D&D 5E Initiative and Delay

[Black Knight Irios]

Does this mean you also allow your more intelligent and-or organized and-or lawful-aligned opponents the same consideration; that you-as-DM can set the order in which they act when not surprised? I ask because if you don't you're perhaps unintentionally giving the adventurers a rather significant advantage.

Also, is every character in the party lawful enough to always want to go along with such military-style sequencing?

Lanefan

Do you imply that only lawful characters are allowed to fight tactical? That makes no sense. That would mean that followers of chaotic deities who are themselves chaotic would behave like idiots on the battlefield because they are not lawful enough to use tactics?

I mean I do understand what you want to say. Does the chaotic raging Half-Orc barbarian really want to adhere to such tactical desicions? Maybe yes, maybe no.

But on the other hand, does chaotic mean that the character/monster has to act in a stupid way just to be more chaotic?

Does alignment impact every aspect of your life? I don't think so. But we are actually going to discuss alignment if we pursue this topic any further.

 

[KarinsDad]

Do you imply that only lawful characters are allowed to fight tactical? That makes no sense. That would mean that followers of chaotic deities who are themselves chaotic would behave like idiots on the battlefield because they are not lawful enough to use tactics?

I mean I do understand what you want to say. Does the chaotic raging Half-Orc barbarian really want to adhere to such tactical desicions? Maybe yes, maybe no.

But on the other hand, does chaotic mean that the character/monster has to act in a stupid way just to be more chaotic?

Does alignment impact every aspect of your life? I don't think so. But we are actually going to discuss alignment if we pursue this topic any further.

I don't think it is a matter of alignment, I think it is a matter of motivation (of which alignment is a part, but not the entire part).

I think that many players who play a chaotic Barbarian PC would just rush in. Sure, they might be messing up the Wizard's Fireball, but they don't particularly care based on PC motivation. Once in a blue moon when the stacks are really high, the rest of the team can probably talk the PC Barbarian into not rushing in and waiting for the fireball. Otherwise, "Better luck next time Poindexter" the barbarian says with a hearty laugh.

 

[Lanefan]

Do you imply that only lawful characters are allowed to fight tactical? That makes no sense. That would mean that followers of chaotic deities who are themselves chaotic would behave like idiots on the battlefield because they are not lawful enough to use tactics?

I mean I do understand what you want to say. Does the chaotic raging Half-Orc barbarian really want to adhere to such tactical desicions? Maybe yes, maybe no.

But on the other hand, does chaotic mean that the character/monster has to act in a stupid way just to be more chaotic?

Does alignment impact every aspect of your life? I don't think so. But we are actually going to discuss alignment if we pursue this topic any further.

OK, where it says "lawful" read "co-operative" and you'll see where I'm going.

I know when I play any character - even the goodly co-operative ones - the *last* thing I want is just to be doing what I'm told all the time; and that's what these uber-tactical game styles inevitably end up as: the master tactician telling everyone else in great detail what to do (and then getting annoyed at people like me who don't follow orders very well).

I'd far rather just get in there and give'er, and see how it all shakes out.

Lan-"if you don't want me to hit it with a sword, don't put it in front of me"-efan

 

[Teflon Billy]

I see no problem allowing the high initiative character taking her action when it's most advantageous. It makes no sense to penalize a character for being extra alert/ready/whatever.

I want to see alternative initiative rules to get rid of cyclical rounds. I think that would help alleviate this problem.

Yeah, I'm with Brent, we were playing with Delay just because we were used to it and it's pretty intuitive at this point. I'm not sure what Karin's Dad means when he says it's time consuming, I use a magnet board (or recipe cards) for initiative, so delaying/holding/readying are all easy as hell.

We were playing with it during the playtest because we missed it while reading. It didn't jump out at us as anything that needed a "fix"

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm not sure what Karin's Dad means when he says it's time consuming, I use a magnet board (or recipe cards) for initiative, so delaying/holding/readying are all easy as hell.

Well, there are two aspects to that:

1) Tables where initiative is written down on a piece of paper or some such. Moving init then can be a bit time consuming, especially if it is done a lot and can be done in every round. But, this would not happen at your table.

2) Tables where the player doing the Delay is slow or asks a bunch of questions. I could easily see such a player asking if he can do x, y, or z, and then deciding to not do so. Even deciding whether to Delay in the first place can take some time. Later on in the round, the same thing happens when he wonders if he should take his turn or not. Finally, the player takes a turn and again he is slow. So instead of one set of slowness / question asking, it might be 2 or more because the player might be stopping the game to ask questions more often.

