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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5432710" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Water Bob, it might be best if you read my post. I'm not trying to shove it down your throat. In fact, I think you might have missed it since it was quite lengthy. I'll reiterate part of it, though:Now, in a combat situation with three or more people, delaying will give quite a big benefit, potentially, though this is always situational. The reason for that is that rather than reacting to the highest initiative (as you've implied is the case), creatures react to whatever happened between their last turn and this turn.This goes back to combat order. In a combat scenario with only two combatants, since you are solely reacting to one another, combat order never needs to change. It goes as follows: T, B, T, B, T, B, T. If Ben won initiative in the first round, then he would win the fight (all things being equal). That being the case, just swap the order of combat, and you'll see that delaying to hold subsequent combat rounds makes no difference.If we take three combatants, this all potentially changes. Add Kenny to the mix. In fact, make it a three-way combat, where everyone involved wants everyone else dead. If Kenny (as the newest addition) had the lowest initiative, combat rounds would look like this: T, B, K, T, B, K, T, B, K, etc.Now, with three people involved, there is potentially a lot of ways the fight can change. If Kenny (last on initiative) see Tom and Ben trading blows, he can simply delay each round until one of them is dead, and then attack the survivor. This makes perfect sense, and this shows the direct benefit to delaying in certain scenarios. If, however, Tom attacked Kenny in the first round, Ben could decide to delay, and see if Kenny trades blows with Ben. If that's the case, then Ben will just watch the fight, delaying multiple turns, and then attack the winner.This speaks more to the order of combat (T, B, K, T, B, K, T, B, K, etc.) than who has the highest initiative in any round except the first.I hope that makes sense. After the first round of combat, it is much more important what happened between your last turn and your current turn, regardless of initiative. That is the important part, not the initiative score (which is just an arbitrary means to determine who goes before your last turn and your current turn). Now, you can change your initiative score, which has advantages. Nobody has denied that. But there is no inherent value in having the top initiative score after the first round of combat.</blockquote>

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