D&D 5E 5E and delaying your turn.

[UngeheuerLich]

I like a house rule that you can Delay your turn on Round One only. When we get to the top of Round Two, the order is cast in stone for the rest of the encounter.

This lets the Rogue - if he thinks of it - delay until the Fighter moves up and hits something, then take his turn and double-team it.
It also lets me as DM do the same with the monsters. Why is that Kobold running over to the PCs all by himself to Cower Grovel and Beg? (Bwahahaha)

That is definitely a possibilty.
I also thought about using the vatiant initiative rule, were you first announce and then roll for initiative each round of combat with modifiers depending on what you do, butonly in the first round and then leveave the order for the rest of the combat.

 

[Lanefan]

Delay makes "until the start/end of your next turn" not work.

Either the end/start if your next turn follows the delay or not.

If end follows, you can use delay to extend buffs, including "radiating" ones, longer than anticipated.

Not if someone bothers to track the initiative count that your effect started on, and has it end on that initiative count next round whether your turn still falls on that count or not.

Broader point: "until end of your next turn" is really stupid wording.

If you want an (almost) expoit free verson:

Reorder action. You pick a creature. If they also do the reorder action picking you, you and the creature swap locations in the initiative order next round.

This is costly, and I could probably still exploit it.

"Going right after" is a powerful gamist feature of combat. Not being able to control it means it doesn't have as lasting a strategic value. Delay reitroduces it.

Combat is chaotic ...

Exactly, which is why initiative (preferably with reduced or no modifiers) should ideally be re-rolled every round. Cyclic initiative is pure gamism and as anti-fog-of-war as it gets.

This can still be exploited via delays etc. but at least this way it's only for one round at a time and doesn't stay locked in.

 

[Lanefan]

No, speed of play is important, and extra decision points slow down play.

What is the benefit of that extra decision point ("should I take my turn") to the value of play? I'd argue it has low benefit; not "benefit to the character doing it" but "benefit to combat being fun".

The cost is real.

And the bigger the benefit to the player making that decision, the higher the cost, because you have to consider it more.

When making a game, you have a "decision budget" in a sense. If you have too many important decisions for a player to make on their turn, the turn takes too long.

Not if the DM is consistently a little bit harsh in saying "Make up your mind now or you're doing nothing at all this round". Do this for a while and indecisive players get pretty darned decisive.

If you have a ridiculously long "alternative initiative system", the question is how much fun does all of those rules add to the game? I really, really get the fun of writing simulation rules and complex rules, but having piles of rules cruft in actual play is a bad thing.

Depends on what the "rules cruft" is, and how easy it all is to grok for the average player.

We have a homebrew initiative system which would take a Wall of Text spell to explain in full here but which runs smooth as silk in play, largely because as a system it's pretty easy to grasp once you've seen it in action and-or used it.

 

[Lanefan]

I for one am glad they got rid of the delay action. I feel like the delay action is one of those rules that is either never used by a group, except in rare circumstances and doesn't really cause problems, or used all of the time and becomes very metagamey and really slows down the game.

In both third and forth editions the most optimal way of playing in a lot of situations is having an entire party delay their turns so they can all act at the same time.

How is this possible by RAW in either 3e or 4e, which don't allow simultaneous initiatives?

And there's a pretty easy way to snuff this simply by a) using the no-simultaniety RAW, b) saying only one combatant can gets its 'action' per initiative count, c) saying you can't delay on to an initiative count that's already occupied by something/someone else, and d) saying anything delayed past init count 1 is lost.

Thus, if I'm the lowest PC roll in the party and my initiative is a 4 then only three other PCs can delay behind me, on counts 3, 2 and 1 - assuming no opponent is already holding any of those slots. Anyone delaying beyond that has gone off the end of the round and their turn(s) is(are) lost.

Having one side able to make all of their attacks without their enemy getting a change to heal or reposition between attacks is a big advantage. Having a whole party delay their turns does let all of your enemies attack in a row, but the delay action also lets you jump in at any point in the initiative and heal or move if you need to respond to an attack, and if you don't need to respond to your enemies you get to gang up on them.

