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| #1ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 6:58:05 | The PHB's contents are known, and one thing that's not in there is the ability to "Delay" -- i.e., different from readying an action, the ability to decline to take your entire turn, and then jump in to take it later.
Just to go over the similar things that are available, there's:
Ready An Action -- you take your turn, and use up your action to ready another action to be triggered by a particular trigger, upon which you will use your 'reaction' to take that action. The benefit is, your spot in the turn order doesn't change (if you went first, you still get to go first next round), and you can take the action in the middle of someone else's turn. The limitations are, you are not able to do any of your other turn-limited activity (move, bonus action, etc) when you are taking your readied action. And, in the case of readying a non-cantrip spell, you might actually lose your spell slot if events defy your expectation and the trigger doesn't happen. And, you are using both your action and reaction to take one single action.
Do nothing -- you can do nothing (or, just stand still and "dodge" or somesuch), and thus effectively delay until your turn in the next round.
For those unfamiliar with 4th, how's "Delay" different? It's sort of like "Do nothing" (you can't even dodge, you literally don't take your turn), but you can jump in after someone else's turn has completed. It's sort of like saying, "From now on, I am willingly dropping my initiative from 20 to 14" or somesuch. The benefit: it allows you to take your entire turn later on. The detriment: from then on, your initiative drops; you don't get to bring it back up again in the round after that.
So, here's a circumstance where "Delay" might be useful. There are many such circumstances, but this may be a good one to illustrate the difference.
- I am a melee character. I have no ranged abilities. (Or, I do but they are terrible.) - The enemy is flying out of my reach. - I have won initiative. - A friendly wizard who wishes to cast Fly on me is second in initiative. - The (flying) enemies are third in initiative.
On my turn, I can do nothing useful. I could perhaps ready an action to fly up there as soon as I gain the ability to fly, but then I'm not attacking this round. I can't ready an action to fly up AND attack.
I could dodge, and act in the next round, but this gives the enemies all of their turns to mount an assault on our party, when I'd rather have gotten up there and messed with them a little first (maybe even killed one if I'm lucky.)
On the other hand, if I can delay, I can simply let the wizard go first and cast Fly on me, then go after him and before the baddies, using my entire turn to fly up there and make an attack.
This has created a counter-intuitive situation in which winning initiative has actually been to my detriment. (And consider: dex is the main thing that contributes to init -- rogues and monks have a lot of dex -- and one of the only other contributing things is the Barbarian init advantage feature. Melee will often win initiative.)
So, I'm curious -- how do others feel about this relic of the past? Do you suppose there's good reason for it to have been omitted -- does it cause more problems than it solves? Will you play with it in 5e? Why or why not? |
| #2iserithAug 13, 2014 7:04:31 | No, I won't be using Delay. I thought AaronOfBarbaria had a good take on this:
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| #3bawylieAug 13, 2014 7:28:18 | I'm looking into moving off initiative altogether.
currently running popcorn initiative (like popcorn reading in primary school).
Also experimenting with shuffle. PC and monster table tents are shuffled every round to determine turn order.
These are okay, but they're mostly just a "take turns" mechanism. I want to do something more than track turns. I want to drive action, build momentum, and explode. So I'm still looking. |
| #4ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 7:49:09 | re: iserith,
Yeah, it certainly does detract from simplicity. I would argue, though, that it does not violate "the neat 'box' that is your Action being on your turn and any action you take outside your turn being your Reaction." Delay is simply Not An Action, it's a thing you do, other than your turn, when your turn comes up. Still, it does open up certain issues, the biggest two of which are:
- How does it resolve when more than one person wants to un-delay at once? and - How do you resolve effects ending on your turn, when you delay the very turn when they would end?
I'm mulling over an alternative to delay which would resolve all the above issues, but only on the first round of combat. Basically, from the bottom up, players and monsters would be able to willingly lower their initiative after it's rolled and before the first turn of combat starts. Whoever wins initiative would go "last" in this voluntary lowering, and thus there would never be any detriment to winning initiative; they can choose where in the order they go. But, thereafter, they stay there -- they can't lower it again.
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re: Bawylie,
Popcorn Initiative sounds interesting. Do you have any trouble keeping track of who has gone and who has not gone? I suppose by the description on the linked page, "Wait" works exactly like "Delay" would.
