Question about Refocus

[Longdale]

Could someone pity me and explain refocus, and exactly how it's suppose to work (how many actions do you lose?)

I say it works one way, my group says another. We have all read the rules, and the text is tricky. So not to bias you by what we say, I will leave our thoughts out. We all decided this would be the proper place to find out.

Long

 

[CRGreathouse]

People and their initiatiative counts:


D goes first and takes some action. C goes next and refocuses, putting his initiative at 23. B delays. A acts. B chooses to act now, lowering his initiative to 4.

The next round starts:
Charles 23
Dan 20
Andy 5
Bob 4

C goes, followed by D, A, and B.

What's so hard?

 

[Artoomis]

Description: Refocus is a full-round action during which a combatant cannot move. The combatant moves up in the initiative count and is positioned as though it had rolled a 20 on the initiative check. Other modifiers (such as for Dexterity and for the Improved Initiative feat) also apply to this roll of 20 when determining the new initiative check result.

Refocus is your action, it changes your intiative, and you act again when your new initive comes up.

Why you'd want to refocus is pretty much beyond me, though. "Let's see - I'll give up all my actions so I can act later - but I'll have a higher iniative number, won't that be cool?"

Delay does pretty much the same thing.

Please don't ask how Refocus works with Haste.

 

[Virago]

Refocus, first of all, is an almost worthless action.

From the sage advice supplemental pages of the PHB 2nd edition:

"About the only time refocus isn't a foolish thing to do is when you've got absolutely nothing useful to do anyway."

This is not entirely correct, because if you use the rules in the DMG for characters entering an already-ongoing fight, it might turn out to be useful to have a high initiative. However, those rules are kinda stupid, so I wouldn't use them.

Second of all, I'd recommend your group move to a fully cyclical initiative system (if you haven't), in which you ignore the negative limits for Delays, and in which you basically ignore initiative scores once they have been used to determine action order. Refocus then ceases to exist.

Thirdly, to answer your question, I'll use an example.

Suppose there are three people fighting, A, B, and C. Here's what they roll in total for initiative.

A - 21 (initiative bonus +1)
B - 12 (initiative bonus +4)
C - 4 (initiative bonus +3)

The normal sequence of actions will be:
A, B, C -- A, B, C -- A, B, C -- ...
The dashes indicate an initiatve round boundary, which has almost no effects on game play.

Now when someone refocuses, they lose all their actions this initiative round. They can't even move. They will go again in the next initiative round as if they'd rolled a 20.

So, if A refocuses, the sequence changes to:
B, C -- A, B, C -- A, B, C
Meaning A has given up an entire action to no purpose whatsoever.

If B refocuses, the sequence becomes:
A, C -- B, A, C -- B, A, C
Meaning B has essentially bumped himself down in order to go after C, to no purpose whatsoever, since this sequence is the same as (A, C, B -- A, C, B -- )...

If C refocuses, the sequence is now:
A, B -- C, A, B -- C, A, B --
Which means C has not really lost anything, but has accomplished nothing besides raising his initative, which I think only matters for the sole case of the DMG rules for entering into the middle of combat.

If you are using those rules, and you are going near the end of the initiative sequence, and a Refocus would put you at or near the beginning -- then you might consider doing a Refocus, in a "why not" kind of way.

 

[Virago]

Artoomis wrote:
Please don't ask how Refocus works with Haste.

I was just wondering that!

Suppose you do this for your action:

(partial attack, refocus)

Now, suppose you were last in initiative but refocus moves you to first. So it's your turn again immediately, and now you do:

(full attack, partial attack).

To the rest of the world, it looks like you did this:

(partial attack, full attack, partial attack)



My advice is to forget Refocus was ever in the rulebook, and just let people Delay to their hearts' content.

 

[Longdale]

What's so hard?

Well it isn't hard. It wasn't clear.

And clippy remarks arn't really needed barring you aren't the Sage...

Anyway. Thanks for the remarks gang. I pretty much agree with you all. The basic problem that was being discussed was whether or not the person lost all actions (even counting haste, timestop, or other functions that may seem funny).

Long

 

[CRGreathouse]

Well it isn't hard. It wasn't clear.

And clippy remarks arn't really needed barring you aren't the Sage...

Anyway. Thanks for the remarks gang. I pretty much agree with you all. The basic problem that was being discussed was whether or not the person lost all actions (even counting haste, timestop, or other functions that may seem funny).

I' not the Sage, but it wasn't a "clippy" remark. You didn't explain *what* your problem was, so I had to cover everything. The question was to find out what part you had a problem with - if, for example, you were asking about Refocus/haste (above).

 

[KarinsDad]

Artoomis wrote:
Suppose you do this for your action:

(partial attack, refocus)

Actually, Haste and Refocus work fine together (considering that Refocus does next to nothing).

PHB 134.

"A character can choose to do nothing for an entire round and refocus his thoughts as he gets his bearings and appraises the situation."

Since doing a partial action before attempting to refocus is actually not doing "nothing for an entire round", you really cannot Refocus while Hasted without losing all of your Haste actions for that round: at least literally according to the text.

I' not the Sage, but it wasn't a "clippy" remark. You didn't explain *what* your problem was, so I had to cover everything. The question was to find out what part you had a problem with - if, for example, you were asking about Refocus/haste (above).

Sounded clippy to me too. I sometimes respond this way (“What’s so hard?” “Why is this so difficult?”), but usually it is after I explain something a few times and someone still doesn’t (or refuses to) get it, not the first response I make in the thread. I think the way you intended that question is different than the way some of us read it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

"A character can choose to do nothing for an entire round and refocus his thoughts as he gets his bearings and appraises the situation."

Since doing a partial action before attempting to refocus is actually not doing "nothing for an entire round", you really cannot Refocus while Hasted without losing all of your Haste actions for that round: at least literally according to the text.

Would you make that another exception (along with Quicken Spell) to your "Hasted actions are separate" rule for once-a-round events?

(To avoid misunderstanding, this is a serious question, not a snipe.)

-Hyp.

 

[Virago]

I'd second what Hypersmurf said -- KD, you've argued in another thread for interpreting the extra partial from haste as being essentially in another round. The quote you pointed out is valid -- but is it so from you?