| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1jorritFeb 26, 2009 13:45:27 | I know (in theory) how Readied Actions and Delaying work but at the moment I'm having problem thinking on practical uses for these. Can people give some examples of combat encounters where readied actions and/or delaying on initiative were useful? Greetings, |
| #2ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:04:37 | Wizard has high init followed by monster, then all else. Wizard delays, monster attacks nearest PC. Rogue uses power which allows him to slide monster to within one square of his own spike pit trap. Wizard now takes his turn with a power that slides monster that one extra square. Had the wizard not delayed, the monster would have never been in place for that last extra bump. Ready Action: "As soon as something comes through that door, I shoot it." (compliments of http://hamesucken.com/tomb/combat.html ) Best scenario I can think up right now is the party being on the run, diving into what turns out to a dead end. They hole up for their last stand. The Ranger readies his bow, the rogue his HH crossbow, the wizard his spell. As soon as the beastie they're running from bursts through the door, it's greeted by a wall of hot, steaming death. |
| #3TheBouncyPherretFeb 26, 2009 14:06:10 | I know (in theory) how Readied Actions and Delaying work but at the moment I'm having problem thinking on practical uses for these. Can people give some examples of combat encounters where readied actions and/or delaying on initiative were useful?
Just to name a few ^_^ TBP |
| #4jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:08:33 | Wizard has high init followed by monster, then all else. Wizard delays, monster attacks nearest PC. Rogue uses power which allows him to slide monster to within one square of his own spike pit trap. Wizard now takes his turn with a power that slides monster that one extra square. Had the wizard not delayed, the monster would have never been in place for that last extra bump. Ok, but that kind of usage requires cooperation with another player. If you talk to your ally IC then the creature might hear about your plan and can do something about it (if it is clever enough). And talking OOC about this plan sounds a bit like metagaming. But yes, it is a good example. Greetings, |
| #5jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:10:18 | [list] And why would he want to do that? Greetings, |
| #6ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:16:24 | To get himself into a better position to guarantee a hit, or to let the enemy get softened up. It's like your land army is ready to march, but having them wait until your air forces bomb the hell out of the enemy and soften them up. Then you march in with (hopefully) minimal casualties on your part. Cooperation with another player? Perish the thought, eh? Are you running a one-on-one game? Then tactics shouldn't be that big of a concern. But if you have multiple players who can't pull together, they get what they deserve. If they can't stay their hands (or their egos in some cases) and learn how to take advantage of situations (and you can shout out tactics IC, such as the rogue seeing the wizard's delay, shoving the monster toward the pit and then yelling out "tip him in, wiz-boy!"), then they've limited their own toolbox for victory. |
| #7x3nth10nFeb 26, 2009 14:19:37 | And why would he want to do that? Flank for CA |
| #8jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:20:24 | To get himself into a better position to guarantee a hit, or to let the enemy get softened up. It's like your land army is ready to march, but having them wait until your air forces bomb the hell out of the enemy and soften them up. Then you march in with (hopefully) minimal casualties on your part. That's not what I meant. I meant that how do you do tactical cooperation if you want to RP correctly. You can't talk about your plans IC because then your opponents will probably hear what you're planning. And if you talk about it OOC then that's really metagaming. Greetings, |
| #9ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:22:36 | One more thing: One of my players runs a drow rogue who, although he gets the init almost every time, waits to see what everyone else does. IC, he says he's just lining up the best shot, but in reality he's waiting to see if the fight is winnable. IC ego-wise, he also hopes to be the one delivering the killing blow. |
| #10ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:25:33 | That's not what I meant. I meant that how do you do tactical cooperation if you want to RP correctly. You can't talk about your plans IC because then your opponents will probably hear what you're planning. And if you talk about it OOC then that's really metagaming. Agh! We crossed posts! As a DM, I allow some OOC planning. It give sthe players time to assess things that they can't actually see in person. How steep is that staircase? How close is the troll to the firepit? Does the railing look like it can support my weight? Where is Deian in relation to Keldar? My group works as a team pretty well and can often read each other. But teamwork and hoping the situation will change a little are two instances where delaying can work well. |
| #11lofgrenFeb 26, 2009 14:27:19 | Ok, but that kind of usage requires cooperation with another player. If you talk to your ally IC then the creature might hear about your plan and can do something about it (if it is clever enough). And talking OOC about this plan sounds a bit like metagaming. But yes, it is a good example. I think the game assumes your characters are meant to know each other's strengths and know how to use them in concert. The scenario suggested above is simple enough that it could easily be pulled off by any three players who know all of each class' abilities without even talking. If the players did have to discuss it, that would be no different than the characters shouting things to each other on the battlefield like "Incoming!" or "Hit 'em high!" or any of the kind of things people yell to each other in comic books all the time, or even communicating by catching each other's eye and giving a nod to the pit trap to make sure they are all thinking the same thing. I think it would count more as metagaming if the DM disrupted player tactics he would otherwise have had no way of knowing about, if he weren't sitting right there at the table with them. |