In shuffling every round, I think it still creates the issue where you can either be able to delay or not be able to delay...
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Oh hey, 1000th post. And there was much rejoicing. Yaaaay. |
| #5DemoMonkeyAug 13, 2014 7:52:34 | Yes, I will. If for no other reason than the "door opening" scenario.
"Ok, we've cornered the bandits in this room and we are all lined up in the corridor. As soon as Morg tears the door off it's hinges and moves aside, we will charge in and start latying waste to the bandits".
Morgs player: "Sorry guys, I rolled a 5 for my initiative. All of you that beat me can only Ready an action, you'll only be able to move into the room, no attacking this turn."
DM, who knows how many bandits there are: "Uh, you guys do all have your backup character sheets here tonight, right?" |
| #6QmarkAug 13, 2014 7:57:46 |
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| #7HitdiceAug 13, 2014 7:57:15 |
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| #8bawylieAug 13, 2014 7:57:22 | Popcorn initiative dispenses with delay. The players simply talk out a strategy and popcorn the next guy they want.
I warn them to be wary of letting all the monsters go at once (for instance, the players all take a turn but don't finish the combat in round one, leaving team monster with all the actions), because ill dog pile and kill a PC, if given like a quarter of a chance.
So they just popcorn it out and hedge on letting a monster in when they feel ready (Popcorn DM). Then I take a few turns and typically pass it to the character I just beat the f%#$ out of. |
| #9ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 7:57:34 |
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| #10bawylieAug 13, 2014 7:58:30 | Table tent delay is very easy to manage. I remove the player's tent from the initiative order and hand it to the player. When he's ready to jump in, he hands it back and I insert him back into the order. |
| #11QmarkAug 13, 2014 8:01:18 |
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| #12iserithAug 13, 2014 8:01:53 |
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| #13ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 8:06:49 |
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| (Reply to #13)bawylie |
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| #15QmarkAug 13, 2014 8:36:32 |
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| #16ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 8:39:59 |
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| (Reply to #11)Overpromises |
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| #18SturmunddrangAug 13, 2014 8:59:41 | Players can have saddles and players with different initiatives can mount them like Master Blaster and move their initiatives up or down.
As initiative is a dex check, I don't see how a player can't say their character just fails the roll if they want to go after someone else. It doesn't make a lot of sense to not have delay. But they weren't going for making sense, so whatever. |
| #19autolycusAug 13, 2014 9:12:01 | I will not allow Delay in my 5e games for a while. After I have many games under my belt I may revisit the idea if the need for it remains.
I'm also considering an initiative system which does a "pass on success".
Party rolls init. Monsters roll init.
The winning group goes, one member after another (in any order).
When one member of the active group gets a "success" (hit with a weapon, land a spell, etc.), the other group then becomes active. They can go in any order and take actions until they get a "success", at which point it swings back to the first group.
Maybe this will help build dynamic tension as every success is a cliffhanger and failure simply moves to the next attempt. |
| #20vacthokAug 13, 2014 9:26:06 | I *really* like the concept behind popcorn initiative, and I used it for a good long while during the playtest. Unfortunately, for whatever reason it never really gelled with my players, and I would always find myself reminding everyone "okay, now choose who is next!" after every turn. So I'm going back to vanilla initiative, I think.
The one thing, though, is I'm planning on loosening a lot of the restrictions/mechanics of Ready. I'm not a huge fan of Delay, or really anything that changes initiative order for the simple fact that I hate keeping track of the changes. On the other hand, I think forcing Ready to consume a reaction and to screw over casters in particular when the trigger doesn't happen ends up severely limiting it's tactical use. So I'm thinking of just making Ready into a conditional or banked action. On the player's turn, he tells me what he wants to do, and attaches whatever condition he wants. If the trigger happens, he takes the action he described. If not, then nothing happens (beyond him losing the round's action). It doesn't change his initiative, it doesn't burn any resource, and if something else happens off his turn, he can still take his reaction to that.
