D&D 5E Initiative and Delay

[Tzarevitch]

"The party is not automatically a well-oiled machine that never errs in combat, and you guys cannot always silently coordinate exactly what you want, so no, no delays."

Um, yeah. Sports teams, police swat teams, mercenary teams and military special forces teams all can coordinate silently and with a very high level of accuracy. They do this thing called "practice" so they know the plan already. Also, if people are out of position, they can and do delay until team members are in the correct position before they act (watch good basketball point guards do it repeatedly in every game). No one says they will never err, but they rarely do. That's why they are professionals.

 

[KarinsDad]

Your scenario actually encompasses 2 possible scenarios. Let's use precise initiative rolls and assume PC cleric's original initiative was 25, NPC1 was 20, NPC2 was 15.

Cleric delays on 25 because nothing has happened yet. NPC1 downs the fighter on 20. Cleric then decides to act on 19. That is a proper use of delay. He's not metagaming or using any knowledge he would not have had had he rolled 19. The only difference is the luck of the roll. High rolls are supposed to be beneficial. There is no reason to penalize him by forcing him to go at that point.

People keep calling rolling a high init a penalty or a punishment. It's not. It's the best possible outcome. Just because a player whose PC has a high initiative cannot do the best possible tactic he can think of does not make it a penalty.

If the above happens and Cleric wants to act once he sees NPC2 go over to coup de gras the fighter, that is not a proper use of delay. NPC2 started acting and the cleric is effectively trying to take his full suite of actions in the middle of NPC2's turn after he learns NPC2's nefarious plan. That is metagaming. The player is trying to learn what NPC2 is doing and interrupt it during NPC2's turn and still get a full allotment of actions. The only way you can interrupt an action like this is to guess the fighter is in danger ahead of time and declare a readied action. If NPC2 does not attack the fighter again, the cleric wastes the readied action, but that is the risk he assumed when he readied. In this scenario, if the cleric delayed, once NPC2 starts his turn the cleric can't act until after NPC2 is done.

I don't think you are understanding my point.

It has nothing to do with interrupting an action mid-turn and everything to do with the ability to instantly react (between turns) to events.


Let's take a real world example.

1) SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is readying an action. If the bad guy shows his head, the sniper is going to fire.

2) SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is delaying an action. The bad guy shows his head and fires his weapon. Before the other police who were pointing their guns in that direction can shoot the bad guy (because they were not delaying), the sniper takes his weapon out, moves 30 feet, and fires. This is what delay appears to be like because the PC can react to the results of any event (between turns) faster than anyone else.

Sorry, but I think that is cheesy and I cannot explain it any better. Maybe somebody else can. It's metagaming in the sense that it is a nonsensical game mechanic that does not really emulate delaying in the real world like readying emulates "preparing to fire".

Delaying in the real world means that you can only start to move once you decide to do so, not that you can not only move, you can race across the room, pull out your weapon, and attack before the people on that side of the room can do anything.

Yes, I get how these rules work mechanically, but I am not talking about mechanically. I'm talking from a feasibility POV. Delay has always been this weird anomaly from a plausibility perspective.

 

[Kaychsea]

I'm with KD on this one. The second example is worse than it looks because the sniper can move 15' take his shot and then move back to cover before the bad guy can duck back behind his, which you would assume he had planned.
I don't like Delay as an interrupt but have no real feel for a problem by slotting in behind another initiative, so you can go on an initiative after an opponent or fellow team member but not on the same initiative. I might even go so far as to say you go on the next free initiative step after a character. So if your Rogue wants to go after the Fighter 0n 12 and there are opponents and other characters acting on 11, 10 and 9, you are going on 8. Needs some thiinking about though.

As to everybody acting as a finely honed machine like a modern SWAT team, doesn't this all go out of the window when the Barb rages?

 

[sithramir]

Its the ability to move and attack that really convinces me its not balanced.

Readying to throw a dagger at the first NPC the fighter engages still allows sneak but seems more balanced to me.

Also the turn where the wizard "finishes" his fireball seem odd that someone suddenly moves attacks etc before it goes off.

You aren't actually faster in everything because you are high initiative. You just reacted faster. If you WERE faster why don't you get more attacks than everyone else? High Dex means you generally react slightly faster but that's it. Its 6 seconds. If rounds were longer time it might be different

 

[SilentBoba]

The arguments for and against delaying are quite interesting, if a bit heated. I think for our group we might go with a "slot" approach for round 1 only. Each PC or monster group/named NPC rolls initiative as normal, but the result is an open slot at that initiative count. When the slot comes up for the first time, someone on that team takes the slot, and that is their initiative count for the rest of the battle. Moving forward, there are no delays, only Go/Ready/Dodge.

I've always hated the idea of a group kicking open a door, then immediately rolling for initiative leading to the front liners suddenly standing still as statues (with crappy initiative) while two characters behind them with much higher initiatives stand and pick their noses. Always this led to the inevitable "I hold my action" nonsense. The concept of slots is the quick 2nd rank folk (who rolled high init) see into the room around the tanks and prompt their friends into action: "charge the archer to the right you great lummox!" It's still to the party's benefit to roll the best initiative slots they can (perhaps augmented by the Alert feat, which makes the description above even more appropriate), but good rolls aren't wasted and initiative tracks don't need to be fiddled with after round one.

 

[KarinsDad]

As to everybody acting as a finely honed machine like a modern SWAT team, doesn't this all go out of the window when the Barb rages?

It goes out the window the moment it's a player's turn to go about 25% of the time.