| #12jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:28:06 | Agh! We crossed posts! Ok, one little clarification. As I understood it delay permanently changes your initiative position to the new one where you choose to act? Greetings, |
| #13ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:31:46 | Not to my understanding. You reserve your position. If you get the top spot, it's usually because of your quick reflexes. I know some DMs roll Init every round, but I roll at the start of the encounter. Guy #1 can wait until after anyone lower in the rankings, but next turn he can go at his original rank, or choose to delay again. You can go after anyone lower than you. |
| #14Kensan_OniFeb 26, 2009 14:36:04 | That's not what I meant. I meant that how do you do tactical cooperation if you want to RP correctly. You can't talk about your plans IC because then your opponents will probably hear what you're planning. And if you talk about it OOC then that's really metagaming. What exactly do you think your characters are doing during their downtime, just sleeping? What do you think they are doing when you skip forward in time to the next destination? There is certainly discussions between the Characters about what to do in fights, and there is drilling going on between the fights with each other. I mean, it's really all that bad to go "'Jassic, Square and Bear time.' I hold my action"? And, you know, there has to be leeway to let Players have a chance to plan while in the middle of a combat. It's hardly metagaming to make players aware of your abilities and ask them to co-operate with you. |
| #15jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:36:33 | Not to my understanding. You reserve your position. If you get the top spot, it's usually because of your quick reflexes. I know some DMs roll Init every round, but I roll at the start of the encounter. Guy #1 can wait until after anyone lower in the rankings, but next turn he can go at his original rank, or choose to delay again. You can go after anyone lower than you. DMs roll initiative every round? That seems very excessive. No wonder people are complaining 4e combats last so long :-) Anyway, about delay. The PHB says: 'After any other combatant has completed a turn, you can step back into the initiative order. Perform your actions as desired and adjust your initiative to your new position in the order.' From that bold part of the sentence I assumed that the new position was permanent for the rest of the encounter. But maybe I'm interpreting it wrong. Greetings, |
| #16Kensan_OniFeb 26, 2009 14:40:48 | Ok, one little clarification. As I understood it delay permanently changes your initiative position to the new one where you choose to act? By the rules, a Delay places you in the initiative order after the last person who went. A Ready action places you in front of the action that triggered it. |
| #17jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:43:40 | By the rules, a Delay places you in the initiative order after the last person who went. A Ready action places you in front of the action that triggered it. Yes, but my question is if that new position in the initiative order is permanent (i.e. for the rest of the encounter) or only during that round. I think it is permanent but the wording in the PHB is a bit confusing. Greetings, |
| #18ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 14:44:26 | The initiative change is not permanent. It'd be awful if it was! Yeah, I've seen some DMs that try to emulate reality too much. I told one that if he wanted to really push the reality thing, all attacks, damages, etc., should be rolled simultaneously. For everybody at once! |
| #19onceuponatimeFeb 26, 2009 14:44:56 | Yes you are right, ready and delay move your initiative to that point for the rest of the encounter, or until you ready or delay to change your init again. |
| #20Kensan_OniFeb 26, 2009 14:46:41 | As above. |
| #21jorritFeb 26, 2009 14:47:22 | The initiative change is not permanent. It'd be awful if it was! Are you sure? In the PHB it says: 'After any other combatant has completed a turn, you can step back into the initiative order. Perform your actions as desired and adjust your initiative to your new position in the order.' Why would it say that if the initiative is not permanent? It says to adjust your initiative to your NEW position and you have to do this AFTER performing the actions you delayed for. If this new position in the initiative order is not permanent then I don't understand the purpose of that part that I made bold. Greetings, |
| #22samuelcameronFeb 26, 2009 15:31:41 | Are you sure? In the PHB it says: Both Delay and Ready determinately change your initiative according to pages 288 and 291 in the Players Handbook. Look under "Reset Initiative" for each action. Here is the text for it for "Ready an Action" which would not make any sense if the change was only for one round. "Reset Initiative: After you resolve your readied action, move your place in the initiative order to directly before the creature or the event that triggered your readied action." |
| #23itarakoturoFeb 26, 2009 16:34:04 | That's not what I meant. I meant that how do you do tactical cooperation if you want to RP correctly. You can't talk about your plans IC because then your opponents will probably hear what you're planning. And if you talk about it OOC then that's really metagaming. It doesn't sound like you understand metagaming. Maybe this will help. Metagaming takes place whenever a player acts on information that his character does not possess. A good example of this is the player knowing that a certain monster is vulnerable to radiant damage, and having his character use nothing but radiant attacks despite the character having no way of knowing about that vulnerability. Discussing tactics with your party members is not metagaming. Here's why. We, as players, have real lives. We wake up, go to our day jobs or school, come home, hang out with those we associate with, eat meals, and generally have a lot of things that aren't Dungeons & Dragons to occupy our time. Our characters on the other hand, don't have real lives. Their lives revolve around adventuring (itself unrealistic, as only the suicidally insane would ever consider exposing themselves to the hazards of an adventuring life). They don't