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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DanMcS" data-source="post: 2758280" data-attributes="member: 6530">In a surprise round, only people who can act roll initiative.  This gives you some, but not all, of the information which would make it necessary to decide this.The following assumes you can act in the surprise round, obviously:If you roll a high initiative, you can take your surprise-round action and probably your action in the first full round will also beat some or most of the opposition.  Then you would get 1.5 actions before those opponents.  So that's an instance when you would take your surprise round to act instead of delay.If you roll a low initiative total, you might choose to act in the surprise round, or delay until the first full round.  You can't interrupt someone with a delayed action, and also:If you don't delay, you automatically get .5 of an action before any of your surprised opponents.  This can be good for a rogue or wizard type who can get a shot off while they are flatfooted, a warrior can move to engage without fear of AoOs, or a spellcaster can cast a spell.  For instance.If you delay, then when the first full round starts, people who were surprised roll initiative.  The round starts with the person who has rolled the highest initiative.  If this happens to be an opponent, you've just given up your surprise advantage entirely because you can't interrupt him.   You'll later get a full action, but it won't be before all your opponents can act.If one of your teammates won initiative, and you go right after him, then you get 1 action before any of your enemies can act.  Essentially, if you delay into the first round, you're gambling your .5 action while all opponents are flatfooted for the chance to get 1 full action while all opponents are flatfooted.  The .5 is guaranteed, the 1 isn't, and you're about 50/50 to win, because your teammate with a high initiative bonus is probably about equal to the enemy with a high initiative bonus.  So it's a crapshoot at that point.Some people, especially spellcasters, won't see the gamble as worth it, because they weren't planning on moving and casting anyway, just on casting.  Others, mainly warrior types, don't care much if their opponents are flatfooted or not, and will just take the surprise round to get into position, draw weapons, and so on.</blockquote>

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