duration of a combat round vs. movement actions. People used to not move very much in AD&D for some reason. I'm not quite sure why, perhaps moving WAS your action, which is why no body moved. But in 5e, movement is highly tactical. You can't really keep up with someone because the initiative system combined with dash and specific limiters are in place. In AD&D, you used to be able to make attribute checks to multiply your speed to x2,x3, even x5. Archery at best provided a 1 round advantage, because a 60 second combat round gave the enemies plenty of time to close in, so you could either run away, or you could take 1 more shot before they killed you. Again, in that situation, initiative used to be critical. In 5e, an archer is like forever away for anything short of a fast flyer or Tarrasque. Melee combat is crunched, especially for things like Area effects or escaping. The attack of opportunity also changed the dynamic so while you are trying to give chase or run away, suddenly you are losing more hit points. So that strategy is different, but a lot of good player character powers are reaction based, and enemies tend to out number them, so they don't typically get as many attacks of opportunity as enemies do. You flee 3 goblins, they get 3 free attacks, you use shield to increase your AC you get no free attacks. Goblins don't get shield so they don't care. Not quite the same feeling of usefulness for opportunity attacks. Even if you sacrificed your shield spell, you would only get 1 free attack to their 3, even if all 3 fled, and like i said, player characters are almost always outnumbered.
Because initiative takes place in such a way that a character can move strategically, and attack, it is possible for things like Worms or anyone with an extra dash action, or a high speed to forever defeat characters with higher initiative. You win initiative, and they are 45 feet away. What happens? You can move 30 feet, but you can't melee them. then they can move 15 feet, melee you, then move whatever distance they have left. That could be 35 additional feet with an enemy move of 50, or worse, it could be 45 feet if they have a dash action. In either case, the battle lasts longer because everybody has more hit points and does less damage. But initiative is definitely not helping you in this case. After 4 or 5 rounds of going around the circle of player characters, who went first in initiative really doesn't matter. You couldn't kill them if you wanted to. Maybe you have some critical spell to weaken them, but that sucks up your concentration action meaning you probably wouldn't do it because mechanically it is less advantageous than maintaining concentration on some buff spell or simply casting an AOE like lightning bolt or shatter.
So here's the thing, after all this. holding and ready actions. This is a useful way to make initiative worth winning again. It begins to act a bit like "reaction" from Shades of Nightfall (an old LARP most people probably don't know, but initiative was counted down in reverse order. First the 1s would declare their actions, then the 2s, the 3s, and so on. Each person with a higher initiative would get to hear what all the other people were doing first, and then react accordingly) It operates in a kind of precognitive or mateix like time effect. You see what everyone is starting to do in slow motion, and then change your actions to optimize your strategy.
Of course, naturally, they got rid of that. Now initiative is worthless 90% of the time. Sure, there's that one debuff, or that one protect spell, or that one monster that's actually weak enough to die in the first round, but overall, that's pretty rare in 5e. Initiative in later editions is just overall nerfed, and now it's been confiscated by the TSA for looking too much like a Fart Gun. |
| #26MistwellAug 19, 2015 7:57:41 |
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| #27halvgrimAug 19, 2015 8:26:32 | Could the following houserule solve all problems?
This would allow my fighter to wait for a fireball before storming in to a room. |
| #28MistwellAug 19, 2015 8:32:21 |
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| #29The_JesterAug 19, 2015 9:15:46 |
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| (Reply to #28)shintashi |
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| (Reply to #4)Sorsohka |
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| #32SatyrnAug 19, 2015 10:18:46 | I can't contribute here. My group has been having the whole party of PCs act at the same time, in any order they choose each round. And as I take back the DM chair next session I plan on eliminating the group initiative check we've been doing. I'll just be deciding by DM fiat which group gets to act first.
I seem to have discovered I find Initiative to be unwanted paperwork. |
| #33JodyJohnsonAug 19, 2015 10:50:14 | I was about to post Halvgrim's suggestion.
At the beginning of an encounter, you can use your rolled initiative or lower. |
| #34MistwellAug 19, 2015 12:00:52 |
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| #35MistwellAug 19, 2015 13:05:00 | Interesting recent tweet on this point:
@ItsZagur : can a player delay their initiative to extend an effect that ends at the begging of their turn? Thanks |
| #36edwin_suAug 19, 2015 13:15:01 |
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| #37frothsofAug 19, 2015 14:47:01 | Houserule it or deal w it |
| #38OmniliciousAug 19, 2015 15:28:34 |
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| (Reply to #19)crimfan07 |
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| #40NoonAug 19, 2015 19:33:59 |
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| #41Ramius613Aug 19, 2015 19:39:38 | Simple solution if your DM doesn't allow delay have your casters call out their results first then melee say their which oddly are always below the casters. Who cares when the monsters go. |
| #42sirkaikillah11Aug 19, 2015 20:39:05 |
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| (Reply to #42)Satyrn |
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| #44SilentSinAug 20, 2015 0:05:04 | How about the following houserule:
With regard to the points in the article:
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| #45iserithAug 20, 2015 11:19:03 |
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| (Reply to #45)sirkaikillah11 |
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| #47iserithAug 20, 2015 12:24:28 |
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| #48KahlessAug 21, 2015 19:19:08 | Not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never actually seen it. Does anyone really actually delay just to play shennanigans with the "until the start of your turn" effects like the devs say? Like I said, I've never seen it happen. |
| #49WorBladeAug 21, 2015 21:29:48 | Maybe I am blessed with an older, experienced group. They usually know what they plan to do, don't waste time metagaming strategy, etc. I allow delayed action and they raraley use it but sometimes it makes sense logically. As I use a modifiied DMG option for fixed init after the first round everyone has 10+DEx mod, then modified by spell level or weapon size (based on damage die).
The spell duration thing is an easy fix. If you cast a spell at Init 8 that last to the end of your next turn, and next round you delay lower than 8, the spell still ends at 8. The obvious intent is one round, and the 5e rules chose to make one round action to next action to avoid a target that acts after the spell getting hit twice. Once when cast and once again before the end of the next round. |
| #50Azzy1974Aug 22, 2015 3:33:18 | I dunno, I don't see a delay action in pre-3e versions of the game. The mind boggles at how we must have gotten along without it.
Really, if it's that important to you, house rule it. It's obviously not important to many of the rest of us. |
| #51iserithAug 22, 2015 6:45:59 |
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| #52StuntmanAug 23, 2015 0:13:12 | I only played 5E a handful of times. On my 4th game last week, I actually wanted to use delay. The rogue was isolated against an enemy and I wanted to use my Distracting Strike maneuver to enable the rogue to apply his sneak attack damage. My plan was to have the rogue delay his action until after my initiative. That way, I can attack first and give him advantage on his attack.
I was caught off guard when the DM informed me that delay is not an option in 5E. I didn't have any problems working without delay. I just had the rogue ready his action and attack after I attack. On my turn, I hit with my arrow and used Distracting Strike. The rogue then hits the target and was able to apply the sneak attack damage.
The absence of delay isn't an issue for me. I was able to accomplish what I wanted to do. I think that most players who are skilled enough to use delay in previous edition will not have much trouble adjusting their tactics in 5E where there is no delay. |
| #53GrazelAug 23, 2015 9:09:58 |
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| #54joeburgosAug 25, 2015 6:11:02 |
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