[3.5e] Refocus... gone!

[Ysgarran]

This is exactly the way we play the game. I've seen it used most often in my players when they wanted to wait until something moved into range for a spell, a charge, etc.

I never understood why you couldn't have just delayed until the init you wanted to go on, anyway. Made more sense than the "artificial" round cutoff, anyway.

 

[Marimmar]

Well a lot of my players liked the idea of going FIRST in a round so they refocused, especially those that rolled low and had massive init boosters. More of a psychological thing, when they delayed it was usually because they didn't have anything to do anyway.

~Marimmar

 

[Moxie]

Maybe I read my 3.5 book wrong but I thought you could Delay an action until the end of the round, but you can Ready an action that lasts until your next initiative.

I wish I had my book at work.

 

[Christian]

The SRD says that you can delay all the way until your next action. (Which doesn't necessarily mean that's what it says in the book, of course.)

 

[buzz]

The SRD says that you can delay all the way until your next action. (Which doesn't necessarily mean that's what it says in the book, of course.)

The book does say this. So, ergo, you can Delay until a point in initiative that is "before" everyone else, so I suppose that it makes Refocus moot.

I also seem to remember one of the designers, back when 3e was released, saying that Refocus was more of a "feel good" thing anyway. I.e., "Look at my kewl new init score, dude!"

I'm not complaining that it's gone, but rather wanted to claim rights to spotting a change no else had mentioned yet.

 

[Negative Zero]

guess i was mistaken, i like the new rule better too. makes more sense.

~NegZ

 

[Green Knight]

Ok, so you can just delay til you get to an Initiative count better than what you rolled?

Example: Let's say I'm the Human Paladin. Here're the Init rolls.

Halfling Rogue 16
Elf Ranger 15
Elf Wizard 12
Orcs 11
Human Cleric 9
Dwarf Barbarian 7
Human Paladin 3

So can I Delay to a point AHEAD of my init count? Say 14? I always used Refocus when I rolled REALLY crappily for Init, so I hope it's not entirely gone.

 

[seasong]

The new rule makes more sense, but I take issue with the people who are saying it was useless before.

I'm running a Game of Death right now, and *every round* there has been at least one character take Refocus in order to gain advantage in the initiative order. A Game of Death is a competition where kills = points, so quite a few players felt it was useful in such a context.

 

[James McMurray]

but after the first round, initiative order is pointless. In fact, under the proper circumstances, using refocus would actually give your opponents extra actions.

For example:

Joe Init 12
Bob Init 7
Fred Init 2

If bob ues his action to refocus to a 24, he has effectivle be letting Fred go before him. Over the course of two rounds it would look like this:

Joe -12
Bob - 7 (refocus)
Fred - 2
Bob - 24
Joe - 12
Fred - 2

Bob has effectively moved himself to the end of the initiative order, as if he'd rolled a 1:

Joe - 12
Fred - 2
Bob - 1
Joe - 12
Fred - 2
Bob - 1

See, refocus is pointless. The only time I ever saw refocus used was if someone wanted to delay until they couldn't delay any more, then refocus in order to conitnue their delay into the next round.

 

[Rune]

Because initiative is cyclical, the actual number doesn't really matter after the first round. What does matter is turn order, which, with the refocus action in 3.0, could be altered. Now that the delay action works cyclically, it can be used to (effectively) change turn order in the same way. In essence, refocus wasn't trashed completely, it was folded into delay (sure, delay isn't permanent, but you can delay each turn if you want. Effectively, same thing.).

Edit-D'oh! Beaten to the punch!