have day jobs - adventuring is how they pay the bills. Your characters are extremely invested in surviving the next dungeon, and would "realistically" take all measures possible to increase their odds. This includes extensive discussion of tactics and strategy, not to mention a lot of practice, between encounters and forays into the unknown. Your characters are doing this, constantly. We, as players, are not. We don't have time. We shouldn't have to spend the time. Players should be free to discuss tactics during a fight because their characters have already done all that discussing. Combat is, and always has been, an abstraction. You are severely penalizing your players by preventing them from best figuring out how to overcome the challenge - in fact, by your own admission, you are effectively preventing them from making use of most abilities that require cooperation (including tactically important ones like readying and delaying). This is completely counter to the concept of a team game like Dungeons & Dragons. Let your players work together during combat. They shouldn't need to yell out every tactic in character in order to be effective. |
| #24itarakoturoFeb 26, 2009 16:35:46 | The initiative change is not permanent. It'd be awful if it was! No, it's permanent - at least until you ready or delay again. There is an opportunity cost to taking the ready or delay actions. Too many such actions and you will eventually have robbed yourself of an entire turn. |
| #25makeshiftwingsFeb 26, 2009 16:44:10 | Yes, the initiative change is permanent. Well, permanent for the rest of the encounter, which is what I assume you mean. It's important that it happen that way because otherwise you'd end up with weird situations like delaying until right before your own turn so you can go twice in a row. I don't think it's particularly terrible metagaming to discuss tactics OOC. D&D combat is a team-based tactics-oriented miniatures combat game. You're supposed to have a certain amount of time to think about your move and decent communication with your team members. If it was totally in character, you'd only have six seconds on your turn to think about what you're doing, do it, and resolve all the dice rolls. I don't think anyone wants to play like that. The whole turn-based grid combat thing is just an abstraction anyway; in "real life" your characters aren't walking on a grid and taking turns in order, they're just in the middle of a chaotic battle. If you keep that in mind, you shouldn't be too worried about saying something IC either; even if you do yell "Flank that orc!", the orc would have about 2 seconds while he's in mid-charge to process that. Not really enough time to stop mid-charge, analyze the situation tactically, and retreat. |
| #26ShiftkittyFeb 26, 2009 16:48:32 | Well, then I interpretted wrong and apologize. |
| #27tiornysFeb 26, 2009 16:51:55 | Another common use of Readying: Rogue moves adjacent to an enemy, readies action to attack when an ally provides a flank. Fighter moves into flanking position, Rogue attacks with combat advantage, then Fighter attacks with combat advantage. (this probably belongs in Traps, Terrain and Tactics) t~ |
| #28makeshiftwingsFeb 26, 2009 17:01:06 | Readying and delaying is also useful for Defenders to protect their party. If you have a good position, like blocking a choke point with your ranged strikers safely behind you, you might want to stay there and block enemies from getting to them rather than charge out into the fray, even if it means you might not get to attack that round. |
| #29Arbitrary_AardvarkFeb 27, 2009 15:20:46 | Other uses for ready and delay: Ready (in 3.5 only) 1. Shoot the enemy spellcaster as he is casting (to force him into making a concentration check.) 2. Ready to dispell an enemy when he casts a spell. Ready 1. Charge the first enemy to enter within 6 squares. 2. Attack (using this power) an enemy when he moves adjacent to me. Delay (3.5 only) 1. Wait until after the enemies have gone so that you can full attack one which ends up adjacent or within five feat of you. (This isn't a ready, since you can only ready a standard action.) Delay (3.5 or 4.0) 2. Wait until after the wizard goes (to avoid being caught in area of effect). 3. Wait until after the other melee types have gone (to get flanking for a rogue.) |
| #30chaosturtleFeb 27, 2009 15:44:36 | I guess it might seem metagamish to talk about it oocly, but keep in mind that the only reason you have to do this/the monsters would be able to react accordingly icly is because of the turn based nature...if I went first for example and my fighter friend went somewhere in the middle with 4 or so people inbetween and I tell him to push the enemy back and then I'll attack the D&D end result would be those 4 guys have time to adjust accordingly to that information...but what would actually happen is the fighter would push the enemy back, and then I'd go. Everyone's turn is happening in the same six second frame, so it's not like you're all just standing there while everyone else moves/casts/etc. With the push example someone used...the fighter is swinging at the enemy, while those two fight someone pushes him back with a power, then the wizard would see it and immediately follow up, it makes sense icly just comes off as oocly metagaming because of the way you use the games mechanics to represent real time combat. |
| #31Stafir_OrtnevFeb 27, 2009 20:45:57 | Basically you do a Delay when you need to take a full turn at a later time...as others have said..to allow you to take a flank. Or I have a warlord...to allow him to do his attack that gives everyone a massive boost to damage and to hit first..then to take your turn. You do a ready when you need to do a specific actions in response to another specific action. "I fire the moment the enemy comes into range' as opposed to waiting for the enemy to move right next to you, attack you...and then finally end their turn. Or going with my warlord again....'hmm rogue needs to get into flank...but can't do so safely with move actions aha' I stand next to the enemy, I turn to the rogue..tell him to move to a certain safe spot next to the enemy, then ready to wolf pack tactics when the rogue moves there (at that point he becomes the target of the shift..gets that one more move into flank..I attack the enemy...then the rogue gets his attack with flanking..and SA bonus) |