I'd say that if someone declares they're delaying, pin it down to an actual spot in the initiative order e.g. "I'll delay until right after Falstaffe's turn" - Falstaffe's on an 11 which puts you on a 10 - and then lock it in; you can use your reaction earlier but your main action does not happen until a 10.

The DM is then faced with a choice. He can either ignore the party delay chaining, and give them a big advantage. He can also have the monsters delay their turns to act together, which leads to focus fire, which can easily kill characters. Which can lead to players feeling picked on and hurt feelings. Or the DM can get into a delay war with the players. "I delay until after your turn." "Well, I delay until after your turn." "Well, I ready an action to attack after you start to attack." etc. This is just the worst kind of metagame nit picky play that isn't really fun for anyone.

In the fiction this would equate to what I call a Canadian standoff: "After you." "No, I insist, you first." etc. - they all have weapons and components in hand but nobody wants to be the first to actually use one.

 

[Lanefan]

A player's turn is for acting in my view, not for thinking about what to do. That's what they should have been doing on other people's turns. I instill this philosophy in my players such that it's seen as inconsiderate of other people's time not to be ready. As such, there's no need for Delay options.

Indecision and the Delay option are not related. I can very decisively choose to Delay!

I'm a front-line fighter and I know damn well my action this round is going to be to charge those cultists and lay a beating on 'em. My friend the wizard wants to soften 'em up with a fireball first, though.

My initiative is 16. Wizzie's is 12. You can bet your boots I'm waiting till that fireball's gone off before I charge in!

 

[Tallifer]

I play a lot of 4E now on discord, and delaying never causes any slowing down: in fact it speeds things up.
1. If you know you want your ally to cast a certain spell before you get in his way; or if you know you want to charge in and secure the front line to protect your teammates; then everyone quickly knows whether to delay or not.
2. If you are stuck for a choice of action because of a sticky situation, the easiest thing is to say "I delay," so that another player who is raring to go can quickly resolve his turn while you deliberate.
2A. sometimes the dungeon master himself will tell a dithering player or a player who has to look up his spell/feat/etc, "Fine, you delay, and I will get back to you."

 

[Olrox17]

Our group brought back delaying in 5e day one. We just think that the loss of speed is worth the increase in tactical options. YMMV.

 

[77IM]

Another thing to consider: Readying, as written, is one of the very most confusing rules to new/casual players. The people on this forum include a higher-than-typical number of rules junkies who very quickly grok Ready and its effects on the action economy. But for regular people it's a big ??? ??? And I'll bet you gold pieces to goodberries that the majority of gaming groups get the spellcasting part of Ready wrong.

Delay is much, much easier to understand (except the part about re-ordering initiative, which isn't really necessary to the rule) and I'm having trouble thinking of a scenario where extending beneficial effects is really very abusive. So what if you get to Dodge a few more attacks; you also delayed your turn, which maybe you could have used to pre-empt some of those attacks.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Another thing to consider: Readying, as written, is one of the very most confusing rules to new/casual players. The people on this forum include a higher-than-typical number of rules junkies who very quickly grok Ready and its effects on the action economy. But for regular people it's a big ??? ??? And I'll bet you gold pieces to goodberries that the majority of gaming groups get the spellcasting part of Ready wrong.

Delay is much, much easier to understand (except the part about re-ordering initiative, which isn't really necessary to the rule) and I'm having trouble thinking of a scenario where extending beneficial effects is really very abusive. So what if you get to Dodge a few more attacks; you also delayed your turn, which maybe you could have used to pre-empt some of those attacks.

I agree that Readying is confusing, but that's because its intended use is really more to make your action a reaction than to change where you are in the initiative order.

But yeah, even as someone who likes Ready better than letting people shift their turn orders around, I think it is unnecessarily complicated and punitive as written. It's enough to have to burn my action to get to maybe take it later under better circumstances at the cost of my reaction, I shouldn't have to give up extra attacks as well or commit to using the spell slot.

 

[jgsugden]

I allow Delay:

• In round one, or
• As a use of Inspiration.

If you're under a negative condition, and delaying would pull you out of it (either because it expires naturally or the source loses concentration, etc...), I'll preserve the challenge for you so that it is not a way to bypass the effect.