Best part is, it's pretty natural to "explain" to players, since it usually just follows how they naturally explain what they want to do:
DM: It's your turn, what do you want to do. Player: I want to stab the goblin as soon as Lowinit The Barbarian grapples it. DM: Okay. |
| #21Plaguescarred1Aug 13, 2014 9:48:18 | I won't play with Delay, i find it simpler to play with Ready alone in a turn-based game. |
| #22eleranAug 13, 2014 9:51:04 | I normally do a mixed intitive for monsters. For instance if the monsters are 1 goblin commander, 2 ogres and 4 goblin grunts, I will roll separate inits for the commander, the ogres and then the grunts. If it is a group of all the same critters say just 4 wolves, each wolf will get his/her own init. this somewhat lessons the dogpile effect that can happen. I do like some of the alternate initiative methods mentioned in this thread tho. |
| (Reply to #19)Chimerasame |
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| #24ChimerasameAug 13, 2014 9:58:23 |
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| #25LanethanAKAug 13, 2014 10:04:45 |
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| #26souldoubtAug 13, 2014 10:09:05 |
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| #27RottleAug 13, 2014 10:14:41 |
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| #28ChrisTheSAug 13, 2014 10:34:16 |
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| #29autolycusAug 13, 2014 10:39:00 |
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| #30autolycusAug 13, 2014 10:40:47 |
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| #31h347h50Aug 13, 2014 11:02:00 |
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| (Reply to #31)bawylie |
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| #33ChrisCarlsonAug 13, 2014 11:24:00 | Having played Fantasy Flight's Star Wars system for over a year now, I gotta say I'm kinda in love with their turn order system.
Everyone rolls initiative as normal to establish the combat's order between the PCs and NPCs.
So, for (a simplified) example, the following order happens:
Player 4 (5 successes) Player 2 (4 successes) NPC Group #2 (3 successes) Player 1 (2 successes) NPC Group #1 (1 successes) Player 3 (0 successes)
The twist is that there is no slot ownership. Any member of a side can chose to take a slot for that round.
So, if the group feels Player 3's action is key to the start of the round, he can use the first slot. Player 4 will then still be able to take whatever slot makes most sense for his proposed action, etc.
The GM does the same for his slots.
The initiative tracker actually looks like this:
PC PC NPCs PC NPCs PC
This order remains static for the duration of the combat (cyclical), but who takes what slot can change each round.
The only delaying that happens is that a PC can just choose to take a later slot and let others use the faster ones. |
| (Reply to #33)bawylie |
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| #35ChrisCarlsonAug 13, 2014 11:35:31 | Everyone only gets one per round. When is the flexible part. |
| #36ChrisCarlsonAug 13, 2014 11:43:18 | Footnote: We usually roleplay it out a bit as well through the natural order.
If the fast reflexes pilot rolls the high initiative slot, but the slow wookiee needs to charge the stormtroopers with his vibroaxe quickly, the player of the pilot usually tosses out something to the effect of him spurring the wookiee on to take action. |
| #37wellerpondAug 13, 2014 11:42:27 | Popcorn initiative dispenses with delay. The players simply talk out a strategy and popcorn the next guy they want.
My players REALLY like to look at every angle before they move in. My fear is it would add even more discussion and just following the initiative. How do you control for that?
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| #38vodokarAug 13, 2014 11:47:35 | I always roll initiative for every pc and NPC individually and at the beginning of every combat round. I allow the choice to move your initiative down in the turn if you wish i.e. delay.
The reasoning behind these things is this:
Rolling each PC and NPC individually prevents one group from dogpiling one target or taking out the other group without being able to do anything and the round progresses more naturally and realistically.
If you roll group initiative for both PC and NPC, then whichever group wins the intiative has a great advantage over the other group. This was AD&D style, where PC's and NPC's contested a group d6 roll. Of course, offsetting that was that they did this at the beginning of every round.
On the other hand, if you roll individual PC rolls vs one group NPC roll, it gives a great advantage to the PC's, because it is unlikely that the NPC will go first based on the roll of one die vs. several PC die rolls; probability will usually cause one or more of the PC's to go first. On the off chance that the NPC group does win, it can be a world of pain for the PC's. Even if the NPC group doesn't go first, e.g. PC, PC, NPC Group, PC, PC, PC, the NPC group acting all at once can bring a whole lot of pain due to thier coordinated effort. It makes encounters far more unpredictable, all based on the outcome of one die roll.
If you take the step to break NPC rolls into individual group rolls for each individual type of NPC, it helps, but still isn't as natural a flow as going to individual rolls and is more swingy.
