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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6989194" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Delay comes from my experience with fencing, and the fact that you sometimes want an opponent to commit to an action before choosing your response; so you wait a beat. Delay is about gaining an information advantage when declaring actions, whereas Readying is about gaining a speed advantage when resolving actions. Ready lets you win any relevant initiative contests except against someone else who's already got a Readied action on the same trigger.*There's a big difference between doing Delay to emulate side initiative because it simplifies your workload in this particular large combat, and actually adopting side initiative. For one thing, if you adopt side initiative, you can't spontaneously switch back on Round 3 of the combat because you see an opportunity. Round 3, Peter has fallen prone because the wolf knocked him down, and instead of Delaying, all of the monsters this time try to hammer Peter before he can get up.Delay is also important for helping combat and non-combat flows to mesh together smoothly. Since everyone is implicitly Delaying unless they say they're not (and if everyone Delays then the round ends), players can have a shouted conversation with the bandits on the other side of the barricade, negotiating a surrender, without feeling like not declaring an Attack at every opportunity is granting the bandits a needless advantage. If the players talk, and the bandits treacherously storm the barricade and attack, the PCs haven't lost a full round of combat--they've only lost initiative. I like the effect this has had on my game.* As a side note, even under PHB rules, you're still going to need a resolution procedure like an initiative contest for resolving multiple Readied Actions on the same trigger. Does "I, Ron, stab Harry as soon as the handkerchief drops" happen before or after "I, Harry, shoot Ron as soon as the handkerchief drops"? No matter whether you're using PHB initiative or declare/act system like mine, you still need some resolution procedure, even if it's just "they both happen simultaneously."</blockquote>

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