This actually happened in our game last session:

PC 1: "I drop the Moonbeam spell (he has it from a DM created magic item) on the two closest foes."

Now, this is either a great move, or a terrible move at this point since these 2 foes are heavily wounded (both had been hit twice already and this had been a running battle where the same type of guys had each taken 2 to 3 hits each to take out). This means that the spell will most likely kill them at the start of their next turn. But, the player does not say this (he might not have figured it out). So what happens? Instead of gang piling on the fresh guy in the back (which is what a finely honed machine of a team would do, they would know to ignore wounded foes targeted by this spell), our group gang piles on these two guys that for all intents and purposes, are already dead.

I tend to not table talk when I notice stuff like this, instead I might mention it after the fight or whatever. Our PCs might not actually know that a third hit will probably smoke these guys, but it's something an experienced player often just notices. Our group allows players to talk in character outside their normal turn, or cross table talk out of character about tactics, but these are not habits that I have ever gotten into, at least for metagame stuff like this. I tend to only do this type of thing for unusual situations (like a brand new player to the game, or for a potential party TPK). But I must have rolled my eyes or something after the second player attacked and killed one of these two because someone asked me about it. At that point, both NPCs were dead and those two sets of PC actions had been totally wasted on dead guys.

Course, just a few turns earlier than the moonbeam spell, a PC could have taken out one of these guys with an arrow (they were standing right next to each other and not supplying cover), but instead of attacking the foe with two wounds, he attacked the one with one wound.

At least at our table, the group rarely acts like a finely honed machine.

 

[thalmin]

People keep calling rolling a high init a penalty or a punishment. It's not. It's the best possible outcome. Just because a player whose PC has a high initiative cannot do the best possible tactic he can think of does not make it a penalty.



I don't think you are understanding my point.

It has nothing to do with interrupting an action mid-turn and everything to do with the ability to instantly react (between turns) to events.


Let's take a real world example.

1) SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is readying an action. If the bad guy shows his head, the sniper is going to fire.

2) SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is delaying an action. The bad guy shows his head and fires his weapon. Before the other police who were pointing their guns in that direction can shoot the bad guy (because they were not delaying), the sniper takes his weapon out, moves 30 feet, and fires. This is what delay appears to be like because the PC can react to the results of any event (between turns) faster than anyone else.

Sorry, but I think that is cheesy and I cannot explain it any better. Maybe somebody else can. It's metagaming in the sense that it is a nonsensical game mechanic that does not really emulate delaying in the real world like readying emulates "preparing to fire".

Delaying in the real world means that you can only start to move once you decide to do so, not that you can not only move, you can race across the room, pull out your weapon, and attack before the people on that side of the room can do anything.

Yes, I get how these rules work mechanically, but I am not talking about mechanically. I'm talking from a feasibility POV. Delay has always been this weird anomaly from a plausibility perspective.

Your example of the SWAT team is not about changing initiative on the first or surprise round. Everyone is already in position (except the sniper in 2). Obviously the first round (or several rounds) have been spent assessing the situation and assigning tasks, then getting into position. All are aware of everybody else (though the sniper may have made his stealth roll and the bad guy is unaware of him).
And, yes, in my games initiative is rolled when combatants are first aware a combat is immanent.
I am not a fan of delaying initiative after the first (or surprise) round, for situations like the example you cited above. Delaying must be done before ANY action starts.

 

[KarinsDad]

Your example of the SWAT team is not about changing initiative on the first or surprise round. Everyone is already in position (except the sniper in 2). Obviously the first round (or several rounds) have been spent assessing the situation and assigning tasks, then getting into position. All are aware of everybody else (though the sniper may have made his stealth roll and the bad guy is unaware of him).
And, yes, in my games initiative is rolled when combatants are first aware a combat is immanent.
I am not a fan of delaying initiative after the first (or surprise) round, for situations like the example you cited above. Delaying must be done before ANY action starts.

Yes, I am talking about normal Delay (i.e. as written in 3E and 4E).

Maybe we should call the idea of lowering the initiative number when they are first rolled something else, like "Init Drop" so as to not get confused with Delay (which actually has a historic game mechanic meaning in D&D).

 

[Ruzak]

Disallowing delay adds more variety in initiative order from one encounter to the next. Instead of always falling into the same routine, each battle unfolds differently. I personally like this chaotic skirmish more than the practiced SWAT team procedure.

 

[Moorcrys]

I think having the option to delay on the first round is a fine house rule. You're giving the PC who rolled well a bit of advantage when the combat begins to choose their place in it.

Post top-of-combat, I'm with a bunch of other folks who've posted above. I •like• 'ready' as the go-to. The Ready action is an active choice - the character is preparing to do something at 'just the right moment'. It allows things to go wrong, and it still heightens the tension of the combat in some way... 'Will this thing happen or not so that I can do what I plan to do?' Sure many SWAT teams are well-oiled machines, but if there's a snafu, even the best team needs a second or two to recover and adjust. In my opinion, they don't immediately and without delay adjust to a circumstance that wasn't expected or planned for. Delay is a catch-all and passive - a player can delay for anything without defining it... 'I don't know what to do so I'll delay until I have a better option.' Its general vs. specific to me. I like the character needing to define their action in a combat round when it's their turn in a specific way, and to me the Ready action forces them to do that. The delay action does not.

But again, I agree with you that the higher init character should be able to place themselves wherever they wish at the top of the combat. It's the perk of being the high roller. After that, however, I think they're in the thick of it and should be readying actions.