The last two methods has been what has been advocated in the last few editions, but coupled with static initiative, where you only roll at the beginning of the first round, which offsets the fact that you are breaking down initiative into more dice rolls with the fact that you only do it once.
Rolling at the beginning of every round evens out the luck and swinginess of an encounter.
With more dice rolls, probability will favor those who have the best initiative bonuses. The fast rogue with the +6 initiative bonus doesn't have to go last every round just because he rolled an unlucky 1 on the very first round of combat. He has more opportunities to have his skill be more important than luck. This goes likewise if there was a particularly fast NPC. It makes the encounter more predictable, which is good for both DM and players.
Especially during the beginnings of developement and thru the playtest of 5e, topics such as degree of swinginess were mentioned alot, and there is always talk between DM's about how to better predict the outcome of the encounters they are putting together, but rarely is this discussed in conjuction with how initiative is conducted. The biggest favor you can do for yourself to make things more predictable is to roll initiative individually for every PC and NPC and to do it at the beginning of each round. Combining those two things makes the encounter go at a more natural and predictable flow.
I'll give an example to illustrate. The first encounter in the Lost Mines of Phandelver. There have been a great many posts stating how rough this encounter was on the PC's and how the goblin archers could just gang up on the PC's and drop one or two of them in the first round etc.etc. Try running it again where you roll initiative individually for every PC and goblin at the beginning of each round. I think you will find that it is far more difficult for the goblins to gang up on one or two characters and the encounter has a much more natural and realistic flow i.e. the encounter now becomes less swingy and more predictable.
When an outcome is based on a dice roll, less dice rolls means more importance on the one dice roll and hence more swingy, whereas more dice rolls means the outcome comes closer to matching the predicted probability outcome and hence, more predictable. I can think of no outcome more important than who swings at who first in a game where action is not simultaneous.
Lastly, allowing a PC or NPC to delay thier action till later in the round is more realistic.
If you are both rolling individual initiative and rolling each round, being able to delay ones action to a different initiative count becomes a very easy and natural outcome. It becomes easy, because in order to roll initiative for each PC and NPC each and every round, the DM must be very organized and have a very good way of dynamically tracking this, which then makes it easy to move someone in the order.
Rolling a low initiative means that you failed, for whatever reason, to act faster that round. However, rolling high in the initiative order does not mean you have to act then, it means you have the where-with-all and presence of mind that round to have the option to act now or act when a better opportunity arises.
This is realistic. Think about what you do each day when you walk in thru a door behind someone or when you are sitting at a stop light behind someone and it turns green. The guy in front of you who wasn't paying attention to the stoplight, i.e. rolled the low initiative, gets honked at. The guy behind him, delays his action until the guy in front moves, and then proceeds just as soon as possible. And if the guy in front was paying attention and had a quicker reaction, you would proceed right behind him sooner.
How does this pertain to D&D. Quite naturally, I think. You often have situations where combat gets bottled up at natural bottlenecks etc. If the PC in the 2nd rank rolls initiative higher than the PC in the 1st rank, it is natural that he would delay his action to allow the front rank PC a chance to push the NPC further into the room, so that the 2nd rank PC can move into the room to do something useful that round. It's his perogative, since he is alert to what is going on, to time his action. If he wasn't alert, rolled a low initiative, then he lost that option.
The reason that the rules don't use Rolling Individual PC and NPC initiative each and every round and allowing for initiative count delay as the primary option for play has nothing to do with it's realisticness, usefullness and good effect on play. I submit to you, that doing those things makes the game better. The reason that it isn't the primary option or even presented as an option is because it is more difficult to explain, it takes more time to play an encounter if you have to roll more dice, and requires the DM to be more organized.
If I am playing manually at the table, I make up an index card for each PC and NPC. It makes it easy to move the order around. It does add some time to the encounter, but if your organized, with practice, it can be minimized.
Normally, I play using computer assistance. I personally play using a Virtual Table Top software called Fantasy Grounds, but there are a great many options out there for VTT or combat round tracking. It makes all these things very easy and quick to do. Using Fantasy Grounds, I can do those three things naturally and quickly and play an encounter out just as quickly as if I wasn't doing them.
