D&D 5E Initiative and Delay

[Kai Wren]

I'm going to hold up my hands and admit that I only read to like... page 3 before the aggressive tone on all sides made me give up.

I will chime in to add that it would literally never occur to me to restrict players to acting in a particular order just because initiative has been rolled. In every RPG I have ever played, players who gain the ability to act first may choose to act later as the combat round progresses, or not at all if their 'I hold my action' declaration winds up being all they accomplish.

I don't anticipate that keeping this assumption in play will cause my table to burst into flames and kill all concerned, but if it does I will endeavor to post back with my final breath.

 

[Moorcrys]

Please link to pics when you do. I want to see the carnage.

 

[Piratecat]

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.
...

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.

So, I get that this breaks your suspension of disbelief, and lord knows I can't argue against that. What I don't understand is why this is any cheesier than normal D&D combat mechanics for initiative. An example:

SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is delaying an action. The bad guy shows his head and fires his weapon, then runs 30 feet to hide behind a pillar. Neither the sniper or any other cop reacts. The sniper still delays; one cop runs around to the far side of the pillar, and shoots at the bad guy. The bad guy doesn't shoot him en route. Before any other cop reacts, the sniper runs 30 feet on the roof (to try and get a better shot) and fires. A second cop runs 30 feet and fires. The bad guy still doesn't try to shoot anyone.

See what I mean? The D&D initiative system means that someone can always race across the room, pull out their weapon, and attack before the people on that side of the room can do anything. It's the tradeoff for rules that emulate combat instead of simulate it.

As a result, delaying an action doesn't bother me at all; I'd have to reject the whole "take turns and attack" idea, and that way lies madness.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, I get that this breaks your suspension of disbelief, and lord knows I can't argue against that. What I don't understand is why this is any cheesier than normal D&D combat mechanics for initiative. An example:

SWAT has a sniper on the roof. He is delaying an action. The bad guy shows his head and fires his weapon, then runs 30 feet to hide behind a pillar. Neither the sniper or any other cop reacts. The sniper still delays; one cop runs around to the far side of the pillar, and shoots at the bad guy. The bad guy doesn't shoot him en route. Before any other cop reacts, the sniper runs 30 feet on the roof (to try and get a better shot) and fires. A second cop runs 30 feet and fires. The bad guy still doesn't try to shoot anyone.

See what I mean? The D&D initiative system means that someone can always race across the room, pull out their weapon, and attack before the people on that side of the room can do anything. It's the tradeoff for rules that emulate combat instead of simulate it.

As a result, delaying an action doesn't bother me at all; I'd have to reject the whole "take turns and attack" idea, and that way lies madness.

Except that the Ready action handles the scenario you just described and the Ready action emulate real world "if x, than y" much better than the Delay action emulates "waiting".

I totally get what you are saying, but the difference is that the Delaying character can react instantaneously (between turns) to any event, he does not just get to do it when it's his turn. Sure, every player gets to do this (move, attack, move) every single round, but they do not get to decide "when" to do this.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

As a result, delaying an action doesn't bother me at all; I'd have to reject the whole "take turns and attack" idea, and that way lies madness.

So, in the "good old days" of AD&D we had declared intentions before initiative, initiative rolls every round, and "simultaneous" action. I agree: that way lies madness.

Has anyone out there come up with a happy medium between the madness and "stop action animation" of turn-based initiative?

 

[Piratecat]

Delay provides flexibility in exchange for possibly missing an opportunity.

Ready: "when a bad guy shows his head, I shoot him then run down this staircase." The bad guy shows his head. Turns out it's the sniper's brother. The sniper can use his reaction to shoot him anyways before the bad guy gets to further act, and then the sniper runs down the staircase, or the sniper ignores the trigger (not using his reaction yet.)

Delay: The bad guy shows his head, and the sniper realizes it's his brother. The bad guy shoots and moves behind a pillar. The sniper can now act and do whatever he wants, but he has sacrificed that clear shot in exchange for flexibility. Instead of shooting (because he's an awful cop), he fishes out his cell phone and calls their mom, hoping she can talk his brother into surrendering.

I really see a place for both actions. There are times when you know what you want to do, and times when you don't but are willing to take the tradeoff of sacrificing interruption for flexibility. Since it doesn't bother me, or take extra time in our game, I'm happy to offer both to my players.

 

[Piratecat]

Has anyone out there come up with a happy medium between the madness and "stop action animation" of turn-based initiative?

I tried to in Owl Hoot Trail -- declare your action at the top of the round. Want to change it? Go last in the round and suffer some penalties -- but I think that's the only part of that game that could use some tweaking.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, in the "good old days" of AD&D we had declared intentions before initiative, initiative rolls every round, and "simultaneous" action. I agree: that way lies madness.

Has anyone out there come up with a happy medium between the madness and "stop action animation" of turn-based initiative?

I think I would say "that way lies chaos".

And it was a lot of fun back in the day.

In fact, I think that with the advent of fast applications on iPhones and such, the game could actually go back in that direction.

DM presses a button and all initiatives are instantly rolled. DM calls out each PC's name in order of init and the player of that PC declares actions.

 

[Tormyr]

The thread turned in a bit of tl;dr for me, but what I never understood was why it would make such a big deal to delay your first turn to have it affect the rest of your turns (that is what delay does, right?). Since initiative is cyclical, the people who rolled high will be going after the people who rolled low already. It just happens on the next round. The ready action could still work for someone in this situation who really does not want to go first. They can declare they will attack X after Y goes. Of course, if Y never acts that round, then the first person wasted their turn.

 

[Mistwell]

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

This is what is bizarre to me. That power exists in the game already, for all players. If you happen to roll where you'd prefer to go, the ability works. So, it can't be balanced around that concept - you can't assume where the player will be going and they might well be going after their ally takes a turn.

The concept of First Strike already exists in RPG lexicon, so I suppose the concept I am talking about here is Last Strike, or Later Strike. The ability to move your initiative count down one time, and only in the first round. It doesn't delay things, it doesn't cause a hideous amount of more tactical play in the game, and I really don't see how it's unbalancing given it can already work out that way so it can't be for balance reasons that the current rules are written that way.