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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 4557858" data-attributes="member: 13107">Hi,Thanks all for the insightful responses.Working backwards:That never seems to work very well.  My group, which likes to mix it up in large and tactically involved combats, only occasionally uses readies actions.  That said, I think a part of the problem is that its too hard for most folks to know when to ready an action.  One needs to understand initiative and various mechanics very well in order to avoid wasting an action.That is interesting.  I'm taken back to my 1E and Rolemaster GM'ing style, where I would poll players for their actions, then resolve them simultaneously.  More and more, I am missing this style of resolution.That reflects my views of the problem pretty well.  I have my own set of examples:My players were one facing a large group of Taer, who were crossing a chamber near the party.  By initiative ordering, they crossed one at a time, although they were all on the same initiative.  One of the players wanted to put a fireball on the whole group as they crossed, but, RAW, there is no point in time when the fireball can be launched that will catch more than one.In another case, as a PC and party leader, I wanted each player to have a buddy and to stick with their buddy.  Turned out to very very hard using the initiative system.We've also tried to have coordinated charges, and have run into problems with that.I'm tending to place the problem with turn based initiative (which ties very strongly to AOO's and the 5' step; these are a unified mechanic).(As an aside: Which makes my distaste for 4E in part because of this lingering distaste for 3E which was not, IMO, adequately "fixed" by 4E.)I still have to digest the rest of the notes ... more later.</blockquote>

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