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| #39SturmunddrangAug 13, 2014 12:36:46 |
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| #40KarnosAug 13, 2014 12:37:50 | No, I'll play by the rules until a problem presents itself. Haven't really noticed any problems with the default initiative system in actual play. |
| #41BecDeCorbinAug 13, 2014 13:32:17 | I'd allow a Delay action depending on circumstances since the D&D initiative system is a clumsy beast at best.
My homebrew initiative system:
Monsters go (in whatever order I like). PCs go (in whatever order they like). Repeat.
PCs can make an initiative roll to go before the monsters on any particular round if they like, but there are drawbacks to failing (you lose your action).
I've played around with so many initiative systems and found them all lacking. I decided to go extremely minimal and get on with the action. Why do I have the monsters go first and not the PCs? Because monsters are big meanies, that's why.
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| #42ShiroikenAug 13, 2014 13:57:38 | I would not use delay in my Roll20 games, because it's hard to modify initative.
For IRL games, I see nothing wrong with Delay. Something I've done in the past is use a deck of cards, each PC has a Heart card in front of them, as does each Ally. Each enemy has a Club card to represent them. In the Initative Deck is a Diamond matching each PC's number (and allies), and Spades for enemies. That way I can manipulate the initiative order if needed, and if someone wants to delay, they remove their card from the deck until they decide to come back in (AFTER the next card resolves). |
| (Reply to #37)bawylie |
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| #44Brock_LandersAug 13, 2014 14:18:50 | Sometimes, I also like chorus, comprehension, and reverb. |
| #45MarandahirAug 13, 2014 16:49:06 | I LOVE the Table Tents, Bawylie!! |
| (Reply to #45)bawylie |
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| #47VeleriaAug 13, 2014 17:32:53 | I plan to allow them to delay if they ask for it but I will not present it as an option. I count this under rule zero territory and will adjudicate each instance as appropriate to the encounter. results will be whatever makese sense at the table. |
| #48smbakeresqAug 13, 2014 19:43:41 | After rolling for initiative, I will let a player ready his turn on the first combat turn only, but it does cost him his reaction. Players use it infrequently, since the don't have any OppAtt to use and then bad guys move freely around them.
its against the rules but it does seem a little more realistic. |
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| #50Thank_DogAug 13, 2014 21:07:07 | I won't use Delay. I figure if you want to delay, you lose your turn. You've been indecisive and that six seconds has passed for you. |
| #51MistwellAug 13, 2014 21:42:30 |
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| #52MistwellAug 13, 2014 21:44:58 |
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| (Reply to #51)bawylie |
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| #54FFSAAAug 13, 2014 23:46:31 |
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| #55Xeviat-DMAug 14, 2014 3:55:57 | I've ran with a deck of cards for the PCs and monsters for a long time; it's very easy to modify initiative and the cards even have "delay" and "ready" on the short sides so you can stand them up and flag the actions.
I don't like that ready readies a single action. Do you still get your multiple attacks on a ready? And you give up your reaction? |
| #56ChimerasameAug 14, 2014 7:07:58 | I've never really understood the problem with the concept of "dogpiling one PC with all the monsters is overpowered in favor of the DM".
As a DM, you choose the entire world, and everything about your breadth of scope of choices is overpowered. For example, you can pretty much choose all your monsters. You can face down the apprentice-tier PCs with an adult red dragon if you want, but you don't, because it's too lopsided. Likewise, in the middle of a combat, you can choose to dogpile a single PC with the monsters you have, but it's still your choice -- if it's overly deadly then you can just not do it, right? Just have the monsters attack in a slightly less tactically advantageous way. One extension of this is, don't have Team Monster use delay very often, even if you make it available to the PCs. When they're all already going on the same turn, just have them run forwards and attack whoever's closest, or attack whoever they can get to in a straight line without running around people, etc.
It might occasionally be a dogpile if one PC is out in front of everybody else and levied an attack at the monsters, but in this situation the PCs have more or less invited that outcome. (One would hope that if this happens, it was a tanky PC)
I'm not saying it's universally bad to use the dogpile-the-mage tactic from the DM chair -- if it works for your table then that's fine. What I'm saying is, if you feel it's problematic, then simply refraining from doing it is a simple elegant solution. |
| (Reply to #5)FitzTheRuke |
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| #58vacthokAug 14, 2014 19:02:40 |
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| (Reply to #58)bawylie |
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| #60iserithAug 14, 2014 20:13:10 |
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