As a general rule, removing Delay at most means a little bit less table talk and less "tactical discussions" because players really can only act on their init (even readying, everything but the dice rolling is done on the PC's actual init). And table talk can slow up a game. "Hey, if you Delay, then I can move this guy into position so that your Fireball hits one more guy.".

Not a problem at most tables. I think it is mostly a simplification by the game designers to not have initiatives moving at all.

 

[Kaychsea]

Yes. They would only have to wait to organize their turns until after the surprise round.

I still have my players roll initiative, the option to rearrange turn order is there if they want to.

While it's easy enough to justify with well trained military types used to working like that, a bunch of guys who have just met in a bar [other venues are available] manage this kind of sophisticated interaction under the stress of combat makes as much sense as the carefully coreographed passers by joining in dance routines in 30's Hollywood extravaganzas. Drop in a half orc barbarian and it gets weirder.

 

[mflayermonk]

Here is an article on DMDavid that gives some insight into this:
http://dmdavid.com/tag/exploring-three-corners-of-the-new-dd-rules/

Can I delay? No. Back in my year-old post of D&D next questions and answers, I commented on the lack of a delay action in the rules. I even asked Mike Mearls about the absence and he thought the lack might even be an oversight—the product of playtest rules in flux. I predicted that the delay action would return to the final rules. I was wrong; delay is gone. For a while, I puzzled over the omission, but then a player at my table got paralyzed by a Hold Person spell, and the designers’ motives became obvious.

Delay may seem trivial, but the ability to delay forces the game to add rules for how delay interacts with effects that end during a player’s turn. On several occasions, I’ve seen fourth-edition players try to salvage their turn by asking if they can delay until, say, a stunned condition lifts. Fourth prohibited such shenanigans by including rules for how delay interacts with conditions that continue to end of turn.

Fifth edition potentially added another layer of complexity by adding concentration. For example, Hold Person requires concentration. This means that someone held can potentially delay, saving their turn and hoping that their allies can break the caster’s concentration. By removing delay, 5E prevents such tricks and eliminates some complicated rules.

As for why no delay in the first round, it was probably removed to streamline the game. They remove the exceptions and special cases to get rid of the "except" clauses in the rules.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

OK, where it says "lawful" read "co-operative" and you'll see where I'm going.

I know when I play any character - even the goodly co-operative ones - the *last* thing I want is just to be doing what I'm told all the time; and that's what these uber-tactical game styles inevitably end up as: the master tactician telling everyone else in great detail what to do (and then getting annoyed at people like me who don't follow orders very well).

I'd far rather just get in there and give'er, and see how it all shakes out.

Lan-"if you don't want me to hit it with a sword, don't put it in front of me"-efan

It is not fun to be told what your char - and since you control it - you should be doing.
D&D 5E has already tactical options and adding Delay or denying it to your players doesn't change the other options. If there is that tactical player who wants to decide other players' actions he has already plenty of stuff to tell them even w/o Delay. He can do that as soon as there is more than a single option.

I give advice on tactical decisions to players that are unsure what they should do. But I give it as an advice not as an order.

On the topic of allowing Delay:
I would allow my players to use Delay in my games and would ask for the option to Delay if I was playing.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In our game I use initiative cards but have a slightly different way of getting them set up.

I roll the monster initiatives and note them on a piece of paper. Then I start calling down from 25 (the highest init my players can get). When I call your number you get a turn and when your turn is finished I put your card facedown in my stack for next round. If for some reason you don't want to go I toss your card to you and tell you "Jump in after any other turn is finished". Then I continue counting down until everyone has gone. I then flip my pile of unused cards and start again from the top. Those that delayed can delay for the whole battle if they like, it doesn't impact my flow.

On the off chance a monster does some sort of ongoing or make-a-save effect and the player hasn't taken a turn I process those effects on the next monsters turn for characters that aren't "in the stack" anymore.

This makes "ready" a separate but differently useful action because ready lets you interrupt someones turn, whereas delay does not.

 

[Sunseeker]

While it's easy enough to justify with well trained military types used to working like that, a bunch of guys who have just met in a bar [other venues are available] manage this kind of sophisticated interaction under the stress of combat makes as much sense as the carefully coreographed passers by joining in dance routines in 30's Hollywood extravaganzas. Drop in a half orc barbarian and it gets weirder.

If a half-orc barbarian is rping his character, he probably won't organize with the rest of the players.

I think it's silly to argue that tactics are so black and white that they can only be used by highly-trained military squads or not at all.